Classics Department Faculty and Contacts

Sarah Peirce

Ph.D., Bryn Mawr
Associate Professor of Classics

428C FMH
718-817-3140
[email protected]

Interests: Greek religion, drama, history, classical archaeology

Sarah Peirce is a classical archaeologist with special interests in Greek vase-painting iconography, Greek religion, and Greek social history. She has a book forthcoming on the "Lenaia Vases" and Bacchic cult and has published reviews and articles on Greek art and religion. Her next project is on the "symposion of the blessed" in Greek vase-painting and in the religion of the afterlife. She teaches courses in Greek language, literature, history, and religion and tutorials in Greek vase-painting. She also has an interest in the ancient Near East and the Bronze Age Aegean; she teaches a course on Near Eastern history and the ancient history segment of the freshman Honors Program sequence on the ancient world. She has long-standing ties to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and has served as chair of its Committee on Admissions and as co-director of its summer session.

Cristiana Sogno ([email protected], 212-636-7583, LL 915E) has moved to the Department of English and is no longer affiliated with the Department of Classics.

Emeritus Faculty

Harry B. Evans

Ph.D., North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Professor Emeritus of Classics
[email protected]

Interests: Roman topography, Latin literature

Harry B. Evans is primarily interested in Roman topography: he has written two books and co-edited a third on topographical topics, and two of the five doctoral dissertations he directed during his 25 years at Fordham focused on Roman topography. He has been a Rome Prize Fellow and Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome, and also taught three years at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, twice as professor-in-charge. He served as secretary-treasurer of the American Philological Association for five years and was also elected APA Vice President for Program for a four-year term. In retirement, he has recently published Exploring the Kingdom of Saturn: Kircher's Latium and its Legacy (University of Michigan, 2012).

Robert J. Penella

Ph.D., Harvard
Professor Emeritus of Classics
[email protected]

Interests: Imperial Greek rhetoric and sophistic, ancient declamation, late antiquity, Roman historiography

Robert J. Penella taught in the Department of Classics for 45 years, serving as chair for 12 years. He retired in 2016. He has held fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities (1993) and the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2002). In 2012, he was Jacobsson Visiting Scholar at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has a broad interest in Roman history and historiography, but his main research interests are Roman imperial rhetoric and oratory and Late Antiquity. Author of five books--on Apollonius of Tyana, Eunapius, Themistius, Himerius, and Libanius--and contributing editor of a book on Choricius, he has most recently published Libanius: Ten Mythological and Historical Declamations (Cambridge, 2020), and he has a second book on Libanius's declamations in progress.

George W. Shea

Ph.D., Columbia
Professor Emeritus of Classics
[email protected]

Interests: Roman topography, Latin literature

George W. Shea taught courses in Latin language and literature as well as classics in translation. He has published three books on Latin poetry in addition to articles and reviews in both classics and other areas of general scholarly interest. He was for fifteen years Dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. He has a special interest in international education and has taught and lectured in Japan, Australia, and Italy, where for five years he directed Fordham's summer study program in Orvieto.