I am a Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford and a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow with the Faculty of Classics. My research focus is on Roman history and religion. You can write to me at susan.dunning@classics.ox.ac.uk.
My forthcoming monograph, The Ludi Saeculares and the Saeculum: Time, Festival, and Authority in the Roman World, examines 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) and the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. I am investigating human associations with divinity in Plautus’s comedies, Pompeiian graffiti, and in funerary monuments and inscriptions of the imperial period, and will publish my findings as a monograph. My other research interests include Roman and Greek hymns and Latin epigraphy.
My ORCID profile provides links to my published works.
I am keen to contribute to public engagement and outreach. Some of my recent popular outputs include a teaching video on belief in Roman religion for Gerda Henkel’s L.I.S.A. Science Portal, an article on political ‘time rhetoric’ for the Conversation, and a blog post on deification and the ‘male gaze’ for Somerville College.
I teach Roman and Greek history and religion, Latin and Greek languages at all levels, and Classical myth and drama.