- Thomas F. Cooper Post-Doctoral Fellow in Classics and Visiting Assistant Professor
Education
- BA, classics and ancient studies, St. Olaf College, 2014
- MA, classics, University of Virginia, 2016
- PhD, classics, Dissertation ‘‘Plutarch and the Delphic Oracle,’’ University of Virginia, 2020
Biography
My current work focuses on the Delphic oracle and discussions of oracular divination in Greek literature of the Roman imperial era (1st-3rd centuries CE). By assessing the works of Greeks living under the Roman imperial regime, my study explores how members of a culturally and religiously diverse society responded to changes and threats to traditional religious practices under an imperial regime.
I am also working to produce open-access, digital publications of archaeological materials. As the codirector of the finds lab for Cosa Excavations and a member of the Digital Cosa Project, I am creating and curating the database for the excavation project that has been ongoing since 2013. The current excavations target the bath complex of the Roman colony of Cosa, located in southwestern Tuscany.
When not in the Mediterranean or in the classroom, I enjoy baking, taking long hikes in the mountains, and spending some quality time with my dog.
Cultural, religious, and social history of the Roman Imperial era; Greek and Latin prose literature; archaeology of Roman Greece and Italy; digital humanities.
This year at Oberlin I will be teaching:
- History of Greece (fall 2020),
- Lucian and Imperial Greek Prose I & II (spring 2020), and
- Greek and Roman Drama (spring 2020).
- ‘‘Alexander son of Ammon: ‘The Best Man Among the Dead‘?’’ The Courts of Philip II and Alexander the Great: Monarchy and Power in Ancient Macedonia. F. Pownall, S. Asirvatham, and S. Müller, eds. De Gruyter, forthcoming.
- ‘‘A Roman Olympias: Powerful Women in the Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus,’’ Power, Kingship, and Memory in Ancient Macedonia: Sources and Context. T. Howe and F. Pownall, eds. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2018. 41-58.
- ‘‘The Hero vs. the Tyrant: Legitimate and Illegitimate Rule in the Alexander-Caesar Pairing,’’ Ancient Historiography on War and Empire. T. Howe, S. Müller, and R. Stoneman, eds. Oxford: Oxbow, 2017. 210-225.