Alumni in the News: MA Alumni Deliver Papers at the 2023 AIA/SCS Meeting

Four MA alumni delivered papers at the 2023 AIA and SCS joint meeting in New Orleans this January.

This January 2023, five of our MA alumni —Will Austin (MA '17), Emily Erickson (MA '18), Robert Santucci (MA '16), Ken Silverman (MA '13), and Tara Wells (MA '20)— delivered papers at the annual joint meeting of the AIA (Archeological Institute of America) and the SCS (Society of Classical Studies).

Prof. Lillian Doherty reports:

"After two years in which the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Society for Classical Studies was held strictly online because of COVID-19, this year the meeting was offered in a hybrid format. I was thrilled to attend the meeting in person in New Orleans. Profs. Gregory Bucher, Chiara Graf, and Theodore Parker also attended the meeting in person. The weather cooperated: it was sunny and in the high 60s during the day from Wednesday through Saturday. Mardi Gras season started on January 6, Twelfth Night, and the famous New Orleans cuisine did not disappoint!

I attended the sessions where our five UMD alumni presented their papers, and was especially struck by the wide range of topics on which they are working, from the literary and philological to the art historical and archaeological. All the papers were delivered with poise and conviction and were well received by those in attendance."

The papers were the following:

William Austin, PhD candidate at Princeton University: "Ornament, Kant, and the (Dependent) Beauty of Greek Vases." Delivered at the AIA Session on Phenomenology and the painted vase.

Emily Erickson, PhD candidate at the University of Oregon: "Subversive Self-Representation: Provincial Identities in the Iconographic Program of the Sarcophagus of a Palmyrene Man.” Delivered at the AIA session on Mortuary Images.

Robert Santucci, Ph.D. 2022, University of Michigan; Visiting Assistant Professor, Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan: “Kristeva’s Abject and the Future of the Cena Thyestea." Delivered at the SCS panel on Roman Drama and Critical Theory.

Ken Silverman, Ph.D. 2020, University of Florida; Visiting Assistant Professor, College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio: "Humor and Characterization in Homer’s Formular Economy: Epithets of Odysseus, Hera and Zeus.” Delivered at the SCS session on Homer and the Homeric Hymns.

Tara Wells, Ph.D. candidate, Duke University: "The Dangers of Reception: Harmful Uses of Classical Art for the Oppression and Othering of Indigenous Americans." Delivered at the AIA panel on the History of Archaeology.