Duke University - Art, Art History & Visual Studies

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    Sheila Dillon

  • Sheila Dillon

  • Associate Professor of Art History, Director of Undergraduate Studies and secondary faculty/Classical Studies
  • Art, Art History & Visual Studies
  • 116A East Duke Building
  • Campus Box 90764
  • Phone: (919) 684-6082, (919) 684-2224
  • Fax: (919) 684-4398
  • Homepage
  • Curriculum Vitae

  • Specialties

    • Greek & Roman Art
    • Sculpture
    • New Technologies for Visualizing Historical Materials

  • Research Summary

    portraiture; the sculptural landscape of the ancient Greek city, funerary monuments

  • Research Description

    Sheila Dillon received a Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Her fields of research and teaching are Greek and Roman art. Her most recent book is entitled The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World (Cambridge University Press 2010), a project for which she received an NEH faculty fellowship in 2005 and which has just been released in paperback (2011). Her book Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture: Contexts, Subjects, and Styles (2006; paperback edition 2012) was awarded the James R. Wiseman Book Award from the Archaeological Institute of America in January 2008. She has also co-edited a volume of essays entitled Representations of War in Ancient Rome (2006). Professor Dillon was a member of the Aphrodisias Excavations in Turkey from 1992-2004, and collaborated on the study and publication of Roman Portrait Statuary from Aphrodisias (2006), the second volume in the Aphrodisias Monograph series. She co-edited A Companion to Women in the Ancient World with her colleague Sharon James of UNC-Chapel Hill (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), and is developing a project on death and the art of sculptural commemoration in Athens from antiquity to the 19th century CE, which will leverage digital visualization for recreating standing monument cemeteries. Professor Dillon will be Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Archaeology beginning in July 2013.

  • Current Projects

    Death, Burial, and Commemoration in Athens, antiquity to the late 19th century

    Women in the History and Visual Culture of Greece & Rome: A Sourcebook, co-authored book project with Sharon L. James

  • Education

      • PhD,
      • Art History,
      • New York University, Institute of Fine Arts
      • BA,
      • Art History,
      • Rutgers University
      • AAS,
      • Jewelry Design,
      • Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY

  • Awards, Honors and Distinctions

      • Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Archaeology,
      • Archaeological Institute of America,
      • 2013-2016
      • James R. Wiseman Book Award for Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture,
      • Archaeological Institute of America,
      • January, 2008
      • Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies,
      • 2006-2007
      • Fellowship,
      • National Endowment for the Humanities,
      • 2005-2006
      • Millard Meiss Publication Grant,
      • College Art Association,
      • November 2004
      • Faculty Fellow,
      • John Hope Franklin Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, Duke University,
      • 2002-2003
      • Rome Prize Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Classical Studies and Archaeology,
      • American Academy in Rome,
      • 1997-1998

  • Selected Publications

      • with
      • R.R.R. Smith, C.H. Hallett, J. Lenaghan, J. Van Voorhis.
      • Roman Portrait Statuary from Aphrodisias.
      • Philipp von Zabern, Mainz Germany,
      • 2006.
      • (Reviews: J. Tanner, BMCR 2007.04.07).
      • [BMCR review]
      • S. Dillon and K. Welch, editors.
      • Representations of War in Ancient Rome.
      • Cambridge University Press,
      • reissued in paperback 2009.
      • [web]
      • [TLS review]
      • S. Dillon and S. James, co-editors, eds.
      • The Blackwell Companion to Women in the Ancient World.
      • (January, 2012)
      • .
      • "Portraits of Women in the early Hellenistic Period."
      • Early Hellenistic Portraiture: Image, Style, Context.
      • Ed. Ralf von den Hoff and Peter Schultz.
      • Cambridge University Press,
      • October, 2007.
      • 63-83.
      • [web]
      • "Women on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus and the Visual Language of Roman Victory."
      • Representations of War in Ancient Rome.
      • Ed. Sheila Dillon and Katherine Welch.
      • Cambridge University Press,
      • April, 2006.
      • "Subject selection and viewer reception of Greek portraits from Herculaneum and Tivoli."
      • Journal of Roman Archaeology
      • 13
      • (2000)
      • :
      • 21-40.
      • "Figured Pilaster Capitals from Aphrodisias in Caria."
      • American Journal of Archaeology
      • 1997
      • .101
      • (1997)
      • :
      • 731-69.
      • [web]
      • "The portraits of a civic benefactor of 2nd-c. Ephesos."
      • Journal of Roman Archaeology
      • 1996
      • .9
      • (1996)
      • :
      • 261-74.
  • View All Publications

  • Selected Grants

    • National Endowment for the Humanities, Faculty Fellowship: 2005-2006
    • Millard Meiss Publication Grant, 2004
      • Agency: College Art Association

  • PhD Students

    • Lindsey Mazurek
      • 2009-present
    • Elizabeth P. Baltes
    • Rachel L. Meyers
      • 2006
      • Status: Graduated
      • Thesis: Visual Representations of the Antonine Empresses
    • Marianne E Wardle
      • December, 2010
      • Thesis: Naked and Unashamed: A Study of the Aphrodite Anadyomene in the Greco-Roman World

  • Teaching

    • VISUALST 150
      • ROMAN SPECTACLE
    • ARTHIST 125A
      • ART and ARCHAELOGY ANCIENT ATHENS
    • VISUALST 201SL
      • WIRED! NEW REPRESENT TECH
    • ARTHIST 395
      • GRAD SEMINAR - The Classical Style in Greek Sculpture