As educators and scholars, members of the Department of Classics share their expertise and advance the field.

Justin Arft continues work on his book about the ancient Greek hero and Homer’s special oral poetic language. He presented work on ancient grammarians at the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS) meeting. His chapter on Odyssey 7 is forthcoming in The Oxford Critical Guide to Homer’s Odyssey. Arft also is becoming co-editor of the journal Oral Tradition.

Tristan Barnes was promoted to teaching associate professor, after receiving the College of Arts and Sciences’ Lecturer Excellence in Teaching Award this past spring. He created two new courses. In Ancient Astronomy, students used UT’s planetarium and recreated ancient attempts to measure Earth’s circumference. In Greek and Roman Warfare, students used the departmental collection of high-quality armor replicas donated by Lynn Rogers of Elizabethton, Tennessee. Through experimental archaeology they tested the armor, gaining insights into soldiers’ lives. 

Salvador Bartera returned to the classroom after a year of research leave at UT’s Denbo Center, where he worked on his book project, Stefonio’s Flavia Tragoedia. He attended the annual Tennessee World Language Teaching Association (TWLTA) meeting, then a conference on Tacitus in Lisbon, for which he published a report. He spent December at the American Academy in Rome, consulting manuscripts at Gregorian University. This summer he gave papers at conferences in Paris and St. Andrews, Scotland. He published an article on Scipione Ammirato and co-edited The Oxford Critical Guide to Tacitus.

Sam Blankenship presented research on Achaemenid Persian influences on Ezra-Nehemiah and on the Alexander historians at four conferences this past year in the US and Italy. She is incorporating these materials into her book project, thanks to a year’s research leave enabled by a Denbo Center fellowship. She will be reading Ezra-Nehemiah and Esther in the original Hebrew, which she has started learning. She taught Hellenistic history and Lucian’s True History.

Dylan Bloy continues to teach classes in Latin and both Greek and Roman archaeology. He presented on the final excavations of the Roman villa of Vacone, Italy, at the Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting; on Republican pavements at the Italian Association for the Study and Conservation of Mosaic conference; and on decorative marble at the international conference of the Association for the Study of Marble and Other Stones in Antiquity. The team is planning an excavation of the previously unexplored Roman Villa di Grottaglie in Fara Sabina, Italy, with a full field season next summer.

Stephen Collins-Elliott created two new packages for the open-source statistical program R last year: lakhesis, which gives archaeologists a visual, interactive interface with which to put archaeological contexts in chronological order through seriation, and eratosthenes, which provides a comprehensive framework for dating all archaeological events probabilistically. He gave an invited paper at German Archaeological Institute workshop in Madrid and a paper at the 52nd Annual Computer Applications in Archaeology Conference in Athens. This semester he is teaching History of the Roman Republic.

Chris Craig, professor emeritus, was inducted into the TWLTA Hall of Fame last fall. Incoming TWLTA President Abigail Braddock Simone (’02), his former student, presided. 

Lorenzo Del Monte is now a teaching assistant professor. He continues research on the ancient Greek economy and has a new Greek history class being offered in the spring. Del Monte is continuing to expand his class about the Roman government and its influence on the US Constitution.

Professor Emerita Geraldine Gesell celebrated birthday LXXXXIII (or XCIII) in Greece and continues working on her volume of the Kavousi publication series.

Nikola Golubović is teaching new courses, such as Ancient Greek. He published an article in  Classical Philology and has more articles and a book preface forthcoming. He also will be organizing a conference panel for the 2027 annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies. 

Reema Habib continues research in the field of ancient magic. She gave a talk on material approaches to herms at the 20th annual symposium of UT’s Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Habib also is working on a new course with Tristan Barnes on pseudoarchaeological hoaxes, which will debut in the 2026 winter mini-term. She continues to serve on the Faculty Senate and is a Volunteer Experience Faculty Fellow this year, promoting student well-being.

Charles Kuper published his first book, The Menologion of Basil II with Harvard University Press. Now he is co-editing a volume titled Visual and Verbal Expressions in the Menologion of Basil II. He also has been invited to present this work at the University of Thessaloniki, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, and the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is teaching Latin paleography this fall, and loves working with our enthusiastic students.

Research Professor Merle Langdon continues work on the publication of sixth century BCE rock-cut shepherds’ inscriptions and drawings that he discovered in the area of Athens.

Susan Martin, provost and professor emerita, continues to serve on the department’s advisory board.

Professor Emeritus Robert Sklenář gave the keynote lecture of the XII Jornadas de Estudios Clásicos y Medievales at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, on October 1.

Aleydis Van de Moortel taught Ancient and Medieval Seafaring last spring and this fall is offering Ancient Technology. She directed a summer drone photography survey at Mitrou that led to the discovery of new burial mounds. She published an article downdating the adoption of the sail in the Bronze Age Aegean, and another one estimating labor costs of the Mycenaean drainage of the Copaic basin, arguing how the project enabled the king to consolidate power. She gave papers at two overseas conferences, including one on a jug from Mitrou depicting Sea People ships.

Jessica Westerhold served as faculty coordinator for the Undergraduate Classics Conference. In addition to teaching Latin elegy and ancient drama, she presented her research on happiness in Latin elegy at the Society for Classical Studies and CAMWS. In June, she was a discussant at the International Ovidian Society conference in Pisa, Italy. 

Our current and former faculty members love to catch up with former students and hear about their current adventures and plans. Don’t hesitate to reach out!