IPAMAA's Andrew Crocker sucessfully defended his dissertation "Body Politics: Female Portraiture and Local Politics in the Roman Peloponnese" on Friday, December 6th.
Andrew's dissertation "explores local politics and the roles of female portrait statues in the Roman Peloponnese, focusing on the sites of Olympia, Corinth, and Sparta. By examining portraits and inscribed statue bases across a wide time frame (31 BCE – 6th century CE), this dissertation examines change and continuity in local political and honorific cultures spanning several major social transformations in Greece, focusing on the ways in which these transformations intersected with the representation of women. In doing so, this research engages with the scholarly discourse surrounding gender and status in the ancient world, as well as elite Greek identity under Roman rule, and disparities in the portrait cultures of the Roman world.
"Female portraits represent a substantial minority of public honorific portraits from Greece. Although many sites in the Peloponnese had established portrait cultures, female honorific portraits were exceptionally rare at many sites until the Julio-Claudian period. These female portraits have generally been studied from the perspective of the imperial center, suggesting that differences in style and context are the result of shared “provincial” factors. However, this dissertation identifies significant local differences in the creation and display of honorific female portraits from sites within the same province. Thus, this dissertation argues that local politics, histories, and priorities were more impactful in the portrait cultures of Greece than had been previously appreciated. This research shows that the communities of the Peloponnese created and interacted with honorific portraits for widely varying lengths of time and in locally specific ways, having adopted new modes of production and representation adapted for local political practices."
Our warmest congratulations, Dr. Crocker!
