Overview
Background
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.
Availability
- Dr Amelia Brown is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Bachelor (Honours) of History and Archaeology, Princeton University
- Masters (Coursework) of History and Archaeology, University of California-Berkeley
- Doctor of Philosophy of History and Archaeology, University of California-Berkeley
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.
Works
Search Professor Amelia Brown’s works on UQ eSpace
2012
Book Chapter
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.
2012
Book Chapter
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
2012
Book Chapter
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
2012
Book Chapter
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
2012
Journal Article
Last Men Standing: Chlamydatus Portraits and Public Life in Late Antique Corinth
Brown, Amelia R. (2012). Last Men Standing: Chlamydatus Portraits and Public Life in Late Antique Corinth. Hesperia, 81 (1), 141-176. doi: 10.2972/hesperia.81.1.0141
2011
Conference Publication
Archbishops, generals and governors between east and west in early Byzantine Greece
Brown, Amelia Robertson (2011). Archbishops, generals and governors between east and west in early Byzantine Greece. Fifteenth Biennial Conference of the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, Sydney, Australia, February 2008. Virginia, Qld., Australia: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies.
2011
Book Chapter
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
2010
Journal Article
Islands in a sea of change? Continuity and abandonment in Dark Age Corinth and Thessaloniki
Brown, Amelia Robertson (2010). Islands in a sea of change? Continuity and abandonment in Dark Age Corinth and Thessaloniki. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 14 (2), 230-240. doi: 10.1007/s10761-010-0103-0
2010
Book Chapter
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
2006
Book Chapter
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.
Supervision
Availability
- Dr Amelia Brown is:
- Available for supervision
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Supervision history
Current supervision
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Master Philosophy
Monotheism and Military Strength on the Borders of the Later Roman Empire
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Janette McWilliam
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Master Philosophy
Ethics in Ancient Greek Commercial Activity
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Alastair Blanshard
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Master Philosophy
Isis Beyond Egypt: Representations of Isis from Classical Greece to Imperial Rome
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Janette McWilliam
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Master Philosophy
Modes of Kingship: Pyrrhus of Epirus and his Contemporary World
Principal Advisor
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Master Philosophy
Water and Fire: Representations of a Cataclysmic Past in Archaic Greek Literature
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Annabel Florence
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Master Philosophy
History and Archaeology of Hellenistic Female Merchants
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Janette McWilliam
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Master Philosophy
The Reception of Queen Artemisia I
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Alastair Blanshard
Completed supervision
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2022
Master Philosophy
History, Fiction and the Third Century Crisis: A Study of the Historia Augusta
Principal Advisor
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2019
Master Philosophy
¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿: Queen Arsinoë II, the Maritime Aphrodite and Early Ptolemaic Ruler Cult
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Alastair Blanshard, Dr Andrew Collins
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2019
Master Philosophy
Water, Wind, and War: Maritime Sacrifice and Dedications in Herodotus' Histories
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Alastair Blanshard
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2018
Master Philosophy
From Babylon to Ipsus: The Early Life and Career of Seleucus Nicator, 315-301 B.C.E.
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Andrew Collins
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2016
Master Philosophy
Euripides and the Heroes of Athenian Religion: The Portrayal of Theseus and Herakles in the Tragedies of Euripides
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Alastair Blanshard
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2014
Master Philosophy
Ares: A Chronological-Literary Study of the Greek God of War
Principal Advisor
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2013
Doctor Philosophy
Imperial policies towards pantomime and public entertainment
Principal Advisor
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2013
Master Philosophy
The Rainbow Reflection: The Role and Status of Isis in Greece in the Imperial Period
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Janette McWilliam
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2023
Master Philosophy
Blinding Honour: Light, Honour, and Power in Cicero's Philosophical Texts of 44 BCE
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Janette McWilliam
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
The Challenges of Historic Urban Landscape Management: Conservation and Redevelopment around the Shah-e Cheragh Shrine in Shiraz
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor John Macarthur
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2022
Doctor Philosophy
Making the Islamic Façade: Transformation in the Funerary Structures of Central Asia in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Paul Memmott, Dr Catherine Keys
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2021
Master Philosophy
An Exploration of Dragons in Classical Mythology
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Alastair Blanshard
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2021
Master Philosophy
Voluntary Deaths in Greek and Latin Literature from the Second to Fourth Centuries AD
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Janette McWilliam
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2020
Doctor Philosophy
Athens After Defeat: Warmaking and Public Finance from 404/3 to 370/69 BC
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr David Pritchard
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2016
Doctor Philosophy
Tales of Philip II under the Roman Empire: Aspects of Monarchy and Leadership in the Anecdotes, Apophthegmata, and Exempla of Philip II
Associate Advisor
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2015
Master Philosophy
The Public Image of the Later Severans: Caracalla to Alexander Severus
Associate Advisor
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2014
Master Philosophy
Attic Women and Goddesses: Democracy, Patriarchy and Religion
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr David Pritchard
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2013
Master Philosophy
Amphitheatres and Cities in the Roman Empire
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Janette McWilliam
Media
Enquiries
Contact Dr Amelia Brown directly for media enquiries about:
- Ancient history
- Classics
- Corinth
- Greek archaeology
- Greek history
- late antiquity
- Malta
- Thessaloniki
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