PhD Graduates
Eric Beckman Ph.D. Indiana University 2020
I am currently the Lecturer of Latin in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Southeastern Louisiana University. My dissertation, Do You See What I'm Saying: Painting and Paideia in Philostratus' Imagines, examines how Philostratus' use of models drawn from visual art and the materiality of the paintings works in tandem with his deep understanding of the Hellenistic literary tradition in order to construct a network of examples intended to reinforce the elite ideals and cultural memories at the heart of paideia. My other research interests include Greek literature, Greek and Roman material culture, and issues of art and antiquities provenance. My article, "Color-Coded: The Relationship between Color, Iconography, and Theory in Hellenistic and Roman Gemstones" was published in What Shall I Say of Clothes? Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to the Study of Dress in Antiquity (SPAAA 3. Boston: AIA) in 2017. From September 2016 to May 2017, I served as the Graduate Intern in Antiquities at the Getty Villa.
Sean Tandy Ph.D. Indiana University 2019
Currently, I teach at the University of Delaware’s Associate in Arts Program, offering courses in World History, the history of Christianity, Classical Mythology, and the city of Rome. As a historian of the Late Roman Empire, my research focuses on the political role of literature in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. My IUB dissertation, “Carmina Qui Quondam: Poetry, Identity, and Ideology in Ostrogothic Italy,” was supported by an Arthur Ross Pre-doctoral Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (2018-19). With IU’s Jeremy Schott and IU alum Martin Shedd I have also co-authored a translation and commentary on the late fifth century Ecclesiastical History of Anonymous Cyzicenus, which will be published in the series Writings from the Greco-Roman World. An article about this text, ‘Hagiographic History: Reading and Writing Holiness in the Ecclesiastical History of Anonymous Cyzicenus’ is also forthcoming in the Journal of Late Antiquity.
Martin Shedd Ph.D. Indiana University 2017
I recently moved to teach Classics and Religious Studies at Hamilton College after completing my term as the Murphy Visiting Fellow in Classics at Hendrix College. My research focuses on late antique historiographers and their creative use of rhetorical devices and genre conventions to establish authority with their audiences. Accidentally specializing in anonymous works, I have recently published an article in Classical Quarterly, “The Historia Augusta before Pal. lat. 899: Lost Manuscripts and Scribal Mediation,” and have also co-authored (with Jeremy Schott and Sean Tandy) a translation of the Anonymous Ecclesiastical History formerly attributed to Pseudo-Gelasius (now under review).
Mariah Smith Ph.D. Indiana University 2016
Starting in 2021, I am a lecturer in the Department of Classics at the University of Georgia, where I teach a variety of cultural and language courses. Previously, I held the Responsible Governance and Sustainable Citizenship Project (RGSCP) Postdoc at the University of New Hampshire (2018-2021) and was a Lecturer in Classics at the University of Southern California (2017-2018). My recent article “Composing the Puella: Pliny the Younger’s Elegiac Experimentation” (Illinois Classical Studies, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Spring 2020): 132-157) reexamines Pliny’s characterization of his wife, Calpurnia, as a poetic persona rather than as a historically accurate representation. In another article I read recitatio, the oral performances of written works, as a negotiation of social power between patrons and poets. My current research project is the creation of a database on Pliny’s Letters that tracks themes, geographical references, literary allusions, and reoccurring names in the letters. I will use this data to explore the intersection between characters within Pliny’s letters and their historical realities by cross referencing reoccurring names in the Letters with thematic, geographic, and onomastic markers.
Kenneth Draper Ph.D. Indiana University 2015
https://classics.indiana.edu/about/core-faculty/draper-kenneth.html
Michael Vasta
Ph.D. Indiana University 2014