Dr. Catherine Keesling
Office: 319 Healy Hall
ph: 202.687.1335
email:keeslinc@georgetown.edu
Download Prof. Keesling's full cv here.
Education:
B.A., Wellesley College (1987)
M.A., Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan
M.A., Greek, University of Michigan
Ph.D., Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan (1995)Teaching & Research Areas:
Greek Art (Sculpture) of the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Periods
Greek Epigraphy
Greek Sanctuaries
Greek History
Commemorative Monuments and Memory in the Greek WorldAbout Professor Keesling:
Catherine M. Keesling is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics. She has received fellowships from the NEH, the Archaeological Institute of America, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. She is currently President of the American Society of Greek and Latin Epigraphy and Chair of the Admissions and Fellowships Committee of the ASCSA. Her publications include The Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis (Cambridge 2003), as well as articles and book chapters on Greek sculpture and epigraphy of the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods.
Recent Courses:
CLSS 130: History of Ancient Greece
CLSS 110: Introduction to Greek Archaeology
CLSS 210: Greek Cities and Sanctuaries
CLSS 212: The City of Athens
CLSS 410: History and Methods of Classical Archaeology (seminar)
CLSG 101: Intermediate Greek
CLSG 286: Advanced Greek: HerodotusCurrent Research:
Portraiture and Memory in Ancient Greece: Greek Portrait Statues and their Afterlives, ca. 600 to A.D. 50 (book in progress) will examine ancient Greek portraiture as it originated and was practiced in Greece beginning in the Archaic period. Chapter One reevaluates the literary evidence for Greek portrait statues of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., arguing that anachronism in late literary sources has distorted our picture of the origins and the early development of Greek portraiture. Chapter Two looks at the very diverse local practices of portraiture that developed in various sanctuaries, both civic and Panhellenic, over the course of the fifth century B.C. By the end of the early Hellenistic period, local diversity had given way to standardized honorific practices, apparent in the formulae of inscriptions and the formats of commemorative monuments. Chapter Three presents a systematic study of Greek family portrait groups as a well-attested context for Greek portraiture and as artifacts of Greek social history. Chapter Four examines the uses of portraits in the Classical and early Hellenistic periods to support historical memory: retrospective portraits of earlier subjects and the renewal of earlier monuments are notable examples. Chapter Five presents the evidence for the reuse and reinscription of earlier Greek portraits as representations of Roman subjects in the first centuries B.C. and A.D.
Recent Publications:
The Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis (Cambridge, 2003)
During the period between Solon's reforms and the end of the Peloponnesian War, worshippers dedicated hundreds of statues to Athena on the Acropolis, Athens's primary sanctuary. Some of these statues were Archaic marble korai, works of the greatest significance for the study of Greek art; all are documents of Athenian history. This book brings together all of the evidence for statue dedications on the Acropolis in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, including inscribed statue bases that preserve information about the dedicators and the evidence for lost bronze sculptures. Placing the korai and other statues from the Acropolis within the original votive contexts, Keesling questions the standard interpretation of the korai as generic, anonymous votaries, while shedding light upon the origins and significance of Greek portraiture.
"The Afterlives of Acropolis Dedications in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods," Die Akropolis von Athen im Hellenismus und in der romischen Kaiserzeit (Archaologisches Institut der Universitat Bonn, June 2006)
"Early Hellenistic Portrait Statues in Athens: Survival, Reuse, Transformation" in Early Hellenistic Portraiture: Image, Style, Context, eds. Peter Schultz and Ralf von den Hoff, Cambridge University Press (2007).
"Heavenly Bodies: Monuments to Prostitutes in Greek Sanctuaries" in Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World, eds. Laura McClure and Christopher A. Faraone (Madison, Wisconsin 2006) 59-76.
"Patrons in Athenian Votive Monuments of the Archaic and Classical Periods: Three Studies" Hesperia 74 (2005) 395-426.
"Misunderstood Gestures: Iconatrophy and the Reception of Greek Sculpture in the Roman Imperial Period," Classical Antiquity 24 (2005) 41-79.
