Classics and Civic Leadership
As part of my research supported by an Evergreen Sponsored Research grant, I was invited to develop content for a team-taught, international, multi-institutional course on Ancient Leadership (see link) organized and run through the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. Led by Prof. Norman Sandridge of Howard University, this team developed a course on how to teach civic leadership with ancient history. I was responsible for the “Material Culture” module, which allowed me to go beyond my initial proposed literature and investigate how public architecture, for example, influences how citizens function in a given polity. While I focused on the Hellenistic and Roman world for this project, in particular Alexander the Great, and the Roman emperors Augustus and Trajan, in the planning process I had the opportunity to engage and discuss different possibilities of how civic leadership interacts with material culture with my colleagues at different institutions around the world. My contribution to the course can be found here: Spirits in the Material World.