REsearch interests
- Archaic and Classical Greek Religion
- Material Study of Religion
- Sensory Archaeology
- Embodied Cognition
Current Project
The Material Ecology of Religion: Bodies, Objects, and Sacred Spaces in Archaic and Classical Athens
How did ancient Athenians create religious experiences though the dynamic interaction of human bodies, material objects, and sacred environments? This study introduces a revolutionary approach to understanding how ancient religion by examining the triadic relationship between bodies, objects, and sacred spaces as a fundamental ecology of religious experience. Rather than viewing these elements separately, this book demonstrates how they work together as an integrated system to generate meaningful encounters with the divine. Through intensive analysis of five major Athenian ritual complexes – the major festivals of Athena, Artemis, Demeter and Persephone, citizenship and family rituals – this study reveals how religious transformation occurred though material engagement rather than abstract belief. The book pioneers the integration of three cutting-edge methodologies: Sensory Archaeology reconstructs ancient experiential landscapes, the Material Study of Religion demonstrates how objects possess agency in creating religious meaning, and Embodied Cognition reveals how physical practices shape religious thought. This interdisciplinary synthesis transforms our understanding of ancient Athenian religion by showing how material culture actively generated divine-human relationships rather than merely reflecting pre-existing beliefs.
How did ancient Athenians create religious experiences though the dynamic interaction of human bodies, material objects, and sacred environments? This study introduces a revolutionary approach to understanding how ancient religion by examining the triadic relationship between bodies, objects, and sacred spaces as a fundamental ecology of religious experience. Rather than viewing these elements separately, this book demonstrates how they work together as an integrated system to generate meaningful encounters with the divine. Through intensive analysis of five major Athenian ritual complexes – the major festivals of Athena, Artemis, Demeter and Persephone, citizenship and family rituals – this study reveals how religious transformation occurred though material engagement rather than abstract belief. The book pioneers the integration of three cutting-edge methodologies: Sensory Archaeology reconstructs ancient experiential landscapes, the Material Study of Religion demonstrates how objects possess agency in creating religious meaning, and Embodied Cognition reveals how physical practices shape religious thought. This interdisciplinary synthesis transforms our understanding of ancient Athenian religion by showing how material culture actively generated divine-human relationships rather than merely reflecting pre-existing beliefs.
publications
Books
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Chapters
Encyclopaedia Entries
Digital Resources
- 2024: Brief Histories: Ancient Greece, Seven Dials
- 2020: Heroines of Olympus: The Forgotten Women of Greek Mythology, Welbek Publishing
- 2020: Underworld Gods in Ancient Greek Religion: Death and Reciprocity, Routledge
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Chapters
- 2025: '(Re)Approasing the Parthenon Frieze: Divinespace and Mortalspace,' Classical Quarterly, FirstView: 1-23
- 2024: 'The Cave of Laughlessness, Sensory Deprivation, and Cognitive Depeltion at Eleusis,' Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 67.1: 53-63
- 2024: 'Embodied Wearing: Clothing for Artemis in Ancient Athenian Religion,' Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, 20.3-4: 257-282
- 2019: 'Weaving for Athena: The Arrhephoroi, Panathenaia, and Mundane Acts as Religious Devotion,' Journal of Hellenic Religion 12: 61-84
- 2018: 'Girls Playing Persephone (in Marriage and Death),' Mnemosyne 71.2: 209-228
- 2013: 'Doom and Sorrow: Achilleus's Physical Expression of Mourning in the Iliad,' Rosetta 13: 111-121
Encyclopaedia Entries
- 2023: 'Hades', Oxford Classical Dictionary (5th edition)
Digital Resources
- 2023: 'Brauron Clothing Catalogue Dataset', with L Cleland: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24132006.v1