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. Andrew Alwine is currently working on the political history of ancient Greece during the Classical Age (5th-4th centuries B.C.) and Hellenistic Period (late 4th-2nd century B.C.). This project concentrates on republican forms of government, sometimes called "citizen-centered regimes," namely oligarchy and democracy. What, in the Greeks' view, were the fundamental differenes between oligarchia and demokratia? What did democracy spread so rapidly during the Classical Period and then, apparently, disappear gradually in the Hellenistic Period? Did the structure and meaning of democracy undergo changes at this time?
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. Allison Sterrett-Krause is engaged in several ongoing research projects. As a specialist in the archaeological study of ancient glass, she is working on publication of glass artifacts from the excavations and survey at Leptiminus (modern-day Lamta, Tunisia), especially from its East Cemetery. Dr. Sterrett-Krause has an upcoming article ("Drinking with the Dead? Glass from Roman and Christian Burial Areas at Leptiminus (Lamta, Tunisia)"), which will appear in the 2017 volume of the Journal of Glass Studies. A new publication project, with CofC Classics Alumna J. Leslie Hill (class of 2015), will study glass finds from Pompeii's Insula I.1 and VIII.7. Additionally, Dr. Sterrett-Krause leads a team of undergraduate volunteer researchers in the study of Roman and Byzantine glass excavated from Carthage in the 1980s and 1990s. This glass has been legally exported from Tunisia for study and publication. Dr. Sterrett-Krause aims to eventually publish the glass fro the Carthage Circus and the Bir El Knissia church. She encourages interested students to drop by the lab to observe research in action. Volunteer training for glass research usually occurs each fall semester. For additional information, please contact her for details.
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.