The University of Leeds

Faculty Member, Classics

Lecturer in Roman history

About

My research focuses mainly on the relationship between the spatial organisation of Roman settlements and the needs and priorities of the communities which built them. This interest sprang from my D.Phil. thesis, which looked at the use of space on the edges of Roman cities, and is now available as a Routledge monograph entitled 'The Roman City and its Periphery: from Rome to Gaul' (see Books). Since publishing this monograph I have continued to work on the organisation of built environments in the Roman world, including papers on the spatial distribution of temples and workshops and on the definition and significance of urban boundaries (see Papers).

My work on Roman urbanism informs my classroom teaching, especially via my second- and third-year module, 'The City in the Roman world'. But I also teach Roman political history, including a module on the emperor Augustus and his legacy, from antiquity to the modern day. This teaching has inspired my next major research project: an exploration of the ways in which we relate to, conceptualise and commemorate the past, centring around the celebrations of the bimillennium of Augustus' birth on 23rd September 1938, and the upcoming bimillennium of his death on 19th August 2014.

I have always been interested in drawing explicit comparisons and contrasts between the ancient world and our own. This is inherent in my approach to ancient urban space, which regularly draws on theoretical perspectives from other disciplines (especially modern urban geography and economics), and it will of course be central to my new project on the bimillennia of the emperor Augustus. A comparative approach helps me to understand the ancient world better, and to share that understanding with the general public - and this is the guiding principle of my blog, 'Penelope's Weavings and Unpickings': http://weavingsandunpickings.wordpress.com/

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