Biography
Ellen Perry received her B.A. from Swarthmore College where she majored in Greek and minored in Latin. She then went on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from The University of Michigan. In her youth, she excavated in Carthage (Tunisia), Qift (Egypt), Corinth (Greece) and at the Mission San Antonio de Padua in California; but now she spends most of her time thinking, writing and teaching about Roman art and architecture, with special attention to imitation and emulation in Roman art, ancient aesthetics, and the use of ancient religious space. She also teaches courses on archaeological ethics and on the modern use of archaeology in the construction of national and ethnic narratives.
From 2019 to 2023 she directed College Honors and from 2021 to 2025, she was the Monsignor Edward G. Murray Professor of the Arts and Humanities.
In past years, Ellen served as President of CANE (The Classical Association of New England) and directed the CANE Summer Institute, a week of classes and lectures given by classics faculty from all over New England and the country.
For two years before she came to Holy Cross (1995–1997), she taught in the Archaeology Department at the University of Evansville.
In 2010-2011, she served as the President of the Classical Association of New England.
From 2014 to 2020, she served as the Chair of the Archaeological Institute of America’s Program Committee, which vets papers, workshops, colloquia and posters for the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.
Ellen is a proud native of Washington DC, though she now lives in Paxton, MA. When she’s not doing classics, she can usually be found baking or checking up on her honeybees.
Recent Courses
- Intro To Classical Archaeology
- Greek and Roman Sculpture
- Ancient Sanctuaries & Religion
- Intermediate Greek 1
- Roman Comedy
- Ideological Destruction of Art
- Stolen History
Selected Publications
Book
The Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome, Cambridge University Press, 2005
Articles
“Edward Robinson’s Plaster Casts and the Battle for the Museum of Fine Arts,” in Pushing the Boundaries of Historia: Essays on Greek and Roman History and Culture in Honor of Blaise Nagy, eds. M. English and L. Fratantuono (forthcoming, 2017)
“Human Interactions with Statues,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture, eds. E. A. Friedland and M. G. Sobocinski with E. Gazda, Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 653–666