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Dr Amelia Brown

Senior Lecturer

School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
a.brown9@uq.edu.au
+61 7 336 53321

Overview

Dr. Amelia R. Brown is Senior Lecturer in Greek History & Language in the Classics & Ancient History discipline of the School of Historical & Philosophical Inquiry, at the University of Queensland, Australia. She currently holds a Discovery Early Career Research Award from the ARC to research the impact of sailors and travellers on the development of ancient Greek religion and identity. Before coming to UQ in 2010, she was Hannah Seeger Davis Fellow in Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. In 2008 she received her PhD in Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology from the University of California at Berkeley, with a dissertation on the history of Corinth in Late Antiquity. Her current research focuses on Late Antiquity, Greek religion and Mediterranean maritime history, particularly in Roman Corinth, Thessaloniki and Malta. She has excavated at the sites of ancient Halasarna (Kos), Messene, Polis (Cyprus) and Corinth, and is currently completing books on Corinthian history and Mediterranean Maritime Religion.

Research Impacts

My research field is the history and archaeology of Greek culture in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean. I have made notable contributions on late antique religion, ancient travel, and the history of the port cities of Corinth, Thessaloniki, Cyprus and Malta. My work is known among Classical scholars in the US, Greece, Malta, the UK and Australia for its innovative combination of archaeological and historical methodologies and its examination of marginalized areas of Greek history, especially the era of Late Antiquity. I have excavation and research experience at Greek, Cypriot and Maltese sites and museums. I convened conferences at UQ on the theme of 'Byzantine Culture in Translation' for the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies and on the theme of ‘Land and Sea in the Early Middle Ages’ at UQ for the Australian Early Medieval Association’s 8th Annual Meeting. I have organised panels for the Archaeological Institute of America, the pre-eminent society for professional Classical archaeologists and historians in the US, and I contribute papers frequently to their annual meeting, volunteered with their San Francisco society, and chaired the Interest Group in Medieval and post-Medieval Greek Archaeology. As a member of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, I have travelled widely in Greece, the Balkans, Turkey and Malta, and made connections with academics there. Since coming to Australia I have contributed to the activities of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens (AAIA) through my work on Cythera, leading UQ summer school undergraduate Study Tours (course code ANCH2050), organising the Queensland Friends of the AAIA, welcoming visiting professors and writing for their newsletter and bulletin. After writing my undergraduate honours thesis on the history and monuments of Byzantine Thessaloniki at Princeton, my postgraduate research focused on the Greek culture of Late Antiquity. My Master’s thesis of 2002 at U.C. Berkeley, 'Hellenic Heritage & Christian Challenge: Conflict over Panhellenic Sanctuaries in Late Antiquity,' outlined the evidence for the conversion of Greek sanctuaries to Christian uses, and sometimes violent competition for these sacred spaces in the 5th and 6th centuries. I edited this for the Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity 5 conference in 2003, and published it in 2006. I helped contribute to a shift in scholarship towards the idea that ancient polytheistic religion was the dominant religious system far into Late Antiquity, and put up substantial resistance to Christianity. I gained primary experience with ancient Greek religious monuments by excavating a temple of Apollo on Kos with the University of Athens in 1998 and sanctuaries in Messene and Corinth in 2001-2005. I completed field exams in Greek Religion and Roman art for my 2008 PhD in Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology at Berkeley. My current research on ancient Greek maritime religion builds on my 2008 PhD dissertation, 'The City of Corinth and Urbanism in Late Antique Greece.' Invitations to speak about my Corinth research to academic audiences have come yearly since 2005 around the world. I organized a panel on Corinth at the Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting 2008, and in May 2011 was a keynote speaker at the Society for the Study of Early Christianity conference at Macquarie University in Sydney, with the theme for the conference of ‘Corinth: Paul, People and Politics.’ Corinth Excavations Director G.D.R. Sanders invited me to excavate with him and publish late antique portraits from Corinth, resulting in an article in the A* journal Hesperia, and participation in Oxford’s Last Statues of Antiquity project and the Danish-Canadian Afterlives of Greek and Roman sculpture project, both published in 2016.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley
  • Master of Arts, University of California, Berkeley
  • Bachelor of Arts, Princeton University

Publications

View all Publications

Grants

View all Grants

Supervision

  • History and Archaeology of Hellenistic Female Merchants

    Master Philosophy

  • Monotheism and Military Strength on the Borders of the Later Roman Empire

    Master Philosophy

  • Modes of Kingship: Pyrrhus of Epirus and his Contemporary World

    Master Philosophy

View all Supervision

Publications

Book

Book Chapter

  • Saviour mermaids of the ancient mediterranean: Thetis and the nereids as patrons of ancient Greek mariners

    Brown, Amelia R. and de Jonge, Nile (2023). Saviour mermaids of the ancient mediterranean: Thetis and the nereids as patrons of ancient Greek mariners. The Staying Power of Thetis: Allusion, Interaction, and Reception from Homer to the 21st Century. (pp. 315-338) Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110678437-014

  • Introduction

    Brown, Amelia (2018). Introduction. Byzantine culture in translation . (pp. 1-7) edited by Amelia Robertson Brown and Bronwen Neil. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. doi: 10.1163/9789004349070_002

  • Corinth

    Brown, Amelia (2016). Corinth. The last statues of antiquity. (pp. 174-189) edited by R. R. R. Smith and Bryan Ward-Perkins. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

  • Crosses, Noses, walls, and wells: Christianity and the fate of sculpture in late antique Corinth

    Brown, Amelia R. (2016). Crosses, Noses, walls, and wells: Christianity and the fate of sculpture in late antique Corinth. The afterlife of Greek and Roman sculpture: late antique responses and practices. (pp. 150-176) edited by Troels Myrup Kristensen and Lea Stirling. Ann Arbor, MI, United States: University of Michigan Press.

  • Messene (city and region)

    Brown, Amelia R. (2016). Messene (city and region). The encyclopedia of ancient history. (pp. 1-2) Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons. doi: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah30155

  • Psalmody and Socrates: female literacy in the Byzantine Empire

    Brown, Amelia R. (2013). Psalmody and Socrates: female literacy in the Byzantine Empire. Questions of Gender in Byzantine Society. (pp. 57-76) edited by Bronwen Neil and Lynda Garland. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing.

  • Remembering Thermopylae and the Persian Wars in Antiquity

    Brown, Amelia R. (2013). Remembering Thermopylae and the Persian Wars in Antiquity. Beyond the Gates of Fire: New Perspectives on the Battle of Thermopylae. (pp. 100-116) edited by Christopher A. Matthew and Matthew Trundle. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen & Sword Military.

  • Malta

    Brown, Amelia R. (2012). Malta. The encyclopedia of ancient history. (pp. 1-2) Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons. doi: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah16217

  • Patrai

    Brown, Amelia R. (2012). Patrai. The encyclopedia of ancient history. (pp. 1-2) Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons. doi: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah14248

  • Peloponnese

    Brown, Amelia R. (2012). Peloponnese. The encyclopedia of ancient history. (pp. 1-1) Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons. doi: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah14249

  • Performance and reception of Greek tragedy in the early medieval Mediterranean

    Brown, Amelia R. (2012). Performance and reception of Greek tragedy in the early medieval Mediterranean. Intercultural transmission in the medieval Mediterranean. (pp. 146-162) edited by Stephanie L. Hathaway and David W. Kim. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic.

  • Banditry or catastrophe?: History, archaeology, and barbarian raids on Roman Greece

    Robertson Brown, Amelia (2011). Banditry or catastrophe?: History, archaeology, and barbarian raids on Roman Greece. Romans, barbarians, and the transformation of the Roman world : cultural interaction and the creation of identity in late antiquity. (pp. 79-96) edited by Ralph W. Mathisen and Danuta R. Shanzer. Farnham, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. doi: 10.4324/9781315606880-13

  • Justinian, Procopius, and deception: Literary lies, imperial politics, and the archaeology of sixth-century Greece

    Brown, Amelia (2010). Justinian, Procopius, and deception: Literary lies, imperial politics, and the archaeology of sixth-century Greece. Private and public lies: The discourse of despotism and deceit in the Graeco-Roman world. (pp. 355-369) edited by Andrew J. Turner, James H. Kim On Chong-Gossard and Frederik Juliaan Vervaet.. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. doi: 10.1163/ej.9789004187757.i-439.81

  • Hellenic Heritage and Christian Challenge: Conflict over Panhellenic Sanctuaries in Late Antiquity

    Brown, Amelia Robertson (2006). Hellenic Heritage and Christian Challenge: Conflict over Panhellenic Sanctuaries in Late Antiquity. Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions & Practices. (pp. 309-320) edited by H. A. Drake, Emily Albu and Jacob Latham. Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Journal Article

Conference Publication

Other Outputs

  • Cyprus: An Island and a People

    McWilliam, Janette, Donaldson, James, Brown, Amelia, Christou, Sandra and Powell, Judith (2015). Cyprus: An Island and a People. St Lucia, QLD, Australia: RD Milns Antiquities Museum, The University of Queensland.

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • History and Archaeology of Hellenistic Female Merchants

    Master Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Monotheism and Military Strength on the Borders of the Later Roman Empire

    Master Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Modes of Kingship: Pyrrhus of Epirus and his Contemporary World

    Master Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Water, Fire and the Ages of Man: Representations of a Cataclysmic Past in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature

    Master Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Isis Beyond Egypt: Representations of Isis from Classical Greece to Imperial Rome

    Master Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • The Reception of Queen Artemisia I

    Master Philosophy — Associate Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • War on Stage: the theme of war in Euripides' Trojan Women and Suppliant Women

    Master Philosophy — Associate Advisor

    Other advisors:

Completed Supervision

This staff member is a UQ Expert for media in the following fields:

Classics, Ancient history, Greek history, Greek archaeology, late antiquity, Corinth, Malta, Thessaloniki

They are happy to lend their expertise to your articles or broadcasts and share their research discoveries and insights with the community via media channels.

For additional assistance with story ideas, general advice and information or help with seeking further experts, please email the UQ Media Team or telephone (07) 3365 1120.

Links

ResearcherID: S-5008-2018

ORCID: 0000-0002-8657-3373

Google Scholar ID: 5oxUFSkAAAAJ

Personal Profile: Link

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