The Roman Society

Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Council Members

Elected June 2021

Dr Caroline Barron is Assistant Professor in Classics (Roman History) at Durham University. She is an ancient historian with a particular research interest in Latin epigraphy and its reception, from antiquity to the present day. Caroline completed her PhD at King’s College London in 2015, after which she was a Teaching Fellow at KCL. Following this she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in Aix-Marseille Université, on the ERC-funded 'Judaism and Rome' project, and held a Rome Award at the British School at Rome 2018. Before joining Durham's Department of Classics and Ancient History Caroline was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Birkbeck where she worked on epigraphic forgeries and the 18th century art market. She is a co-editor on the second digital edition of Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania and on the editorial team for the second edition of Roman Statutes.

Caroline Bristow is the Director of the Cambridge School Classics Project, part of the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and most well known for the creation of the Cambridge Latin Course. In addition to the core work of running CSCP she has a research interest in the pedagogy of social justice, with a focus on the effective, inclusive and trauma informed teaching of narratives involving sexual violence.

Previous to this role she was the Classics and Religious Studies Subject Specialist at the exam board OCR where she led on qualification reform, including working with the Department for Education and Ofqual to develop subject specific guidelines and regulations. 

After graduating from the University of Oxford with a BA in Ancient and Modern History and an MSt in Ancient History Caroline taught a variety of subjects in the UK state sector including Classical Civilisation, Classical Greek, Religious Studies, Philosophy and Anthropology. Each summer she teaches on one of the JSST Summer Schools to get a small 'fix' of classroom time and she is the Non-Executive Director for Education of Innovating Minds, a company working to improve access to clinical mental health support in schools.

Dr Shushma Malik is Senior Lecturer in Classics (Roman History) at the University of Roehampton. Shushma completed her PhD at the University of Bristol in 2013. Before joining Roehampton, she worked at the University of Manchester (2013-2015) and the University of Queensland in Brisbane (2015-17). Her research interests include Roman emperors and their reception, imperial historiography, and political culture. In particular, she has worked extensively on the Emperor Nero’s portrayal in Christian history as the Antichrist, and has written on portrayals of Roman emperors in the literature and letters of Oscar Wilde. Her monograph The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm was published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. She is currently Co-I on an AHRC-DFG funded project at the Universities of Roehampton and Potsdam, “Twisted Transfers”: Discursive Construction of Corruption in Ancient Greece and Rome (2020-23).

Dr Mai Musié is a part-time freelance community engagement practitioner and facilitator and a part-time Public Engagement Manager at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. She manages a diverse public engagement programme with the Bodleian's collections through exhibitions, special events, and workshops – all designed with schools and communities at the heart of the engagement process. Mai has been a key voice in the UK for engagement with the humanities, and is the co-founder of the Classics in Communities partnership project between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and The Iris Project (an educational Classics charity). The project aims to promote and encourage the teaching of Latin and Ancient Greek at primary and early secondary school level (and beyond) in UK state schools. Mai has had multiple speaking engagements, written blogs and featured in podcasts on public engagement with the Classics, decoloniality and restitution of art. 

Her research areas tend to focus on race and ethnicity in the ancient world but has a passing interest in medieval manuscripts, particularly from Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition. Mai is the co-editor (with Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson and Steve Hunt) of the book Forward with Classics: Classical Languages in Schools and Communities , which investigates the motivations of teachers and learners behind the rise of Classics in the classroom and in communities. It also explores the ways in which knowledge pf classical languages is considered valuable for diverse learners in the 21st century. 

Professor Jamie Wood is Professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln, where he teaches modules on late antiquity and the early medieval period. He joined Lincoln in 2013, having taught previously at Manchester, Sheffield, Warwick and Liverpool in Classics, Ancient History, History and Religions and Theology. He works on the social, cultural and religious history of late antique Spain and Portugal and has published extensively on the writings of Isidore of Seville and the emergence of the episcopacy in post-Roman Hispania. He is currently Co-I on an AHRC-funded project on the cult of the saints in late antique and early medieval Iberia. 

Elected June 2022

Clive Cheesman has been an officer of the College of Arms since 1998. He read classics at Oxford and graduated PhD from the Scuola Superiore di Studi Storici of the University of San Marino with a thesis on Roman onomastics. He was a special assistant and curator in the British Museum, working on Roman and Iron-Age British coinage, and was called to the Bar in 1996. He has taught at Birkbeck and the I.C.S., and is an adviser to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a member of the Working Group on Military Cultural Property Protection. His research interests include onomastics, the history of antiquarianism, and the law of treasure and cultural property.

Elisabeth R. O’Connell is Byzantine World Curator at The British Museum. Her research focuses on aspects of social history and archaeology in Late Antique Egypt. She is editor of Egypt in the First Millennium AD (2014), Abydos in the First Millennium AD (2020), Egypt and empire: The formation of religious identity after Rome (2022) and co-editor of Egypt: Faith after the pharaohs (2015), which accompanied the BM exhibition of the same title (2015 & 2016). She has excavated in Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt, where she co-directed a British Museum expedition (2009 & 2013). She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley (2007).

Andrew Roberts is a historian with English Heritage. Since 2014, he has been producing exhibitions of Roman archaeology, including three museums along Hadrian's Wall. His role also involves engaging the public in Roman history using different media, including podcasts, social media and the web, art programmes and working with volunteers. His researches the presentation of Roman archaeology to diverse audiences, particularly through digital technology. Prior to his work with English Heritage he was a teaching fellow at King's College London where he previously completed his PhD on Alexander the Great and British Political Thought. He is currently working on the production of exhibitions at  Wroxeter and Richborough.

Federico Santangelo is Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle University. He took his first degree at Bologna, where he studied at the Collegio Superiore, and holds a PhD from University College London. He works mainly on the political and intellectual history of the Roman Republic, on Roman religion, on problems of local and municipal administration in the Roman world, and on aspects of the history of classical scholarship. His latest book is La religione dei Romani (Laterza, 2022). He is currently working on two edited volumes: Authority and History: Ancient Models, Modern Questions (with Juliana Bastos Marques, Bloomsbury 2022), and A Community in Transition. Rome between Hannibal and the Gracchi (with Mattia Balbo, OUP 2022). He is Editor of the Open-Access journal History of Classical Scholarship: www.hcsjournal.org.

Dr Marguerite Spoerri Butcher is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Warwick and Research Fellow at the Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire project (Ashmolean Museum), a project she first joined as a Research Assistant in 2016. Previously, she has worked as a museum curator in Switzerland (Musée d’art et d’histoire, Neuchâtel), a lecturer at the American University of Beirut (Lebanon), and a consultant for the École Suisse d’archéologie en Grèce (coin finds from Eretria, on Euboea). Her research interests pertain mainly to Greek and Roman coinage, both imperial and provincial. Her PhD, dedicated to the coinage issued in the province of Asia during the reign of Gordian III (238-244), was published in 2006 as volume VII.1 of the Roman Provincial Coinage series. She is also one of the main authors of volume VII.2 of the same series (From Gordian I to Gordian III: all provinces except Asia), to be published in summer 2022, as well as Griechische Münzen in Winterthur 3, Pamphylien–Mauretanien (published 2021).

Elected June 2023

Professor Rebecca Langlands is Professor of Classics at the University of Exeter, with research specialisms in Latin literature, Roman cultural history, ethics and exemplarity, sexuality and gender, and reception of the classical world. Her books include Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome (2006), Sex, Knowledge, and Receptions of the Past (edited with Kate Fisher, 2015), Exemplary Ethics in Ancient Rome (2018) and Literature and Culture in the Roman Empire, 96-235. Cross-Cultural Interactions (edited with Alice König and James Uden, 2020). She is founder and co-director of two interdisciplinary research centres, the Sexual Knowledge Unit and the Centre for Classical Reception. She is also founder and director of the award-winning Sex & History project, which develops innovative sex education resources based on historical materials, and informs practice and policy throughout the UK and worldwide.

Dr Ellen O’Gorman is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Bristol and Director of the Bristol Institute for Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition. She works on the literature, politics, and culture of Rome in the 1st-2nd century AD; her current project seeks to understand the rhetorical use of sententiae as aesthetic objects which disseminate thought. Recent publications include her monograph on Tacitus’ History of Politically Effective Speech, the new Oxford Classical Dictionary entry on the historian Tacitus, and an article on ‘Embedded Speech and the Embodied Speaker in Roman Historiography’.  

Costas Panayotakis is Professor of Latin at the University of Glasgow. He researches on fragmentary Roman comic drama (especially mime and Atellane comedy) and Latin fiction, and is author of Theatrum Arbitri: Theatrical Elements in the Satyrica of Petronius (Leiden, 1995) and Decimus Laberius: The Fragments (Cambridge, 2010). He is currently preparing critical editions (with facing translation and commentary) of the fragments of Atellane comedy, the sayings (sententiae) associated with the mimographer Publilius, and the episode from Petronius’ Satyricon known as ‘Dinner at Trimalchio’s’.

Dr Hannah Platts is a Senior Lecturer in Ancient History and Archaeology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her main research focuses on Roman domestic space, whilst a second strand of study examines multisensory experiences of the past. Her most recent book Multisensory Living in Ancient Rome: Power and Space in Roman Houses (pub. Bloomsbury 2019) explores the role of the bodily sensations of smell, sound, taste and touch, as well as sight, in Roman houses. An important aspect of Hannah’s interest in multisensory history examines how embodied experience at historic and heritage sites can help widen visitor access to the past whilst also giving audiences the opportunity to explore history from different perspectives. To explore these questions, Hannah has collaborated on numerous projects exploring the roles of immersive digital technologies (including virtual reality and augmented reality) and multisensory experience in the heritage and museum sector.

James Renshaw teaches Classics at Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith, which offers all four classical A Levels in the 6th form as well as IB Latin and Greek. He also runs the school’s Ancient World Breakfast Club, a community project which provides a weekly talk during term-time, and which is open to any member of the public. As well as teaching, James has written a number of educational textbooks, and is the general editor for the OCR/Bloomsbury suite of endorsed textbooks for the Ancient History and Classical Civilisation qualifications at GCSE and A Level. He has also worked for the OCR exam board as a marker and trainer in Ancient History, Classical Civilisation, and Latin, and is currently the OCR trainer for Ancient History A Level.

Dr Claire Stocks holds a lectureship for Literary Culture and Heritage at the University of Amsterdam. Prior to this, she was Senior Lecturer for Classics at the University of Newcastle (2016-2023), and held lectureships at Radboud University, Nijmegen (2012-2016) and the University of Manchester (2011-2012). Her research centres on two main areas: Roman literature, culture and memory studies and digital humanities (especially games) with a particular focus on how audiences conceptualize the past. Most recently she has worked with the Vindolanda Trust and Creative Assembly (makers of the Total War video game series) to produce the web-based game and online exhibition 'Vindolanda Adventure' (https://www.vindolanda.com/vindolanda-adventure). She was also the co-curator for an exhibition on the Emperor Domitian ('God on Earth: Emperor Domitian') in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, December 2021 - May 2022, and in Rome, Capitoline Museums, July 2022 - January 2023.

Emma Stuart is Museum Director at the Corinium Museum but has been employed in various roles at the museum since 2008. Her focus at the museum has been the Roman Mosaics and she now has a portfolio of five lectures on this topic and re-issued the Mosaics Guidebook in June 2022. Prior to working at the Corinium Museum, she worked as Heritage Officer for Chester City Council manging an extensive photographic archive and celebrating the Roman heritage of the City, alongside other periods. During this time she assisted Keith Matthews on a summer dig at the amphitheatre and Mary Lewry with the City’s Summer and Winter Watch parades. Her academic background includes a degree in Theology and World Religions, a Masters Degree in Landscape History and a Masters Degree in Museum Studies, each contributing to the career path she follows today. Emma has had a small number of TV appearances including interviews sharing the stunning archaeological collections in the Corinium Museum on Points West, Bargain Hunt and Antiques Road Trip.

 

Caroline Barron

Caroline Bristow

Caroline Bristow

Shushma Malik

Mai Musié

Mai Musié

Jamie Wood

Jamie Wood


Clive Cheesman

Elisabeth O'Connell

Federico Santangelo

Margueritte Spoerri Butcher


Rebecca Langlands

Ellen O'Gorman

Costas Panayotakis

Hannah Platts

James Renshaw

Claire Stocks

Emma Stuart

The Roman Society
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The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (The Roman Society) is a registered charity in the UK.

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