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Emma Dench

Classics and Contemporary Critical Issues (GSAS Workshop, 2018–19)

This research workshop explores the connections between Greek and Roman classics and contemporary critical issues that are relevant to us all, such as gender, sexuality, race, and class. The scope of the questions covered by this workshop is broad: from, for example, the reception of classics by alt-right nationalists, to challenges facing minorities working in and studying the classics, and the difficulties of teaching classical texts in politically and culturally charged environments. Our workshop is intended to appeal to all members of the classics department since we believe it is impossible to ignore the intersection of classics and contemporary critical issues. ... Read more about Classics and Contemporary Critical Issues (GSAS Workshop, 2018–19)

Emma Dench named permanent Dean of GSAS!

March 8, 2018

Congratulations to Emma Dench, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History and of the Classics, who will take on the role of Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as of July 1, following a year as Interim Dean. Warmest congratulations to Dean Dench from our entire community! We will miss her in the Classics Department, but look forward with great anticipation to her continuing leadership of GSAS in 2018-19 and beyond. Read the full announcement on the...

Read more about Emma Dench named permanent Dean of GSAS!

New Approaches to Ancient Evidence (Mahindra Humanities Center Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop, 2016–17)

This workshop is intended to foster discussion between students of all disciplines whose work relates to Greek and Roman antiquity. Discussion will focus upon theoretical frameworks whose promise extends to a broad variety of research projects incorporating literary, epigraphic, archaeological, and/or numismatic evidence from the ancient Mediterranean.... Read more about New Approaches to Ancient Evidence (Mahindra Humanities Center Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop, 2016–17)

Dench, Emma. 2003. “Domination.” Cambridge Illustrated History of the Roman World, edited by G Woolf, 108-137. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Romulus' Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian
Dench, Emma. 2005. Romulus' Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

Modern treatments of Rome have projected in highly emotive terms the perceived problems, or the aspirations, of the present: 'race-mixture' has been blamed for the collapse of the Roman empire; more recently, Rome and Roman society have been depicted as 'multicultural'. Moving beyond these and beyond more traditional, juridical approaches to Roman identity, Emma Dench focuses on ancient modes of thinking about selves and relationships with other peoples, including descent-myths, history, and ethnographies. She explores the relative importance of sometimes closely interconnected categories of blood descent, language, culture and clothes, and territoriality. Rome's creation of a distinctive imperial shape is understood in the context of the broader ancient Mediterranean world within which the Romans self-consciously situated themselves, and whose modes of thought they appropriated and transformed.