Kimberly Cassibry

One misconception about researching around the Mediterranean is that the weather will always be nice.  Yet snow does fall in Morocco, and, on deceptively beautiful springtime days in Provence, the fierce Mistral wind can freeze your fingers numb.  Visiting these regions is, nonetheless, the best way to study the ancient Roman world.  Rome itself constituted only a small part of an empire stretching from Britain to Tunisia and from Morocco to Iraq.  Traditionally, however, this one city has dominated Roman Studies.  In my research, I aim to bring the empire’s provincial communities into sharper focus and to re-envision the empire from their perspective.  My current book project, The Roman Empire According to the Celts, considers the persistence of Celtic cultural memory on monuments erected in Roman Gaul, Germany, and Britain.  

Many of my research ideas come from the classroom, and I take pleasure in teaching a broad range of ancient cultures.  My lecture courses on Roman, Greek, Celtic, Etruscan, and Near Eastern art and architecture emphasize cross-cultural exchange.  My advanced seminars often cut across regional boundaries.  One of my favorite seminars, for example, develops a comparative analysis of palaces in Persia, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome (Art 302).  In all of these courses, students learn directly from museum and rare book collections during field trips which take us to the Davis Museum and Clapp Library Special Collections, and often to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as well.  My students and I especially enjoy holding class outside at Wellesley’s Greek Theater on fine autumn and spring days.