FACULTY DIRECTORY A-D
Meet our experts!
Princess O'Nika Auguste
"Hecuba in Literature"
Princess O'Nika Auguste is a Caribbean writer, feminist, and scholar from Saint Lucia. Her work passionately unearths silenced histories, examining the crossroads of gender, mythology, violence, and the sacred. She weaves theology, history, and pop culture through a unique lens to challenge dominant narratives and reclaim marginalised voices. Her writing appears in publications like Christian Feminism Today and PopCulture and Theology, and she has notably contributed an exploration of the goddess Tethys for The Periodic Table of Greek Mythology. In all her work, Auguste seeks to amplify the overlooked and inspire new ways of seeing.
Mike Beer
"Augustus - an Introduction"
My name is Dr Mike Beer. I am an Honorary Research Fellow in the
Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of
Exeter. I am also an Associate Lecturer at the Open University. Areas of
academic interest include food in antiquity, ancient religion and the
Julio-Claudian emperors.
When I am not
thinking about the ancient world, I think a lot about the paintings of
Caravaggio and Brutalist architecture.
Chance Bonar
"Slavery in Roman Society"
Chance Bonar (he/they) is an Advising Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Virginia. He has a PhD in Religion from Harvard University. Their research focuses heavily on ancient Christianity, slavery in the Roman world, and the history and literature of ancient Palestine. They have published two books on authorship and enslavement to God, and have three more books forthcoming on ancient slave revolts, late ancient Gazan literature, and the reception of the biblical figure of Onesimus.
Bret Devereaux
"The First Punic War"
Bret C. Devereaux is a historian specializing in warfare during the Middle Roman Republic and a teaching assistant professor at North Carolina State University. His book project, Of Arms and Men: Why Rome Always Won, forthcoming with Oxford University Press, investigates the costs of fielding armies in this period. He also blogs about the intersection of history and pop culture at A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.blog).
Lexi Diggins
"Boudica"
Lexi Diggins is an archaeologist and curator with experience across Iron Age and Roman sites. Her work foregrounds women in archaeology, from contemporary practitioners to those involved in the 1930s digs at Verulamium, as well as Iron Age and Romano-British women evidenced in the archaeological record.
Lexi hopes to use archaeology to tell more inclusive stories about Britain’s past.
Jane Draycott
"Fulvia"
"Jane Draycott is a Roman historian and archaeologist, and the author of Cleopatra’s Daughter: Egyptian Princess, Roman Prisoner, African Queen and Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome. When she is not reading, writing, or thinking about Roman history and archaeology, she enjoys indulging her wanderlust by travelling to interesting places, playing computer games, cooking vegan food, practising yoga and hooping. She lives in Glasgow with a tyrannical Norwegian Forest Cat named Magnus, and is currently renovating a dilapidated Victorian house.