Rate My Professor Gwynaeth McIntyre

Gwynaeth McIntyre is an Associate Professor in the Classics programme at the University of Otago, School of Arts, Division of Humanities. She earned her BA from Victoria University, MA from York University, and PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2010, with a thesis titled 'A family of gods: a diachronic study of the cult of the divi/divae in the Latin West'. Her academic career includes prior work at the University of British Columbia, where she served as faculty advisor for the student-led Digital Humanities project 'From Stone to Screen'. At Otago, she has advanced from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor, earning recognition for teaching excellence, including the University of Otago Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2022, the Division of Humanities Teaching Excellence Award in 2019, and nomination as a finalist for OUSA Supervisor of the Year in the Humanities in 2023.

McIntyre's research examines the political, social, and religious history of the ancient world, focusing on how mythology, religion, art, coins, and inscriptions conveyed messages of power and identity across the Roman Empire. Her monograph A Family of Gods: The Worship of the Imperial Family in the Latin West was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2016. Other key works include Imperial Cult in Brill Research Perspectives in Ancient History (2019) and the edited volume Uncovering Anna Perenna: A Focused Study of Roman Myth and Culture (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). Selected articles comprise 'Commemorating the Past and Performing Power: Parades of Ancestors on Caligula's Coinage' (Antichthon, 2023), 'Maxentius, the Dioscuri, and the Legitimisation of Imperial Power' (Antichthon, 2018), and 'Camillus as Numa: Religion in Livy’s refoundation narrative' (Journal of Ancient History, 2018). She has contributed chapters such as 'Making and Breaking Emperors: The cohors praetoria and the Transition of Imperial Power' in Brill's Companion to Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean (2022). Currently, she is authoring a monograph 'A Day in the Life: Reading Across Suetonius’ de vita Caesarum', supported by a University of Otago Prestigious Writing Grant awarded in 2025. McIntyre collaborates with Associate Professor Dan Osland to digitize the Tūhura Otago Museum’s Greek and Roman coin collections, advancing projects on political messaging in coinage, antiquities collecting in Aotearoa New Zealand, digital humanities, and innovative pedagogy, as detailed in publications like 'Coins in the Classroom – Teaching Group Work with Roman Coins' (Journal of Classics Teaching, 2020).