Expand the section navigation mobile menu

Oakland University
Art and Art History

310 Wilson Hall
Rochester , MI 48309
(location map)
phone: (248) 370-3375
fax: (248) 370-3377

Oakland University
Art and Art History

310 Wilson Hall
Rochester , MI 48309
(location map)
phone: (248) 370-3375
fax: (248) 370-3377

Susan Wood

woman in a black turtle neck shirt and glasses, looking at the camera

Professor of Art History
Art History Adviser
Coordinator of AH Field Experience

Office: 307 Wilson Hall
Phone: 248-370-3378
Email: [email protected]



Education
Columbia University, Dept. of Art History and Archaeology, 9/73 – 5/79. PhD 5/79. MPhil 10/76. MA 1/75.

Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, 1977-78.

Bryn Mawr College, 9/69 – 5/73. A.B. Magna cum laude in Latin and Greek, 5/73.

Major Fields
Roman art and archaeology; reception of Classical art in post-Classical cultures.

Courses Taught

AH 100, Introduction to Western Art I

AH 310, Art of the Ancient Near East

AH 312, Greek Art

AH 314, Roman Art

HC 201, Honors College, Arts

Art and Preservation

Sacred Spaces in the Ancient World

Awards
Marian P. Wilson Award for Faculty Writing, 10/16/2012

Research Excellence Award, Oakland University, 1995.

Books
Imperial Women: a Study in Public Images, 40 B.C. - A.D. 68.  Brill: Leiden, 1999.  2nd edition, paperback, 2000.

Roman Portrait Sculpture, A.D. 217-260: The Transformation of an Artistic Tradition. Brill: Leiden, 1986.

Book Chapters

“Roman Portraiture.” Chapter 3.7, Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture, Oxford University Press, forthcoming. Invited.

“Public Images of the Flavian Dynasty: Sculpture and Coinage.” Blackwell Companion to the Flavian Era. Blackwell. Forthcoming.

“Sarcophagus,” Encyclopedia of Sculpture, Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn, 2004, 1516-1521. Invited.

Major Articles

“Women’s Work and Women’s Myths: Mothers and Children on Ivory Looms.” AJA 123 (3), (2019), 411-438.

“Klaudios Peisōn Anethēken: A Gift of Sculpture in the South Baths of Perge.” AJA 121 (3), (2017), 439-66.

“Hadrian, Hercules and Griffins: a group of cuirassed statues from Latium and Pamphylia.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 29, 2016: 223-238.

“Women in Action: A Statue of Matidia Minor from Suessa Aurunca and its Contexts.” American Journal of Archaeology 119 no. 2, 2015, 233-259.

“Caracalla and the French Revolution: a Roman Tyrant in 18th Century Iconography.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 55, 2010, pp. 295-323.

“Who was Diva Domitilla? Some Thoughts on the Public Images of the Flavian Women.” American Journal of Archaeology 114, 2010, pp. 45-57.

“Literacy and Luxury in the Early Empire: A Papyrus-roll Winder from Pompeii,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 46 (2001), 23-40. Refereed.

“Mortals, Empresses and Earth Goddesses,” I Claudia, Women in Ancient Rome: Proceedings of the Colloquium, Austin: University of Texas Press, ed. Diana E.E. Kleiner and Susan Matheson, 2000. Invited.

“Diva Drusilla Panthea and the Sisters of Caligula,” American Journal of Archaeology 99 (1995) 457-482.  Refereed. Isis, Eggheads and Roman Portraiture,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 24 (1987), 123-141.  Refereed.

Isis, Eggheads and Roman Portraiture,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 24 (1987), 123-141.  Refereed.

“Memoriae Agrippinae: Agrippina the Elder in Julio-Claudian Art and Propaganda.” American Journal of Archaeology 92 (1988), 409-426.  Refereed.

“Child Emperors and Heirs to Power in Third Century Roman Portraiture,” Ancient Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum 1 (Occasional Papers on Antiquity 4) 1987, 115-136.  Invitation.

"Subject and Artist: Studies in Roman Portraiture of the Third Century,” American Journal of Archaeology 85 (1981), 59-68.  Refereed.

“Alcestis on Roman Sarcophagi: Postscript,” Roman Art in Context: an Anthology, ed. Eve D’Ambra, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1993, 96-99, 102-103. Accepted by editor.

“Alcestis on Roman Sarcophagi, American Journal of Archaology 82 (1978), 499-510.

Editorships
Newsletter of the Classical Society of the American Academy in Rome, 1995 – 2014.

Recent Book Reviews

Essay review of Peter Stewart, Social History of Roman Art. Ancient History Bulletin 23. 2009, pp. 136-139. (Appeared in print 2011).

Essay review of Brigitte Ruck, Die Grossen dieser Welt: Kolossalporträts im antiken Rom. Archäologie und Geschichte 11. Heidelberg: Verlag. Archäologie und Geschichte, 2007. Bonner Jahrbuch 207, 2007, 417-9.

Essay review of Jens Daehner, ed., Kordelia Knoll, Christiane Vorster, Moritz Woelk, The Herculaneum Women: History, Context, Identities. The J. PaulGetty Museum, Los Angeles, and Skulpturensammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlunge Dresden, 2007, New England Classical Journal 2008, 304-7.

Essay review of Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Roman Empire, by Judith Ginsburg, ed. Eric Gruen, American Philological Association, 2005, Journal of Roman Archaeology 2007, 443-5.

Essay review of Cleopatra and Rome, by Diana E.E. Kleiner, Massachusetts and London: Belknap Press, 2005, The New England Classical Journal, 33.3, August 2006, 237-240.

Essay review of Mit Mythen Leben: Die Bilderwelt der römischen Sarkophage, by Paul Zanker and Bjorn Christian Ewald, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.11.22.

Essay review of Death and the Emperor, by Penelope Davies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2000.  Approved by editor.

Essay review of Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Empire, by Anthony A. Barrett (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 1997.  Approved by editor.

Oral presentations and public lectures

"The Griffin, the Phoenix, and Hadrian," presented at the College Art Association, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, in the session "Beyond the Bestiary: Images of Fantastic Fauna in Afro-Eurasia."

“The Flavian Women: A Family Drama on Coins,” William Metcalf Lecture Series for the Archaeological Institute of America, presented for local AIA societies at Yale University, New Haven, Ct. Jan. 26, 2010; the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, MI, Feb. 22, 2010; and Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, Feb. 25, 2010.

“Neoclassicism and Creole Identity: the Roman Iconography of Guillaume Guillon-Lethière,” presented at the annual meetings of the College Language Association, March 27, 2009.

“Images of Sabina,” presented at the annual meetings of the Archaeological Institute of America, Chicago, January 6, 2008.

“‘An Obscure Family Without Ancestral Images,’ or, How to build a dynasty from scratch,” presented at the symposium The Miller Collection of Roman Sculpture, Intentions and Acquisitions, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, April 17, 2004.

“The Wives of Nero: Public Images on Provincial Coinage,” presented at the annual meetings of the American Philological Association and the Archaeological Institute of America, Jan. 5, 2002.

“Divis Parentibus: Women and Ancestors in Trajanic and Hadrianic Art,”Princeton University, Nov. 13, 2001.

“The Incredible, Vanishing Wives of Nero,” October 21, 2000, Emory University, in the colloquium “Transformation and Tyranny” at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and in the Peter Wall Seminar series, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Jan. 28, 2002.

“Forgotten Women in the Roman Imperial Portrait Group at Béziers,” December 30, 1996, at the annual meetings of the Archaeological Institute of America and American Philological Society in New York.  Refereed.

“Mortals, Empresses and Earth Goddesses: Demeter and Persephone in Public and Private Apotheosis,” November 2, 1996, at the Yale University Art Gallery in a colloquium in connection with the exhibition I Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome.  Invitation.

“Sisters and Mothers of Tyrants: The Case of Agrippina II, Drusilla and Livilla,” December 29, 1994, at the annual national convention of the Archaeological Institute of America and the American Philological Association, in an AIA/APA joint session entitled “Rethinking Nero’s Legacy: New Perspectives on Neronian Art, Literature and History,” invitation (by session chair) and refereed (by the AIA/APA program committee).