Rate My Professor John Bodel

Since 1995, Bodel has directed the U.S. Epigraphy Project, overseeing the development of an XML-based search engine, photographic archive, and database of over 3,500 ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions in the United States, while collaborating on EpiDoc guidelines for digital epigraphy. He serves as Co-Director and Concentration Advisor of Brown’s Program in Early Cultures. His publications include authored monographs Roman Brick Stamps in the Kelsey Museum (University of Michigan Press, 1983) and Graveyards and Groves: A Study of the Lex Lucerina (1994), as well as edited volumes such as Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions (Routledge, 2001), Household and Family Religion in Antiquity: Contextual and Comparative Perspectives with Saul Olyan (Blackwell, 2008), Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World with Susan E. Alcock and Richard J. Talbert (2012), Ancient Documents and their Contexts (Brill, 2015), On Human Bondage: After Slavery and Social Death with Walter Scheidel (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017), and The Hidden Language of Graphic Signs: Cryptic Writing and Meaningful Marks with Stephen Houston (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Key articles feature “Dealing with the Dead: Undertakers, Executioners, and Potter’s Fields in Ancient Rome” (2000), “Slave Labour and Roman Society” (2011), and “Latin Epigraphy and the IT Revolution” (2012). Bodel’s honors comprise Fellow of the American Academy in Rome (1983), National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship (1993), Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Ancient Studies at the American Academy in Rome (2006), Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship (2010), and ACLS Fellowship for The Ancient Roman Funeral (2015).