Department of Classics

Skaltsa, Stella

smd13 — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 18:56:11 +0000

Skaltsa, Stella smd13 Thu, 07/20/2023 - 14:56

Last name

Skaltsa

First name

Stella

Position / job title

Adjunct Assistant Professor

s.skaltsa@queensu.ca

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Stella Skaltsa trained as a classical archaeologist and ancient historian in Athens (BA) and then in Oxford (MPhil and DPhil). After completing her doctorate on Hellenistic gymnasia, she first moved to Brussels as a post-doctoral fellow and then to Copenhagen. For the past ten years, she was engaged in two international projects: first, the Copenhagen Associations Project (2011-2016); and then the Rhodes Centennial Project (2016-2023), an interdisciplinary archaeological collaboration with the Ephorate of the Dodecanese. As a result of the project in Rhodes, she also has a special interest in the Hellenistic and Roman material culture of the Eastern Mediterranean. She has taught courses in classical archaeology in Oxford and on ancient history and epigraphy at the Open University of Cyprus.

Research interests: Hellenistic and Roman Rhodes, associations in the Eastern Mediterranean, Greek civic institutions and architecture, Hellenistic epigraphy, Greek art and archaeology, amphora studies

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Hellenistic and Roman Rhodes, associations in the Eastern Mediterranean, Greek civic institutions and architecture, Hellenistic epigraphy, Greek art and archaeology, amphora studies

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Office location

Watson 511

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Classics & Archaeology

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Curriculum Vitae

Bevan, George

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:46:11 +0000

Bevan, George jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:46

Last name

Bevan

First name

George

Position / job title

Associate Professor

Phone

613-533-6000 x78847

bevan@queensu.ca

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Research interests: Late Antiquity, Syriac, Papyrology, Photogrammetry, and GIS.

George Bevan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, and holds cross-appointments in the Departments of Classics, Geological Science and Engineering, and Art History/Art Conservation. His undergraduate teaching is focused primarily on the history of Geography in the pre-modern period, and Digital Photogrammetry. A dual UK and Canadian citizen, he completed a BA.Hons in Classics at the University of British Columbia, and his MA and PhD in Classics at the University of Toronto, where he defended a dissertation on the troubled career of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople from 428 to 431 CE. After teaching Greek, Latin, and Ancient History at the University of Toronto from 2005 to 2007, he moved to ��ϳԹ��Դ where he was first appointed to the Classics Department, before joining Geography and Planning as an Associate Professor in 2016. He has undertaken archaeological fieldwork in Greece, Jordan, Bulgaria and Macedonia, and currently collaborates with Balkan Heritage Fieldschool (http://www.bhfieldschool.org/) to deliver high-quality training in archaeology, heritage documentation and geomatics to ��ϳԹ��Դ students.

Balkan Heritage Field School
Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching awarded to Dr. George Bevan
Investigation of a Lead Sarcophagus
Reflectance Transformation Imaging in Art Conservation
" Using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) to Record Weathered Headstones: The Case of the Cataraqui Cemetery, Kingston, Ontario"
RTIiCAN: Reflectance Transformation Imaging Blog by Dr. George Bevan and Alexander Gabov

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Late Antiquity, Syriac, Papyrology, Photogrammetry, and GIS.

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Archaeology

Graduate Supervisor

Late Antiquity

Office location

D130 Macintosh-Corry Hall

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Geography (Cross-Appointed with Classics & Archaeology)

Ascough, Richard S.

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:42:51 +0000

Ascough, Richard S. jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:42

Last name

Ascough

First name

Richard S.

Position / job title

Professor

Phone

613-533-6000 x78066

rsa@queensu.ca

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Research Interests: Greek and Roman religions; mystery cults; Roman associations (collegia); Romanization in the Western Provinces; Christian origins.

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Greek and Roman religions; mystery cults; Roman associations (collegia); Romanization in the Western Provinces; Christian origins.

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Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Religious Studies (Cross-Appointed with Classics & Archaeology)

Zaccagnino, Cristiana

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:37:31 +0000

Zaccagnino, Cristiana jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:37

Last name

Zaccagnino

First name

Cristiana

Position / job title

Professor

Phone

613-533-6000 x78834

zaccagn@queensu.ca

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Research Interests: Magna Graecia, Greek archaeology, ancient bronzes, classical tradition, field archaeology, ancient polychromy, Numismatics, social status of artisans and artists, inter-ethnic relationships and guest-friendship through the medium of art.

Professor, Classics & Archaeology
Associated with Cultural Studies

Cristiana Zaccagnino at Queen's University Researchers of Arts and Science

Selected publications

Books

- Gli uccelli nella pittura funeraria tarquiniese, Dario Cimorelli editore, Milano 2025

- Arretium (Arezzo), Series Cities and Communities of the Etruscans, University of Texas Press, edited with Ingrid Edlund-Berry, 2024 https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477330180/arretium-arezzo/

- “Ora gli eroi sono fossili arguti”. Riflessioni iconografiche sui miti di Perseo e Bellerofonte, with Marco Giuman (University of Cagliari, Italy), Morlacchi Editore University Press Perugia, 2015, 368 pages.

- Il Catalogo de' bronzi e degli altri metalli antichi di Luigi Lanzi. Dal collezionismo mediceo al museo pubblico lorenese. Napoli, La stanza delle scritture, 450 pp. + 1 CD: http://www.lastanzadellescritture.it/zaccagno_en.html http://www.lastanzadellescritture.it/zaccagna.html

- Archeologia delle regioni d'Italia. Umbria, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Roma 2008 (with F. Colivicchi) (pp. 85-132, 146-161, 175-247, 249-271, 273-331 exclusively by C.Z.)

- La Grande Storia dell'Arte. 15. Arte Greca, supplement to the magazine L'Espresso, Novembre 2003, 192 pp.

- Il thymiaterion nel mondo greco, "L'Erma"; di Bretschneider editore (published with a grant from Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche), Roma 1998, 228 pp.

Contributions to Volumes

Totam hodie Romam circus capit: le corse dei carri e i suoi protagonisti nell’antica Roma, in A cavallo del tempo. L’arte di cavalcare dall’Antichità al Medioevo, Catalogo mostra Firenze, Galleri degli Uffizi, Giardino di Boboli, Limonaia, 26 giugno -14 ottobre 2018, Livorno 2018, pp. 126-137.

C. Zaccagnino, R. Corchia, Zamarchi P., Recenti contributi al quadro topografico di Arezzo antica, in "Ex adversis fortior resurgo"; Miscellanea in ricordo di Patrizia Sabbatini Tumolesi, a cura di F. Longo, R. Bertini, Pisa, 2008, pp. 365-374.

I ritrovamenti di età etrusca e romana, in Arezzo: il Pionta. Fonti e materiali dall’età classica all’età moderna, Tristano C., Molinari A. (edd.), Arezzo 2005, pp. 123-124.

Articles

“Changing an “Uneasy Relationship”: Collaborations in Conservation and Archaeology Education”, Journal of the Canadian Association for Conservation 48, 2024, 16-26, with Emy Kim.

Greek Perceptions and Receptions of Non-Indigenous Birds: Some Case Studies Regarding the Phasianidae, Mouseion 19.3, 2023, 249-267, with Jan-Mathieu Carbon.

Athenian Black-figure and Red-figure Pointed Amphoras: New Considerations on their Shape, Decoration, and Context, Etruscan and Italic Studies 25, 2022, 3-34.

Coins as a Teaching Tool: An Experience of Integration of Numismatics and Conservation, Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia 31, 2022, 215-230 with Emy Kim. View article here.

Fetonte, il circo e la morte nell'immaginario funerario romano. Nuova analisi di un sarcofago romano alla Galleria degli Uffizi, with Andrea Rossi, Archeologia Classica 71, 2020, pp. 671-694.

Sodhi R.N.S., Brodersen P.M., Zaccagnino C. 2020, XPS and ToF-SIMS applied to the study of ancient artifacts: Further studies on Alexandrian tetradrachms from the time of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Surface and Interface Analysis, Ecasia Special Issue Paper, Surface and Interface Analysis, 2020, 7pp. https://doi.org/10.1002/sia.6830

ToF-SIMS and other surface spectroscopies applied to the study of ancient artifacts: Preliminary investigation of a tetradrachm of Claudius, in Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Materials, Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena 36, 2018 with R. Sodhi, A Anastassiades, and S. Boccia, P. Brodersen, 12 pp.

Niobids in Color: Recent Investigations into the Polychromy of the Uffizi Group, with F. Paolucci, P. Baraldi, A. Rossi, Proceedings of the 7th Round Table on Polychromy in Ancient Sculpture and Architecture, November 4th-6th, 2015 Florence, Livorno 2018, pp. 155-165.

Acqua di mare e sale nei riti purificatori greci. O T I V M, [S.l.], v. 2, n. 1, set. 2017. ISSN 2532-0335. http://www.otium.unipg.it/otium/article/view/17

Una lekanis attica a figure nere dall’area urbana di Caere, in Amore per l’Antico dal Tirreno all’Adriatico, dalla preistoria al medioevo e oltre. Studi di Antichità in onore di Giuliano de Marinis, Roma 2014, 31-41.

L'ospite greco e il re indigeno. Riflessioni sul mito di Busiride,in Ostraka, XX 1-2 2011 (published 2013), pp. 235-252.

C. Zaccagnino, G. Bevan, A Gabov, The Missorium of Ardaburius Aspar: New Considerations on its Archaeological and Historical Contexts, in Archeologia Classica LXIII 2012, pp. 419-454.

C. Zaccagnino, A. Romualdi, Rinvenimenti inediti del XIX sec.: la stipe di Torrenova, in Studi Etruschi 73, 2009, pp. 53-65.

Cimone e la politica antipersiana. Una nuova lettura di un cratere del Pittore di Bologna 279 da Spina Valle Trebba, in Il greco, il barbaro e la ceramica attica. Immaginario del diverso, processi di scambio ed autorappresentazione degli indigeni, Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Catania - Caltanissetta - Gela - Vittoria - Siracusa, 14-19 Maggio 2001, quaderni della Scuola di Specializzazione in Archeologia dell'Università di Catania, Roma 2007, pp. 97-106.

Un bronzetto di guerriero da Sala in Casentino, in Archeologia Classica 57, 2006 (published 2007), pp. 299-311.

Una tomba con carro nell'Appennino Tosco-Emiliano. Recupero di un rinvenimento settecentesco, in Melanges de l'École Françoise de Rome, 118, 2006, pp. 215-236.

C. Zaccagnino, R. Corchia, Una villa romana a Cincelli (Arezzo), in Archeologia Classica 56, 2005, pp. 557-579.

Hercules Invictus, l'excubitorium della VII cohors vigilum, il Meleagro Pighini. Note sulla topografia di Trastevere, in Ostraka, 1, 2004 (2005), pp. 101-124.

La ceramica di periodo orientalizzante, in Lo scavo del Centro di Eccellenza "Tecnologie avanzate per l'Archeologia e la Storia dell'Arte" dell'Università di Perugia a Cerveteri, Vigna Marini-Vitalini, Science and Technology for Cultural Heritage, 12, 1-2, 2003 (2004), pp. 47-63.

L'edificio ellenistico del saggio E: interpretazione preliminare, in Atti del Seminario di Studi Il sito antico de "Li Castelli" presso Manduria (Taranto). Gli scavi, i risultati, le prospettive, Firenze, May 15th-16th 1997, L. Lepore (ed.), Manduria 2000, pp. 155-175.

Acquisizione di elementi allogeni presso gli Enotri: il caso dei thymiateria, in Florentia. Studi Archeologia 1, Rivista della Scuola di Specializzazione in Archeologia dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze, 2001, pp. 145-198.

Una nuova coppa del Pittore di Euaion, in Archeologia Classica 50, 1998 (1999), pp. 379-389.

Short description for searchable directory

Magna Graecia, Greek archaeology, ancient bronzes, classical tradition, field archaeology, ancient polychromy, Numismatics, social status of artisans and artists, inter-ethnic relationships and guest-friendship through the medium of art.

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Office location

509 Watson Hall

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Classics & Archaeology

Reeves, M. Barbara

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:29:00 +0000

Reeves, M. Barbara jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:29

Last name

Reeves

First name

M. Barbara

Position / job title

Associate Professor

Phone

613-533-6000x 74824

reevesb@queensu.ca

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Research interests: Roman archaeology, Nabataean culture, the Roman Near East, cultural relations between Roman soldiers and indigenous peoples, the religious practices of Roman soldiers, ancient bath houses and bathing technology, ceramic building materials, petroglyphs and graffiti, the history of archaeology, the history of Queen's Classics Department.

Dr. M. Barbara Reeves with Queen's University's Researchers of Arts and Science

Humayma Excavation in Jordan.

Queen's Classics at 175.

Publications by Dr. M. Barbara Reeves.

Short description for searchable directory

Roman archaeology, Nabataean culture, the Roman Near East, cultural relations between Roman soldiers and indigenous peoples, the religious practices of Roman soldiers, ancient bath houses and bathing technology, ceramic building materials, petroglyphs and graffiti, the history of archaeology, the history of Queen's Classics Department.

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Office location

512 Watson Hall

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Classics & Archaeology

Poletti, Beatrice

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:26:03 +0000

Poletti, Beatrice jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:26

Last name

Poletti

First name

Beatrice

Position / job title

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Phone

613-533-6000 x74822

bp72@queensu.ca

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Research Interests: Historiography of Rome, Roman religion, history of the late Roman republic and early empire, Roman identity, Augustan literature, Greek and Roman mythology.

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Historiography of Rome, Roman religion, history of the late Roman republic and early empire, Roman identity, Augustan literature, Greek and Roman mythology.

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Office location

510 Watson Hall

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Classics & Archaeology

Lehoux, Daryn

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:17:18 +0000

Lehoux, Daryn jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:17

Last name

Lehoux

First name

Daryn

Position / job title

Professor & Head of Department

Phone

613-533-74820

lehoux@queensu.ca

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Research Interests: Ancient science and epistemology; Greek and Roman philosophy; astronomy, astrology, mathematics, and medicine; 'scientization' of race and gender.

Department of Classics
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Curriculum vitæ

Selected Publications

Books

Creatures Born of Mud and Slime: The Wonder and Complexity of Spontaneous Generation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017)
Reviews: "A historical tour de force ... the author's brilliant prose [makes] the reader appreciate at one time the strangeness and the persuasive power of outmoded scientific explanations." (Paolo Savoia, Nuncius 34); "Concise and accessible, Lehoux's clarity and graceful prose make this book ... a pleasure to delve into." (James Strick, HOPOS 8)
Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science, co-editor with A. D. Morrison and A. Sharrock (Oxford, 2013)
Reviews: “incisive ... magisterial ... constitutes a distinguished interdisciplinary contribution to contemporary Lucretian scholarship” (Choice, Mar. 2014); “a valuable collection, including several pieces ... that will stand as landmarks in their respective domains” (Journal of Roman Studies 104); “Quite simply, this is an excellent collection” (Phoenix 68)
What Did the Romans Know? (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2012)

Reviews: “the most original and provocative contribution to the understanding of ancient science in many years. ... a brilliant and important contribution both to ancient science and the philosophy of science" (Annals of Science, 71.2); “This book is a jewel.” (Isis 104); "superbly clear and accessible ... [an] important, brilliant, and truly admirable book” (Science); “elegant ... a significant contribution to the philosophy of science" (Times Literary Supplement; Times Higher Education); "unprecedented and fascinating ... richly repays study" (British Journal for the History of Science); "thought-provoking, a virtuoso book” (History Today); "epistemologically sophisticated .. an exciting opportunity for a new beginning" (Expositions Roundtable); "comprehensive and thoughtful ... fresh ... thought-provoking” (Expositions68)
Encyclopedia of Ancient History, subject editor, ancient science; R. Bagnall et al., general eds. (Wiley, 2012)

Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World: Parapegmata and Related Texts in Classical and Near-Eastern Societies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Reviews: “This book will deservedly become the fundamental source for its subject” (Metascience 19.1); “a significant and timely contribution to the field” (Isis 100.4); “an essential one-stop reference” (Aestimatio 5)

Selected Papers

Ancient Science

‘Why Doesn’t My Baby Look Like Me? Likeness and Likelihood in Ancient Theories of Reproduction,’ in V. Wohl, ed., Probabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals in Ancient Greek Thought (Cambridge, 2014), p. 208-229
‘Reflectance Transformation Imaging of a Byzantine Portable Sundial,’ Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 187 (2013) p. 221-229 [with George Bevan and Richard Talbert]
‘Seeing and Unseeing, Seen and Unseen,’ in D. Lehoux, A. D. Morrison, and A. Sharrock, eds., Lucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (Oxford, 2013) p. 131-152
‘Ancient Science in a Digital Age,’ ISIS, 104 (2013) p. 111-118
‘A Revolution of its Own,’ (essay review of Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 50th Anniversary ed.), Science, 338 (16 Nov. 2012), p. 885-6 [with Jay Foster]
‘Myth and Explanation in Manilius,’ in K. Volk and S. Green, eds., Forgotten Stars: Rediscovering Manilius’ Astronomica, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011) p. 45-56
‘Natural Knowledge in Classical Antiquity,’ in P. Harrison, R. Numbers, and M. Shank, eds., Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2011) p. 37-58
'Observers, Objects, and the Embedded Eye.' Isis ,98 (2007) p. 447-467. (Winner of the History of Science Society's 2008 Price/Webster prize)
'Laws of Nature and Natural Laws.' Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 37 (2006) p. 527-549
'Tomorrow's News Today: Astrology, Fate, and the Ways Out.' Representations, 95 (2006) p. 105-122
'Tropes, Facts, and Empiricism.' Perspectives on Science, 11 (2003) p. 326-345
'Observation and Prediction in Ancient Astrology.' Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 35 (2004) p. 227-246
'The Historicity Question in Mesopotamian Divination.' In J.M. Steele and A. Imhausen, eds., Under One Sky: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East, Alter Orient und Altes Testament, 297 (Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2002) p. 209-222
'All Voids Large and Small, Being a Discussion of Place and Void in Strato of Lampsacus's Matter Theory.' Apeiron ,32 (1999) p. 1-36

Delphic Oracle

'Drugs and the Delphic Oracle.' Classical World,101 (2007) p. 29-44
'The Ethylene-Intoxication Hypothesis and the Delphic Oracle.' Clinical Toxicology,45.1 (2007) p. 85-89 [with Jay Foster]
'A Mighty Wind?' Clinical Toxicology, 46.10 (2008) p. 1098-1099 [with Jay Foster]

Parapegmata

'Rethinking Parapegmata: The Puteoli Fragment.' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik,157 (2006) p. 95-104
'The Miletus Parapegma Fragments.' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 152 (2005) p. 125-140
'Image, Text, and Pattern: Reconstructing Parapegmata.' In A. Jones, ed., Reconstructing Ancient Texts,Toronto, University of Toronto Press, forthcoming (preprint: page numbers not final)
'Impersonal and Intransitive episemainei.' Classical Philology, 99 (2004) p. 78-85

Links

Short description for searchable directory

Ancient science and epistemology; Greek and Roman philosophy; astronomy, astrology, mathematics, and medicine; 'scientization' of race and gender.

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Office location

503/506 Watson Hall

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Classics & Archaeology

Kavanagh, Bernard J.

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:14:22 +0000

Kavanagh, Bernard J. jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:14

Last name

Kavanagh

First name

Bernard J.

Position / job title

Associate Professor

Phone

613-533-6000 x74825

bjk2@queensu.ca

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Research Interests: Roman history, Early Imperial Senators, Roman Gaul, Latin Epigraphy.

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Roman history, Early Imperial Senators, Roman Gaul, Latin Epigraphy

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Office location

514 Watson Hall

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Classics & Archaeology

Griffith, R. Drew

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:10:00 +0000

Griffith, R. Drew jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:10

Last name

Griffith

First name

R. Drew

Position / job title

Professor & Undergraduate Chair

Phone

613-533-6000 x74826

griffitd@queensu.ca

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Research Interests: Greek literature, comparative literature, and literary criticism.

God Made Food, the Devil the Cooks: A Dictionary of Greek And Roman Foods.

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Greek literature, comparative literature, and literary criticism.

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Graduate Supervisor

Greek

Literature

Office location

513 Watson Hall

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

Department

Department of Classics & Archaeology

D'Elia, Anthony

jm447 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:04:43 +0000

D'Elia, Anthony jm447 Wed, 07/07/2021 - 11:04

Last name

D'Elia

First name

Anthony

Position / job title

Professor

Phone

613-533-6000 x74375

deliaa@queensu.ca

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My research focuses on the intellectual and social history of the Italian Renaissance, especially the reception of Classical Antiquity and pagan philosophy and religion in the predominantly Christian world of Renaissance Europe. I am particularly interested in Latin literature, rhetoric, political propaganda, war, masculinity, gender, sexuality, women, virtue, and violence.

Education: My training-education was in Classics (Latin and Greek languages & literature) and History. After completing a three-year degree in Latin Letters (1985-1988) at the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy, under the papal Latinist Reginald Foster, I finished a four-year degree in Classics (Latin and Greek Literature) at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (1988-1992). I then sold ladies' handbags for Macy's California for one year, where my training in ancient rhetoric and fluency in Italian helped me earn top sales (and high commissions selling Fendi handbags). After this brief year-long sojourn in the business world, I finished a Masters and PhD in History at Harvard University (1993-2000). For my dissertation, I read over two hundred manuscripts of fifteenth-century Latin wedding orations and treatises on marriage and sex in the Vatican Library and other libraries in Italy (Florence, Venice, Milan), Paris, and London U.K.

Teaching: In 2000 I started teaching History at Queen's University and then Latin along with some Greek in Classics (from ca. 2012).

In Classics, I teach advanced Latin seminars on major authors - past courses have focused on Cicero, Livy, Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Tacitus, Caesar, Seneca, Sallust, Juvenal, Augustine, Petrarch, Poggio Bracciolini, Lorenzo Valla and a few others. I have also taught advanced Greek authors (Plato and Thucydides), but my specialty is Latin.

In History, I regularly teach three big lecture courses: 1) Western Civilization-Great Books from Antiquity to the Scientific Revolution (Genesis to Galileo); 2) Sport, Virtue, and Violence from Antiquity to the Early Modern World; and 3) Renaissance Europe.

I also teach more focused seminars on topics in European History and literature, including 1) Dante's World; 2) Machiavelli's World; and 3) Early Modern European Social and Cultural History.

Current Research: I am finishing a book on Petrarch and the reception of the Roman Games in the Renaissance. The book, entitled Petrarch and the Gladiators: Virtue, Violence, and Gender in the Italian Renaissance, explores Petrarch’s response to violence, both the physical and mental forms of violence that assaulted him and his friends in the violent world of fourteenth-century Italy and the violent spectacles and gladiator games described often with praise in ancient texts. I am particularly interested in Petrarch's appropriation of Cicero and Seneca's Stoic responses to violence, pain, suffering and death.

Publications (books): Pagan Virtue in a Christian World: Sigismondo Malatesta and the Italian Renaissance (Harvard UP 2016), explores the central problem of the Renaissance, whether the recovery and imitation of classical pagan culture created a fundamental clash with Christian values, by examining the literature and art in the court of Sigismondo Malatesta (1417-1468), Lord of Rimini. Sigismondo was a flagrant example of the tension between high pagan culture and Christian society. Pagan themes dominated his cultural patronage and public persona. Ambition was celebrated over humility, sexual pleasure over chastity, muscular athleticism over saintly asceticism, and astrological fortune over providence. Humanists and artists promoted an image of Sigismondo as a Homeric hero, a Spartan warrior, and a courageous Roman general. As a mercenary captain, Sigismondo had a reputation for treachery and even sought an alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II. Pope Pius II despised Sigismondo so much that he canonized him to Hell while he was still living, the only reverse canonization in history. Effigies of the Lord of Rimini were burned with a placard that read “I am damned to Hell.” Sigismondo was notorious for his libido, his military conduct, and his disrespect for Christianity, so his court is a limited case in Renaissance paganism. The very pagan qualities that the pope attacked in him were the same ideals that Sigismondo’s artists and poets celebrated. The public and vicious confrontation between Sigismondo and the pope embodied the cultural crisis of the Renaissance.

A Sudden Terror: The Plot to Murder the Pope in Renaissance Rome (Harvard UP 2009), studies fifteenth-century Rome and the origins of the modern papacy, focusing on a conspiracy to murder Pope Paul II in 1468. It begins with the plot, arrest, and torture of the twenty accused humanists; then explores the possible causes of the conspiracy as revealed in the interrogation questions, including such different motives as Church reform, republicanism, paganism, homoeroticism and sodomy, and allying with the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II. The concluding chapters describe the pain, desperation, and loneliness that the humanists suffered in prison and the failure of pagan and Christian philosophy to console them. The work redefines humanism as a dynamic communal movement focused on the living word in dialogue.

My first book (based on my PhD dissertation), The Renaissance of Marriage in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Harvard UP 2004) explores how in advocating an ideal of marriage and sexuality, Italian humanists offered an alternative to Christian asceticism and prepared the ground for the Reformation's rejection of holy virginity. I found that ideas about marriage in humanist rhetoric related directly to the lives of Renaissance Italians and so offered a revealing window about self, gender, and society. The arguments and newly discovered sources in the book have complicated our conception of women, gender, and sexuality in the Renaissance.

I also publish editions and modern English translations of Renaissance Latin texts. These include: Bartolomeo Platina, Lives of the Popes, Volume One: Antiquity (Years 1 to 461 AD) (The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Harvard UP 2008), and Platina, Lives of the Renaissance Popes (The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Harvard UP forthcoming 2025).

Selected Publications

Pagan Virtue in a Christian World: Sigismondo Malatesta and the Italian Renaissance
Harvard University Press, 2016

A Sudden Terror: The Plot to Murder the Pope in Renaissance Rome
Harvard University Press, 2011

Lives of the Popes, Volume 1, Antiquity
Harvard University Press, 2008

The Renaissance of Marriage in Fifteenth-Century Italy
Harvard University Press, 2005

Articles

"Stefano Porcari's Conspiracy against Pope Nicholas V in 1453 and Republican Culture in Papal Rome." The Journal of the History of Ideas (April 2007).
"Heroic Insubordination in the Army of Sigismondo Malatesta: Petrus Parleo's pro milite, Machiavelli, and the uses of Cicero and Livy." In Humanism and Creativity in the Italian Renaissance: Essays in Honor of Ronald G. Witt, eds. C. S. Celenza and K. Gouwens (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 31-60. "Genealogy and the Limits of Panegyric: Turks and Huns in Fifteenth-Century Epithalamia." The Sixteenth Century Journal 34.4 (Winter 2003): 973-991.
"Genealogy and the Limits of Panegyric: Turks and Huns in Fifteenth-Century Epithalamia."The Sixteenth Century Journal 34.4 (Winter 2003): 973-991.
"Marriage, Sexual Pleasure, and Learned Brides in the Wedding Orations of Fifteenth-Century Italy." Renaissance Quarterly 55.2 (Summer 2002): 379-433. (Awarded the Nelson Prize for best article in Renaissance Quarterly in 2002.)

Review Articles

"The Renaissance University" in The International Journal of the Classical Tradition, (Fall 2005), 269-277. [Actual Publication; Summer 2006]
Review Essay on Alison Knowles Frazier, Possible lives: authors and saints in Renaissance Italy (2005) for The Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook (Fall 2006), 111-116.
Review Essay on Jennifer Speake and Thomas G. Bergin (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Renaissance and the Reformation (New York: Facts on File, Inc. 2004), for The International Journal of the Classical Tradition (Spring 2006), 621-624.

Book Reviews

Erasmus's Controversies (CWE, Vol. 84), ed. N. H. Minnich & D. J. Sheerin (University of Toronto Press, 2005), University of Toronto Quarterly (forthcoming).
Ronald G. Musto, Apocalypse in Rome: Cola di Rienzo and the Politics of the New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), Renaissance Quarterly (Summer 2004).
The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Ashgate, 2001), Canadian Journal of Historical Research (Summer 2003).
Dale Kent, Cosimo De' Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron's Oeuvre (Yale UP, 2000), Canadian Journal of Historical Research (Summer 2002).

Work in Progress

Sport and the Spectacle of Violence in Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance
Bartolomeo Platina, Lives of Christ and the Popes, The Renaissance. Contracted for The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Harvard University Press (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/itatti/index.html). Translation, Latin Edition, Notes and Introduction.

Courses

Short description for searchable directory

Research interests

Italian Renaissance
Intellectual/Cultural/Social History of Early Modern Europe
Classical tradition
Latin (Classical and Renaissance)

People Directory Affiliation Category

Early Modern

Latin

Renaissance

Office location

Watson Hall 238

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Science

School

Ph.D. A.M. History Harvard University 2000 B.A. Classics Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, Ireland

Department

Joint Appointment Classics & Archaeology and History

Department of Classics

Skaltsa, Stella

Bevan, George

Ascough, Richard S.

Zaccagnino, Cristiana

Selected publications

Reeves, M. Barbara

Poletti, Beatrice

Lehoux, Daryn

Selected Publications

Books

Selected Papers

Ancient Science

Delphic Oracle

Parapegmata

Links

Kavanagh, Bernard J.

Griffith, R. Drew

D'Elia, Anthony

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Selected Publications

Articles

Review Articles

Book Reviews

Work in Progress

Courses

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