Amongst the Ruins:
A Social History of Late Antique Rome
An expanded presentation was given at the Ancient History WIP Seminar. A new version is presented here, along with an outline of planned future research. This new project (ETSR) will yield ten database entries for the ‘Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity’ (CSLA) and two academic articles, building towards a scholarly monograph proposal for OUP. Foundational to the study of Late Antique Rome are the records preserved in early Christian basilicas. These vital historical sources have preserved a wide variety of textual and archival documentation, as well as art and architecture (Krautheimer, 1937). However, the associations and site histories of these spaces were initially conjectured by scholars such as Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Antonio Bosio, Pompeo Ugonio, and Giacomo Grimaldi, long before their eventual excavation in the nineteenth century (Cecalupo, 2025). Such texts were used similarly to Homer during the discovery of Troy by Schliemann, serving as descriptive 'maps’ of sorts (Allen, 2023).
Presentations
- Rethinking Social History in Early Christian Rome
- October 2025. Pontifical Institute in Rome. Forthcoming.
- November 2023. Department of Classics, Oxford, UK (Ancient History WIP Seminar)
- November 2022. Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, Italy
- Social History in Late Antique Rome: Re-Evaluating Current Narratives (200-600 AD)
- May 2023. Department of History, Oxford, UK
- March 2023. Department of Classics, Oxford, UK
- November 2022. Merton College, Oxford, UK
- June 2021. Oxford University Byzantine Society Conference, Oxford, UK
- A Social History of the Resting Satyr and the Via Cavour: Building and Object Biographies in Augmented Reality
- January 2023. Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA
- May 2018. Digital Humanities for Academic and Curatorial Practice (Rome, 23 - 24 May 18). The American Academy in Rome, Italy
- March 2018. University of Michigan at Ann Arbour
- February 2018. The Getty Villa in Malibu and the College Art Association Annual Meeting
- April 2017. The Eskenazi Museum, Indiana University
- March 2016. Department of Classics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- December 2015. Department of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- POESIS and AI
- November 2018. Department of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- September 2018. National Science Foundation Interdisciplinary Training in Complex Networks and Systems Conference, Washington, D.C.
- April 2018. CASCI, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- DOMUS: The House of Marcus Lucretius in Pompeii
- March 2019. Department of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington
- February 2018. Department of Art History, Indiana University, Bloomington
- January 2017. VWHL Lab, Indiana University, Bloomington
- The Uffizi-Indiana University 3D Digitisation Project
- October 2018. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- May 2018. International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Bonn, Germany
- February 2017. College Art Association, New York, NY
- Digitising Ancient Sculpture in Museums
- November 2017. The Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- March 2017. Annual Computer Applications in Archaeology Meeting, Atlanta, GA
- January 2017. Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Toronto, Ontario
- June 2016. Emory University, Atlanta, GA
- February 2016. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- The Antikythera Mechanism: Applications of Complex Systems Modelling in Classical Archaeology
- April 2016. Department of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- October 2015. Virtual World Heritage Lab, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- An Ethnography of Digital Modelling and Remote Fieldwork in Rome. Computer Applications in Archaeology Conference, Oxford, UK. May 2022
- Beazley: An Early Digital Humanist? Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, March 2018
- Is There a Digital History? Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, May 2018
- When Opinions Differ: Pedagogical Models of Historical Education in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, Department of Art History, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, January 2018
- Absence and Anxiety: A Critical Perspective, December 2017, Department of History, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- Ancient Roman Wall Painting, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, December 2017
- Rethinking Pre-Iconoclastic Icons in Rome, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, October 2017
- Augmented Reality for Design Students, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (presented by Andy Hunsucker), Denver, CO, May 2017
- The Rome Reborn Project. Visualising New Connections in the Ancient City, Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Southern Section, Atlanta, GA, June 2016
- The Evolution of Roman Portraiture, The American Academy in Rome, July 2016
- Exploring the MOOC format as a pedagogical approach for eLearning, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, January 2016
Seminars and Lab Meetings
- Co-organiser, Merton College: Ancient History Faculty Seminar on ‘AI and computational approaches to the study of the ancient world’ (Quo Vadis: Classics & AI; Michaelmas Term 2025)
- Co-organised the Oxford Byzantine Graduate Research Seminar (2024)
- Co-organised the Roman Discussion Research Forum (2023)
- Co-organised the Digital Classics Seminar at the Institute for Classical Studies in London (2022)
- Lead organiser of the Ancient Architecture Research Discussion Group (2022)
- Lead organiser of the Virtual World Heritage Research Lab Meeting (2019-2021)
- Lead organiser of the National Science Foundation NRT Weekly Research Discussion (2018-2019)
Conferences and Workshops
- Organising a one-day conference on AI and Ancient History, Merton College, Hilary Term 2026
- Co-organised a conference panel on current approaches in Digital History, Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (2024)
- Co-organised a conference panel on current approaches in Digital Archaeology, Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (2023)
- Panellist on Late Antique Spaces, Oxford University Byzantine Society Conference (2022)
- Organised a workshop on 3D Scanning with Smartphones, Virtual World Heritage Lab (2022)
- Organised a conference on current digital humanities research at Indiana University, Virtual World Heritage Lab (2021)
- Co-organised a half-day conference on 3D scanning in museums, Eskenazi Museum (2020)
- Co-organised a half-day conference on museum digitisation, Michael C. Carlos Museum (2019)