Mary-Evelyn Farrior

Mary-Evelyn comes to Columbia from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, where she earned her M.A. in Classics in 2016. Her Master’s Thesis, “Roman Power and Athenian Past,” examined the cult and temple of Roma and Augustus on the Athenian Acropolis. Through an analysis of both the cult’s development and the temple’s physical realization, the thesis argues that this structure was an unprecedented honor intended to show confidence in Augustus as a leader while also celebrating Athenian past. While at Tulane, Mary-Evelyn was a teaching assistant for several courses, in topics ranging from Greek Temples and Festivals to Roman Republican History.

This past summer, Mary-Evelyn served as an exhibition intern at the Parco Archeologico di Paestum, assisting with the development of an exhibition proposal intended for American museums, as well as the catalogue for the exhibition Possessione. Trafugamenti e falsi di antichità a Paestum (“Possession: Thefts and Forgeries of Antiquities at Paestum”). Afterwards, Mary-Evelyn headed to Sicily: she has been working on the “American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project” (AEM:CAP) for the past two years (she presented on AEM:CAP at the Louisiana Classical Association Annual Meeting in 2015). In the summer of 2014, Mary-Evelyn excavated at the Sant’Omobono Project in Rome.

Mary-Evelyn earned her B.A. with honors from Brown University. Her Honors Thesis examined the interactions between M. Tullius Cicero and M. Porcius Cato in Cicero’s Pro Murena as well as their letters. In 2013, Mary-Evelyn was awarded an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award from Brown University to develop and encode a digital catalogue on Roman funerals with Dr. John Bodel. Earlier that same year, Mary-Evelyn studied abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies. While in Rome, she interned at the American Academy in Rome, helping to digitally catalogue the Academy’s collection of cippi. Over the course of her undergraduate career, Mary-Evelyn published twice in the Brown Classical Journal and once in the Berkeley Undergraduate Journal of Classics; additionally, she served as an editor for the Brown Classical Journal.