About our staff
Dr Lucy Grig
BA (Hons), MA, PhD
Senior Lecturer; Roman History
- Tel: +44 (0)131 650 3579
- Email: lucy.grig@ed.ac.uk
- Room 00M.08, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot Place
Office hours
Affiliated research centres
Biography
I was an undergraduate in History at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where my studies took me from classical Athens to modern Europe. I then took my MA in Medieval Studies at the University of York but decided to return to Cambridge for my PhD, this time in the Classics Faculty, finding my natural home in the world of Late Antiquity. I taught at the University of Reading from 2000-1 and from 2002-4, while I was lucky enough to be Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome in 2001-2. I came to Edinburgh as a lecturer in 2004 and have since enjoyed teaching ancient history at all levels, with occasional forays into Latin as well as ancient visual culture. I have been a Senior Lecturer since 2014. I have three children who get dragged around as many Roman sites as I can manage.
External appointments
Area editor for Late Antiquity, Oxford Classical Dictionary
Standing Committee member, Council of UK Classics Departments
Useful Links
Summary of research interests
Places:- Europe
- Mediterranean
- Near East
- Ancient Civilisations
- Culture
- Gender
- Language & Literature
- Material Culture
- Religion
- Society
- Antiquity
- Medieval
Research interests
‘Riot in the amphitheatre’ fresco from Pompeii, now in the National Archaeological Museum at Naples
I am a cultural historian working on the Roman world, with a particular focus on Late Antiquity. My research takes in both literary and material culture from across the Mediterranean. (For instance I have published on poetry and glassware, sermons and paintings).
I have had a particular interest in religious history, specifically late antique Christianity, including such crucial subjects as the Christianisation of the Roman world, the birth of hagiography, and the development of early Christian art.
Urbanism is another important area of my research, most particularly the late antique capitals of Rome and Constantinople. Together with Gavin Kelly I edited a volume, ‘Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity’ for Oxford University Press.
Current research activities
I am currently working on popular culture in the ancient world, an exciting but massively understudied subject. This project is twofold. Firstly it looks at the methodological problem of locating a putative ‘popular culture’ in the ancient world. Secondly it asks if Late Antiquity saw a development of a new popular culture and investigates the role of Christianity in this process.
I have published an edited volume, ‘Popular Culture in the Ancient World’ (with Cambridge University Press) in 2017, which looks at the subject from a diverse range of approaches and taking in an eclectic selection of ancient sources. The second ( which was funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship) is ongoing, entitled ‘Popular Culture and the End of Antiquity in Southern Gaul, c. 400-550 ’, it looks at the transformation of popular culture in its social and economic context with a particular focus on the city of Arles and its surrounding region.
Research projects
Watch a short video of Dr Grig speaking about her research interests - Media Hopper
Undergraduate teaching
- Roman World 1a
- Roman World 1b
- Ancient History 2a: Past & Present in the Ancient World
- Ancient History 2b: Themes and Theories in Ancient History
- Ancient Popular Culture
- The City of Rome
- The World of St Augustine
- The Body in the Ancient World
Triumphal Arch at Haïdra, Tunisia
Postgraduate teaching
- Late Antique Visual Culture
- Voluntary Death and Martyrdom in the Ancient World
- A Period of Ancient History 1/2
Current Students:
| Name | Degree | Thesis topic | Supervision type | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bersani, Beatrice | PhD | The colours of God: Polychromatic imagery for the divine in late antique Latin poetry. | Secondary | |
| Cleary, Nicole | PhD | Jerome on the attack [SHCA scholarship, 2010-13] | Joint | |
| Imrie, Alex | PhD | Caracalla and the Constitutio Antoniniana [Kerry-Fry Scholarship, 2010-13] | Secondary | |
| Lazzoni, Clara | PhD | Seeing texts, reading images: approach to late antique concrete poetry based on Optatian. | Secondary | |
| PhD | Sexed, not sexual bodies: Tertullian's Anthropology of Sexual Difference | Primary | ||
| Washington, Belinda | PhD | Empresses in the ate Roman world [Kerr-Fry scholarship, 2011-14] | Secondary |
Past Students:
| Name | Degree | Thesis topic | Supervision type | Completion year | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tsartsidis, Thomas | PhD | Prudentius Peristephanon 10 [College of Humanities and Social Sciences Studentship, 2012-15] | Secondary | 2017 | |
| Sandon, Tatjana | PhD | The freedwoman in the Roman world: the evidence of the Latin inscriptions | Secondary | 2017 | link |
| Lauritsen, Taylor | PhD | Doors and Domestic Space at Pompeii | Secondary | 2012 | |
| Imrie, Alex | MScR | Roman Numismatics | Secondary | 2011 |
Books - Authored
Grig, L. (2004) Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.
Books - Edited
Grig, L. (ed.) (2016) Popular Culture in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139871402
Grig, L. and Kelly, G. (eds.) (2012) Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press
Articles
Grig, L. (2018) Caesarius of Arles and the campaign against popular culture in late antiquity. Early Medieval Europe, 26(1), pp. 61-81DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.12248
Grig, L. (2013) Cities in the ‘long’ Late Antiquity, 2000–2012 – a survey essay. Urban History, 40(3), pp. 554 - 566DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926813000369
Grig, L. (2012) Deconstructing the symbolic city: Jerome as guide to late antique Rome. Papers of the British School at Rome, 80, pp. 125-143DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068246212000074
Grig, L. (2004) Portraits, Pontiffs and the Christianization of Fourth-Century Rome. Papers of the British School at Rome, 72, pp. 203-230
Grig, L. (2002) Torture and Truth in Late Antique Martyrology. Early Medieval Europe, 11, pp. 321-336DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-9462.2002.00114.x
Chapters
Grig, L. (2018) Life and death in Late Antiquity: Religious rituals and popular culture. In: Lössl, J. and J. Nicholas, B. (eds.) A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 455-473
Grig, L. (2017) 'A Popular Culture'. In: Césaire d'Arles et les cinq continents. Venelles: Assocation aux Sources de la Provence, pp. 180-185
Grig, L. (2017) Cultural capital and Christianization: The metrical inscriptions of Late Antique Rome. In: Bolle, K., Machado, C. and Witschel, C. (eds.) The Epigraphic Cultures of Late Antiquity. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 427-447
Grig, L. (2017) Introduction: Approaching popular culture in the ancient world. In: Grig, L. (ed.) Popular Culture in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-36
Grig, L. (2016) Interpreting the Kalends of January: A case study for late antique popular culture?. In: Grig, L. (ed.) Popular Culture in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 237-256
Grig, L. (2013) The Bible in popular and non-literary culture. In: Joachim, S. and Carleton Paget, J. (eds.) The New Cambridge History of the Bible: From the Beginnings to 600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Grig, L. (2013) Approaching popular culture: Singing in the sermons of Caesarius of Arles. In: Studia Patristica: Vol. LXIX - Papers presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2011., pp. 197-204
Grig, L. (2012) Competing Capitals, Competing Representations: Late antique cityscapes in words and pictures. In: Grig, L. and Kelly, G. (eds.) Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 31-52
Grig, L. and Kelly, G. (2012) Introduction: From Rome to Constantinople. In: Grig, L. and Kelly, G. (eds.) Two Romes. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-30
Grig, L. (2009) Imagining the Capitolium in Late Antiquity. In: Lenski, N. and Cain, A. (eds.) The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity. Ashgate Publishing, pp. 279-291
Grig, L. (2006) Throwing parties for the poor: poverty and splendour in the late antique church. In: Margaret Atkins, R. (ed.) Poverty in the Roman World. Cambridge University Press, pp. 145-161