Research and Fieldwork
Engaged scholar-teachers
The faculty in the Department of Classics reflects the broad approaches found within a vibrant Classics program. Within the department, faculty engage in research as sole authors or as part of collaborations; publish in journals ranging from those specializing in literary topics to environmental geology; and are asked to speak at venues ranging from the National Humanities Institute’s conference on literary studies to Princeton’s workshop on digital cultural-environmental modeling.
Each in their own way specific to their research interests exemplify the teacher-scholar model by integrating their research into their teaching and mentoring activities, or using their teaching experiences as springboards for deeper exploration, discovery, and improvement of the academic landscape. The close engagement of students and mentoring within the research design is an increasing feature, with 2 of the 5 tenured/tenure-track faculty receiving URCA support in 2009-10.
Dr. Kristen Gentile is interested in the intersections of religion, medicine, and gender in the ancient Greek world. She is currently working on a research project that explores the uses of pomegranates and pennyroyal in the Hippocratic gynecological treatises. She enthusiastically brings these research interests into the classroom in courses on topics such as religion, medicine, and Greek literature and language.
Dr. James Newhard serves as Assistant Director of the Avkat Archaeological Project – an interdisciplinary program of research meant to understand settlement patterns and socio-economic and environmental transformations in North Central Anatolia. Fieldwork serves as a field school for the College, and forms the capstone experience in Archaeology. Support in the form of a Summer Undergraduate Research grant in 2009 supported a related undergraduate project, established to develop a multivariate modeling system in GIS meant to test alternative hypotheses related to settlement location and organization.
Dr. Darryl Phillips is currently researching the civic functions of public buildings in ancient Rome as an approach to understanding the transition from Republican government to the principate of Augustus. With the support of a 2010 Summer Undergraduate Research Grant, he collaborated with an undergraduate student to develop a database of buildings in the ancient city. Recently he has supervised student tutorials and bachelors essays that have explored the nobility under Augustus, Roman political culture, Rome and the provinces, and triumphs and builders in ancient Rome.
Dr. Noelle Zeiner-Carmichael is integrating the results of her experience in teaching advanced Latin to develop a reader (under contract with Wiley-Blackwell) consisting of Roman letters, useful not only for the classroom but also for those requiring a translated series of letters reflecting socio-economic and political systems of their day.
In addition to actions by tenured and tenure-track faculty, visiting and adjunct faculty maintained a life of research and development through attendance at national and international conferences, book reviews and peer-reviewed articles, and participation in archaeological fieldwork.
