| 1 | Name: | Professor Mary Beard | |
| Institution: | Newnham College, University of Cambridge | ||
| Year Elected: | 2012 | ||
| Class: | 4. Humanities | ||
| Subdivision: | 404a | ||
| Residency: | International | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1955 | ||
Mary Beard is one of Britain’s best-known Classicists - a distinguished Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge where she has taught for the last 27 years. She has written numerous books on the Ancient World, including the 2008 Wolfson Prize-winner, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town which portrays a vivid account of life in Pompeii in all its aspects from food to sex to politics. Previous books include The Roman Triumph, Classical Art from Greece to Rome and books on the Parthenon and the Colosseum as part of a series on wonders of the world. Her interests range from the social and cultural life of Ancient Greece and Rome to the Victorian understanding of antiquity. In addition Mary is Classics editor of the Time Literary Supplement and writes an engaging, often provocative, blog, A Don’s Life, a selection of which has been published in book form. In 2008 Mary was visiting Sather Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she gave a series of lectures on Roman laughter, one of her current research interests. In 2011 Mary delivered the prestigious Mellon Lectures at the National Art Gallery, Washington on the imagery of the Caesars. Mary’s academic achievement was acknowledged, in 2010, by the British Academy which elected her as a Fellow and in October 2011 Mary was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a Foreign Honorary Member. Books: All in a Don’s Day (Profile Books, 2012); The Parthenon (Profile Books, new edition 2010); It's a Don's Life (Profile Books, Nov. 2009); Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (Profile Books, 2008); The Roman Triumph (Harvard University Press, 2007); The Colosseum (with Keith Hopkins, Profile Books, 2005, new edition 2011); Classical Art from Greece to Rome (with John Henderson, Oxford University Press, 2001); The Invention of Jane Harrison (Harvard University Press, 2000); Religions of Rome (with John North and Simon Price, Cambridge University Press, 1998); Classics: A Very Short Introduction (with John Henderson, Oxford paperbacks, new edition 2000); Rome in the Late Republic (with Michael Crawford, Gerald Duckworth & Co, new edition 2000); S.P.Q.R.: A History of Ancient Rome (2015). | |||