Annetta Alexandridis

Overview

Annetta Alexandridis studies the art and archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome with a particular interest in gender studies, animal studies, and the media of archaeology. Her first book researched how the women of the Roman Imperial families from Livia to Julia Domna (late 1st century BCE to early 3rd century CE) were represented in public (Die Frauen des römischen Kaiserhauses. Eine Untersuchung ihrer bildlichen Darstellung von Livia bis Iulia Domna; von Zabern, 2004). It argues that their imagery as promoted in statues, coins, inscriptions, honorary titles, and funerary orations helped establish the political and public role of these women – a function the political system itself (a monarchy staged as a republic) did not provide.

Alexandridis’ current book project focuses on concepts of humans and animals and interrogates how boundaries between both were negotiated in Greek mythological imagery and medical writings. Her co-edited multilingual conference volume on the transgression of species boundaries in Greco-Roman antiquity (Mensch und Tier in der Antike. Grenzziehung und Grenzüberschreitung, Reichelt 2008) deals with similar questions.

Drawing on the substantial photographic archive of the Collection of Antiquities at Berlin (Antikensammlung Berlin), her co-authored volume Archäologie der Photographie (von Zabern, 2004) explores the tensions between documentary and aesthetic value of archaeological photographs. Her most recent contribution to the media of archaeology is a co-edited conference volume Destroy the Copy – Plaster Cast Collections in the 19th–20th Centuries (De Gruyter, 2022), the first ever to explicitly address the destruction of plaster cast collections of ancient Mediterranean and Western sculpture, with a focus on Europe, the Americas, and Japan. Her own contribution ‘excavates’ the colonialist and racist epistemologies of the field in its use of plaster casts. Currently, she co-conducts a reading and research project on German-American Jewish-Catholic immigrant archaeologist Margarete Bieber (1879-1978), with Francesco de Angelis, Columbia University, and graduate students from Cornell, Columbia, NYU, and Rutgers.

Alexandridis is an associate director of the Harvard-Cornell Exploration of Sardis, Türkiye (directed by Nicholas Cahill, Madison/Wisconsin). There, she co-conducts (with Susanne Ebbinghaus, Harvard) a survey of the cemeteries to trace the social history of this ancient city at the crossroads between East and West.

Alexandridis serves on the editorial board of the open access journal ARTS.

She holds a PhD from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. Her dissertation received the dissertation prize (Förderpreis) of Munich University Association and was awarded the travel scholarship of the German Archaeological Institute 1997–98). She was a fellow at Cornell’s Society for the Humanities (2015-16) and a Junior Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies (2005-06). Before joining Cornell, Alexandridis taught at Rostock University in Germany and worked at the Antikensammlung and Pergamonmuseum Berlin.

She considers hands-on work with the material key for her research and teaching as much as interdisciplinary collaboration. At Cornell she co-curates the plaster cast collection with Verity Platt and is also responsible for the coin collection. She loves to team-teach classes with her colleagues and to co-advise dissertations across departments. She also co-ordinates the exchange program for graduate students in ancient art and archaeology with the University of Freiburg, Germany.

Research Focus

• Roman portraiture
• Funerary culture at Sardis, Turkey
• Greek myth and iconography
• Archaeology and its media (esp. plaster casts)
• Gender studies
• Animal studies

Publications

Books

Authored 

Die Frauen des römischen Kaiserhauses. Eine Untersuchung ihrer bildlichen Darstellung von Livia bis Iulia Domna (Mainz: von Zabern, 2004)

Archäologie der Photographie. Bilder aus der Photothek der Berliner Antikensammlung (with Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer) (Mainz: von Zabern, 2004)

 

Edited

Destroy the Copy - Plaster Cast Colletions in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Demolition, Defacement, Disposal in Europe and Beyond (with Lorenz Winkler-Horaček) (Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2022).

Mensch und Tier in der Antike: Grenzziehung und Grenzüberschreitung (with Markus Wild and Lorenz Winkler-Horaček) (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2008).

 

Articles (selection)

On images of (Roman Imperial) Women:

“Portraiture of Flavian Imperial Women,” in: Elizabeth Carney – Sabine Müller (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean World (London – New York: Routledge 2021) 423–438.

“The Women of the Severan Dynasty: Coining Female Power?” in: Carmen Arnold-Biucchi and Martin Beckmann (eds.), Sculpture and Coins: Margarete Bieber as Scholar and Collector (Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018) 89–145. 

‘Töchter der Wirklichkeit’? – Darstellungen alter Frauen in der griechisch-römischen Antike,” in: Christiane Nowak - Lorenz Winkler-Horaček (eds.), Auf der Suche nach der Wirklichkeit Berlin: Abguss-Sammlung Antiker Plastik (Rahden/Westf.: Marie Leidorf, 2018) 55 –72.

“Frauen um Nero – Ehefrauen und Geliebte,” in: Jürgen Merten (ed.), Nero – Kaiser, Künstler und Tyrann (exhibition catalogue Landesmuseum Trier, 2016) 64–73.

“Mimesis oder Metapher? Aphroditekörper im römischen Frauenportät,” in: Dietrich Boschung and Ludwig Jäger (eds.), Formkonstanz und Bedeutungswandel. Archäologische und medienwissenschaftliche Reflexionen (Paderborn: Fink, 2014) 67–102.

“Neutral bodies? Female portrait statue types from the late Republic to the 2nd century C.E.,” in: Shelley Hales and Tamar Hodos (eds.), Material Culture and Social Identities in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 252–279.

“The Other Side of the Coin: The Women of the Flavian Imperial Family,” in: Norbert Kramer and Christiane Reitz (eds.), Tradition und Erneuerung: Mediale Strategien in der Zeit der Flavier, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde vol. 285 (Berlin & New York: de Gruyter, 2010) 191–237.

“Individualisierung, Homogenisierung, Angst vor Vergänglichkeit. Weibliche Grab- und Ehrenstatuen der römischen Republik und der Kaiserzeit,” in: Natascha Sojc (ed.), Neue Fragen, neue Antworten. Antike Kunst als Thema der Gender Studies. Geschlecht – Symbol – Religion 3 (Berlin: LIT-Verlag, 2005) 111–124.

“Überall (götter)gleich? Theomorphe Bildnisse der Frauen des römischen Kaiserhauses,” in: Mirjana Sanader and Ante Rendic Miočevic (eds.), The Proceedings of the 8th International Colloquium on Problems of Roman Provincial Art, Zagreb 5.-8.5. 2003. Religion and myth as an impetus for the Roman provincial sculpture (Zagreb: Golden Marketing – Tehnička Knjiga, 2005) 415–422.

“Schmucklos oder trachtlos. Bildnisse römischer Frauen vom 1. Jh.v. – 2. Jh. n. Chr.,” in: Akten des Internationalen Symposiums über Schmuck und Tracht der Antike im Laufe der Zeit, Modra- Harmónia 2003, Anodos 3, 2003: 9–22

“Eine Hochzeitsgöttin im Römergrab von Köln-Weiden. Zur Chalcedon-Statuette der Berliner Antikensammlung,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 43, 2001: 53–56. 

Reviews of:

Molly M. Lindner, Portraits of the Vestal Virgins, Priestesses of Ancient Rome (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015). Journal of Roman Archaeology 31.2, 2018, 682–688.

Martin Beckmann, Diva Faustina. Coinage and Cult in Rome and the Provinces. Numismatic Studies 26 (New York: The American Numismatic Society, 2012). Journal of Roman Archaeology 29, 2016: 732–741.

Sheila Dillon, The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Gnomon 87.3, 2015: 245–251.

Dietrich Boschung, Gens Augusta. Untersuchungen zur Aufstellung, Wirkung und Bedeutung der Statuengruppen des julisch-claudischen Kaiserhauses (Mainz: von Zabern, 2002), Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft 8, 2005: 1019–28. http://gfa.gbv.de/dr,gfa,008,2005,r,03.pdf

Kathrin Schade, Frauen in der Spätantike. Eine Untersuchung zur römischen und frühbyzantinischen Bildniskunst (Mainz: von Zabbern, 2003), in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 10. 11. 2003. http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2003-4-079.pdf

Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (Hrsg.), Die Kaiserinnen Roms. Von Livia bis Theodora (München: Beck, 2002), in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 26. 05. 2003. http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2003-2-116.pdf

Tomasz Mikocki, Sub specie deae. Les impératrices et princesses romaines assimilées à des déesses. Étude iconologique (Rom: Bretschneider, 1995), Gnomon 71, 1999: 704–8.

 

On humans and animals (and others) in Greek iconography:

“Weder Mann noch Mensch. Projektionen der Geschlechterdifferenz im Mythos,” in: Stefan Krmnicek (ed.), Antike Rollenbilder. Wertvorstellungen in Münzbildern (Bonn: Habelt, 2018) 125–131. 

“The Minotaur and other monsters in the Greek imagination,” in: Nick Hopwood, Rebecca Flemming, Lauren Kassell (eds.), Reproduction: From Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), exhibit 2 (between pp. 180–181).

“Tod eines Roboters. Talos und der ‘ganz besondre Saft’,” in: Michael Busch, Stefan Kroll and Małgorzata Anna Maksymiak (eds.), Hippokratische Grenzgänge – Ausflüge in kultur- und medizingeschichtliche Wissensfelder. Festschrift für Hans-Uwe Lammel zum 65. Geburtstag (Hamburg: Dr. Kovač 2017) 11–27. 

“Κρητικές διασταυρώσεις. Υβριδισμός και μεταμόρφωση στους μύθους της Ευρώπης και της Πασιφάη/ Cretan Crossbreeds: Hybridity and Metamorphosis in the Myths of Europa and Pasiphae,” in: Panayotis Soukakos – Minas Paschopoulos – Ariadne Gartsiou-Tatti (eds.) Υβριδικά και ιδιότυπα όντα. Αποκλίσεις από την «κανονικότητα» στην Αρχαία Ελληνική Μυθολογία και στη σύγχρονη Ιατρική/ Hybrid and Εxtraordinary Βeings.  Deviations from “Νormality” in Ancient Greek Mythology and Μodern Medicine (Ioannina, 2017) 31–39.

“Ζῷα: Bilder des Körpers zwischen Mensch und Tier im Mythos von Aktaion, ” in: Dietrich Boschung – Alan Shapiro – Frank Waschek (eds.), Bodies in Transition. Dissolving the Boundaries of Embodied Knowledge (Paderborn: Fink, 2015) 313–349. 

“Zwischen Mensch und Tier: Bilder der Metamorphose und der Zoophilie im griechischen Mythos,” in: Luca Tori – Aline Steinbrecher (eds.), Animali. Tiere und Fabelwesen von der Antike bis zur Neuzeit. Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum (Geneva – Milan: Skira, 2013) 70–79. 

“Animals,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 108–112. 

“Shifting species. Animal and Human Bodies in Attic Vase Painting of the 6th and 5th Centuries B.C.,” in: Thorsten Fögen and Mireille Lee (eds.) Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Berlin & New York: de Gruyter, 2009) 267–286. 

“Wenn Götter lieben, wenn Götter strafen. Zur Ikonographie der Zoophilie im griechischen Mythos,” in: Annetta Alexandridis, Markus Wild, Lorenz Winkler-Horaček (eds.), Mensch und Tier in der Antike. Grenzziehung und Grenzüberschreitung (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2008) 285–311. 

Reviews of:

Claudia Lang-Auinger – Elisabeth Trinkl (Hg.), ΦΥΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΖΩΙΑ. Pflanzen und Tiere auf griechischen Vasen. Akten des internationalen Symposiums an der Universität Graz, 26.-28. September 2013. CVA Österreich Bhft. 2. (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015). Gnomon 91.8, 2019, 725–730.

Emma Aston, Mixanthropoi. Animal-Human Hybrid Deities in Greek Religion. Kernos Suppl. 25 (Liège: Centre international d'étude de la religion grecque antique, 2011). Mnemosyne 67, 2014: 150-154 (DOI: 10.1163/1568525X-12341590). 2014

Harald Mielsch, Griechische Tiergeschichten in der antiken Kunst (Mainz: von Zabern, 2005). BMCR 2006.05.30. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2006/2006-05-30.html

 

On funerary culture (at Sardis):

“Funerary Containers from Roman Sardis,” in: Maria Aurenhammer (ed.), Sculpture in Roman Asia minor. Sonderschriften des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes 56 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2018) 265–280. 

“Death and the City: Asiatic Columnar Sarcophagi in Context,” in: James Osborne (ed.), Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology (Albany: SUNY Press, 2014) 233–256.

 

On the history and media of archaeology and collecting:

“Plaster Casts in Enlightenment and Colonialist Discourses on Race,” in: Annetta Alexandridis and Lorenz Winkler-Horaček (eds.). Destroy the Copy - Plaster Cast Collections in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Demolition, Defacement, Disposal in Europe and Beyond (Berlin - New York: De Gruyter, 2022) 494–525.

“Die ungeliebte Sammlung. Zur transatlantischen Geschichte einiger Skulpturen der Collezione Giustiniani,” in: Johanna Stapelfeldt – Ulrike Vedder – Klaus Wiehl (eds.), Museales Erzählen. Dinge, Räume, Narrative (Paderborn: Brill – Fink, 2020) 263–296.

“Gipse in der ‘Neuen Welt’,” in: Nele Schröder and Lorenz Winkler-Horacek (eds.), Von Gestern bis Morgen. Zur Geschichte der Berliner Gipsabgusssammlung(en) (Rahden/Westf.: Verlag Marie Leidorf, 2012) 297–300. 

“John Henry Parker – the “Archaeologist of Rome”?,” in: Christine Kühn (ed.), Italienische Fotografien der Sammlung John Henry Parker (Berlin: Staatliche Museen, 2000) 80–95.

Reviews of:

Daniel Graepler - Jorun Ruppel (eds.), Weiß wie Gips? Die Behandlung der Oberflächen von Gipsabgüssen/White as Plaster? Plaster Casts and the Treatment of Their Surface. Göttinger Studien zur Mediterranen Archäologie 10. (Rahden/Westfalen: Marie Leidorf, 2019), Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft 22: 1161-1172.       DOI: 10.14628/GFA_022_2019_R20

Vincent Jolivet, Ruines Italiennes. Photographies des collections Alinari (Paris: Gallimard, 2006), BMCR 2008.03.19. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2008/2008-03-19.html

 

In the news

• ‘Destroy the Copy’: Essay collection rethinks the history of plaster casts
• Professor Alexandridis co-edits new book, "Destroy the Copy"
• Sculpture Shoppe launches with ancient Greek song performance
• New lecture series introduces research at ancient Sardis
• Miniature casts of Temple of Zeus take their place in namesake cafe
• Second century mosaic graces Klarman Hall atrium
• Classical Art- Ideal Form, Copy, Illusion
• Animal depictions in the ancient world explored in conference