Current Resarch
Unbecoming Romans
This project consists of a series of case studies primarily from the 7th to the 11th century that investigate expressions and perceptions of Roman identity among those living at the geographic edges of the Roman state, or Romania. I demonstrate that the inhabitants of the regions of Crete, Sicily, Southern Italy, and Central & Northern Italy identified as members of a larger community of Romans and that many continued to express this identity even after their lands fell beyond Roman rule. I then trace how some of the inhabitants of these regions adopted new identities in the wake of Roman rule, how the identity of these provincial populations was understood by both Roman and non-Roman observers, and how modern scholars have previously interpreted the collective identity of these groups.
Australia Paliochora-Kythera Archaeological Survey
The Australia Paliochora-Kythera Archaeological Survey, or APKAS, is a diachronic study of the settlement history of the northern part of the Greek island of Kythera. My contributions are focused on the medieval settlement patterns of the island, specifically after its supposed re-inhabitation in the late 10th century, and the spatial relationship between these settlements and the island's many Byzantine-era churches. For more information about this project, please see the APKAS website. See also the online database that I am developing for the monuments within the APKAS Survey area.
The Letter Collection of Aeneas of Gaza
This project, being undertaken with my Edward J. Watts and Jamie M. Marvin, is a translation and commentary of the letter collection of the 5th century Christian Neo-Platonist, Aeneas of Gaza. We seek to contextualize these letters, and the collection as a whole, within the broader cultural and literary environments in which they were produced. The commentary draws attention to the rhetorical features that are characteristic of this collection, which showcases stylistic constructions for an array of epistolary forms.
Ethnography and the Representation of the "Other"
My interests in the Ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, are centered on the ethnographic sections of his text. Specifically, I seek to demonstrate how these ethnographies are meant to encourage self-reflection and critique for his audience. In his sections on India, for example, he establishes its inhabitants as an almost entirely opposite "other" to the Greeks, only to then undermine this image in demonstrating the relativity of customs. Likewise, Herodotus uses the examples of Greek and Persian tyrants to comment upon the differences between democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical forms of government.
