Associate Professor of Classics Michael A. Anderson is the latest subject in a series of video profiles featuring faculty discussing their passions for teaching and research. He discusses his Via Consolare Project, an archaeological excavation in Pompeii, Italy, where Classics students have the opportunity to dig underground in the historic city every summer.
“My main interest there is to understand how the city develops, not just the city of Pompeii itself, but really broadly how urbanism grows in the Roman world from the third century until its destruction in 79 C.E. and beyond,” Anderson says in the video.
He adds that students gain valuable cultural knowledge from studying ancient archaeology.
“The ability to step outside of one’s own culture to approach another and understand it, is something that I hope stays with them for the rest of their lives,” says Anderson, who has worked at the Pompeii site since 1996.
Silvia Turchin directed the video. It is produced by the College of Liberal & Creative Arts Communication Team in association with Sleeping Tree Pictures.
Anderson has published numerous articles and chapters on Roman urbanism and domestic space, and is completing the publication of excavations undertaken in the Casa del Chirurgo (House of the Surgeon), Pompeii, by University of Bradford between 2002 and 2006. In 2005, he received a Ph.D. in archaeology from University of Cambridge, where he wrote his dissertation, “Visitors, Inhabitants, Space and Power in the Roman House.”Video
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