Patricia McDonald

What I find most enjoyable is being able to participate in an ongoing conversation about the ancient world. Developments in sociological and anthropological thinking, along with historical approaches, keep transforming our understanding of how people lived and what antiquity means to us today.

I’ve also taken courses in classical reception, which focuses on how contemporary society interprets and interacts with antiquity.

It’s fascinating to learn the history of my field and its ways of approaching evidence, and then get to participate myself: What do I want to contribute? Which theoretical approaches seem relevant or underexplored? How might they help us understand the evidence?