Recent Guests
Dr. Campbell “Cam” Grey
Cam Grey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Much of his scholarly work has concentrated on the experiences of small rural communities in the Roman and late Roman world. Most recently, he was a co-director of The Roman Peasant Project 2009-2014 (ed. K. D. Bowes, Penn Museum Press, 2021), a multidisciplinary, collaborative archaeological project located in southern Tuscany, Italy. He is currently completing a book on the experience of risk and uncertainty in the late Roman world, focusing on the delicate interplay between environmental and climatological fluctuation, on the one hand, and societal and cultural strategies of adaptation, manipulation and meaning-making, on the other. As a foreign-born classicist living in the US, he is also endlessly fascinated by the many and various ways that America has inherited, transformed, and interpreted the multiple legacies of the ancient Roman world.
Jessica Bernstetter
Jessica Bernstetter is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. She specializes in archaeology and is interested in the process of urbanization and infrastructure in the Roman world, specifically the water and sanitation systems of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Her research uses Geographic Information Systems and spatial analysis to understand how people accessed water, occupied space, and displayed wealth in the ancient world. She has conducted fieldwork in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and western Sicily, and she serves on the Board of Directors for the Missouri Archaeological Society.
Dr. Joseph “Jay” Reed
Jay Reed is a scholar of Ancient Greek and Roman literature and culture at Brown University, and has worked especially on Hellenistic and Augustan poetry. He received his B.A. from Yale in 1987, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford in 1991 and 1993. He previously taught Classics at the Ohio State University, Cornell, and the University of Michigan. He has published a detailed scholarly commentary on the surviving poetry of Bion of Smyrna (c. 100 B.C.E.) and a critical study of Virgil's “Aeneid”, exploring the tentative, evolving sense of a Roman nationality that the national epic offers. His interests lie mainly in the poetic representation of cultural identity; he has also published papers on the myth and cult of Adonis, especially their syncretistic aspects and social uses.
Janet Varney
Janet Varney is an Emmy-nominated actor, comedian, writer and producer. She is perhaps best known for her iconic voice role of Avatar Korra on Nickelodeon’s “The Legend of Korra” but she can also be seen portraying Becca on FX’s “You’re the Worst”, Evie IFC’s “Stan Against Evil”, or herself on her show “Fortune Rookie” also for IFC. She is also a co-founder and producer of the San Francisco Sketchfest. When not off on an acting job, she can be found hosting her own podcast “The JV Club”, of which she is very proud. You can learn more about Janet, her podcast, and all of her upcoming projects through her website: http://janetvarney.com.
Dr. Clifford Ando
Clifford Ando is the David B. and Clara E. Stern Distinguished Service Professor. He holds a dual appointment as a professor in the Departments of Classics and History at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the histories of religion, law and government in the ancient world. He writes and advises on topics related to provincial administration, the relationship between imperial power and local cultural change, and the form and structure of ancient empires. He has also written extensively on ancient religion. His current projects include a study of Latin as a language of the law from the mid-Republic to the end of Rome; a collaborative edition of the surviving Roman statutes; and, long term, a study of legal theory in contexts of weak state power. He is the author of Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (2000), The Matter of the Gods. Religion and the Roman Empire (2008), Law, Language and Empire in the Roman Tradition (2011), and Roman Social Imaginaries. Language and Thought in Contexts of Empire (2016), among other books. He is also senior editor of Bryn Mawr Classical Review. A public lecture, "Pax Romana: Peace, Pacification and the Ethics of Empire," published in Ethics in Context.