Susan Dunning
Stipendiary Lecturer in Classics
I work on religious and cultural developments in the Roman world through the study of material and literary sources.
In my forthcoming monograph, The Ludi Saeculares and the Saeculum: Time, Festival, and Authority in the Roman World, I examine the development of the Saecular Games and their relationship to Roman conceptions of time from the Republic to late Empire.
My current research project, Humans as Gods in the Roman World, is funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. I am a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow with the Faculty of Classics. I am investigating human associations with divinity in Latin and Greek literature, graffiti, and in funerary monuments and inscriptions of the Roman imperial period to be published as a monograph. My other research interests include Roman and Greek hymns and Latin epigraphy.
Websites: <https://susandunning.net/>, <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9733-9403>.
Publications
Article:
‘The Republican Ludi Saeculares as a Cult of the Valerian Clan’. (2020) Historia 69.2, 208–236.
Chapter contributions:
‘The Transformation of the Saeculum and Its Rhetoric in the Construction and Rejection of Roman Imperial Power.’ (2022, in: Conceptions of Time in Antiquity, eds. Richard Faure and Arnaud Zucker, de Gruyter. Peer-reviewed.
‘Human, God, or Hero? Funerary Imagery and Inscriptions in Flux between Greek and Roman Societies.’ (Forthcoming, in: Gods in Translation, eds. Beate Dignas and Karolina Sekita. Oxford University Press. Peer-reviewed.)
‘In the Guise of the Gods: Belief, Authority, and Consolation in Depictions of the Deceased on Roman Funerary Monuments.’ (Forthcoming, in ‘As If’ in Ancient Religions, eds. Esther Eidinow and Felix Budelmann. Series: Ancient Religions and Cognition, Cambridge University Press. Peer-reviewed.)
Entries for the Oxford Classical Dictionary:
‘Secular Games.’ In Oxford Classical Dictionary, digital edn. Oxford University Press. Article published October 2017.
‘Saeculum.’ In Oxford Classical Dictionary, digital edn. Oxford University Press. Article published November 2017.
Popular Outputs
Did the Romans Believe in Their Gods? (2020, video produced as schools outreach for Somerville College, University of Oxford, and for the L.I.S.A. Wissenschaftsportal, Gerda Henkel Stiftung)
Has Boris Johnson been picking up tips from the Roman emperors? (2020, The Conversation, UK)
Adapting the male gaze theory in Roman religion (2019, Somerville College blog, University of Oxford)
Time, Festival, and Authority in the Roman Saecular Games (2017, Institute of Classical Studies blog, School of Advanced Study, University of London)