My research focuses on the construction of identity and cultural interaction. I am especially interested in the making of communities – not only their physical formation through landscape and architecture, but also their social formation through cultural practice, and their conceptual formation through the construction of identity.
My work to date has focused on these topics in relation to the Iron Age to Classical periods in the ancient Greek world and Anatolia, focusing in particular on the Greek cities of Ionia and Cilicia, but also on Troy and myths of the Trojan War. My current project expands the geographical frame, considering. migration and mobility around the Mediterranean in the Iron Age. It is called MIGMAG: Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World, and is funded by a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council, and will run from 2020 to 2025 (https://www.migmag-erc.eu/).
I am also interested in wider engagement with the antiquity, and the politics of reception and heritage. I passionately believe that those of us who study the past also have a responsibility to the present. In addition, I am the lead academic editor for the journal Anatolian Studies.
Professor of Classical Archaeology
Institute for Classical Archaeology, Vienna
