Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology
Staff in Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology
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Dr Andrew Bayliss
Senior Lecturer in Greek History
Head of the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology
I am passionate about Ancient History and what it can teach us about the modern world. Learning how to analyse ancient sources gives us the critical thinking skills we need to evaluate the many forms of information we come across in our daily lives.
Dr Henriette van der Blom
Reader in Ancient History
I am an ancient historian specialised in the history and political life of the Roman Republic. My research focuses on republican politics in the City of Rome, Roman oratory, all aspects of Cicero, and Roman approaches to the past. I have a strong interest in political oratory across historical periods – including current British political speech – and am the founding director of the Ne ...
Dr Philip Burton
Reader in Latin and Early Christian Studies
I have a long-standing fascination with three areas – language and linguistics, especially Latin and the Romance languages, the early history of Christianity, and the reception of the Graeco-Roman world in modern English literature and culture. In my work at Birmingham, I'm privileged to be able to combine these areas of interest with students and colleagues, and I'm always glad to hear ...
Professor Henry Chapman
Professor of Archaeology
Henry's research interests centre on the later prehistoric period, and particularly the relationships between human activity and environmental change within past landscapes and focusing on wetland sites. He specialises in the use of digital technologies to enable the modelling and analysis of the wide range of information required for such study to engage with past sites and landscapes.
Thi ...
Dr Hannah Cornwell
Associate Professor in Ancient History
Roman political and social history of the Republic and Early Empire, focusing on Imperialism, peace, and diplomacy.
Dr Archie Dunn
Teaching Fellow in Byzantine Archaeology
Archie Dunn is a Member of the Council of the British School at Athens, the Committee of the Cotton Foundation and the editorial board of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. He directs the Survey of Ancient Thisve/Byzantine Kastorion (Central Greece)in collaboration with the Greek Archaeological Service.
Paul Garwood
Senior Lecturer in Prehistory
I use archaeological and anthropological perspectives to explore prehistoric social life and cultural expression, focussing on the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Britain and north-west Europe. My main areas of interest are funerary practices, ritual, monumental architecture, material culture, personhood and landscape, with a strong commitment to fieldwork as a means to investigate prehistoric ...
Dr Theodora Hadjimichael
Lecturer in Ancient Greek Literature
I was trained as a philologist (Ancient Greek and Latin; Byzantine and Modern Greek), and my research focuses on Greek intellectual culture. I work on Greek lyric poetry, and my research interests also include ancient literary criticism, ancient Greek scholarship, music and dance in antiquity, Plato, and the Peripatetics.
Dr William Mack
Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek History and Culture
The main focus of my teaching and research is the ancient Greek city-states, particularly their interstate relations and institutions.
Dr Maeve McHugh
Lecturer in Classical Archaeology
I am an archaeologist with expertise in the Greek Archaic to Classical periods. I work with historical and archaeological data to reconstruct the lives of rural non-elite individuals and communities in the Greek world to learn more about the interrelationships between physical, social, and cultural landscapes.
Dr Gideon Nisbet
Reader in Classics
I teach and research in Greek and Latin literature, particularly epigram and Greek writers in the Roman Empire; ancient books on papyrus; and the reception of classical antiquity in modern culture.
Dr Leire Olabarria
Lecturer in Egyptology
I am a Lecturer in Egyptology with an interest in the application of social and cultural anthropology to the study of ancient Egypt. My work focuses on kinship and marriage in the Middle Kingdom and on the social construction of monumental spaces. I am also a field archaeologist and have been working at the site of Dayr el-Barsha in Middle Egypt since 2012.
Dr Daniel Reynolds
Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History
Daniel Reynolds is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History with research interests in the material and visual culture of the Byzantine empire, the Byzantine and early Islamic Levant (c.350-c.1099), "iconoclasm" and the history of peasant and non-elite communities (c.400-1000). He is co-director of the project "At the Crossroads of Empires: the Longobard Church of ...
Dr Gareth Sears
I am a Roman historian who teaches and researches on the city, city life and religious change in the Roman world and in particular late Roman North Africa.
Dr David Smith
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Archaeology
David Smith's main research interests concern the interpretation of insect remains from the archaeological record. He uses insect remains to investigate landscape and land-use change as well as living conditions in archaeological settlements. David has over 25 years' experience providing commercial consultancy on insect remains from a range of archaeological sites in the UK and ...
Professor Diana Spencer
Professor of Classics
Dean of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences (2014-2018; 2019-)
I am primarily interested in what we think Romans thought about themselves (as reflected in texts), how they conceptualized themselves as a people, and responded to (and were shaped by) the world they lived in.
I enjoy investigating how identity and cultural politics are manifest through narratives emphasising space, territory, cultivation of place, and ethos. I research authors and texts ...
Dr Elena Theodorakopoulos
Senior Lecturer in Classics
My research interests are in two main areas: Roman poetry of the Republic and Principate, and the reception of classical culture and literature in contemporary film and literature.
Dr Maria Vrij
Coin Curator, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
Maria Vrij is curator of the coin collection at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, which comprises over 16,000 objects, most of which are Byzantine, but also includes around 5,000 Roman coins (further information about the collection can be found at www.barber.org.uk/coins). In this role she facilitates academic research and teaching (both university UG and PG level, and schools outreach) with ...
Dr Ken Wardle
Ken Wardle is expert in the archaeology of prehistoric Greece and ancient Macedonia and has directed and taken part in field projects in many parts of Greece.
Professor Tim Cornell Honorary Professor of Ancient History
Dr Mike Hodder Honorary Lecturer in Archaeology
Dr Ailsa Hunt Honorary Research Fellow
Professor David HJ Larmour Honorary Professor of Classics
Dr Tony Leahy Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Michela Luiselli Honorary Fellow in Egyptology
Dr Fiona Mitchell Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Polly Stoker Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Roger White Honorary Senior Lecturer in Archaeology
Professor Leslie Brubaker Professor Emerita of Byzantine Art
Director of Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies
Professor Ken Dowden Emeritus Professor of Classics
Prof Simon Esmonde Cleary Emeritus Professor of Roman Archaeology
Professor John Hunter Emeritus Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology
Professor Susan Limbrey Emeritus Professor of Archaeology
Professor Dimitris Tziovas Professor Emeritus of Modern Greek Studies