Joan Breton Connelly

Joan Breton Connelly is a classical archaeologist and Professor of Classics and Art History at New York University. [ [http://as.nyu.edu/object/JoanConnelly.html Joan Breton Connelly Profile at NYU] ] She is Director of the Yeronisos Island Excavations and Field School in Cyprus. [ [http://www.nyu.edu/projects/yeronisos Yeronisos Island Expedition] ] Connelly was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1996. She received the Archaeological Institute of America Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2007 and held the Lillian Vernon Chair for Teaching Excellence at New York University from 2002-2004. [ [http://www.ajaonline.org/pdfs/111.2/AJA1112_AIA_Awards.pdf AIA 2007 Awards] . In "American Journal of Archaeology", Vol. 111, No. 2, April 2007.] She is an Honorary Citizen of the Municipality of Peyia, Republic of Cyprus. She is a Trustee of Bryn Mawr College.

Connelly’s scholarship focuses on Greek art, myth, and religion, and includes a groundbreaking reinterpretation of the Parthenon Frieze. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEFDB173CF937A35754C0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print "New Analysis of the Parthenon's Frieze Finds It Depicts a Horrifying Legend"] by John Noble Wilford, "New York Times", July 4, 1995.] [ [http://chronicle.com/colloquy/98/ancient/background.htm "Colloquy: Revitalizing the classics?"] by Scott Heller, "The Chronicle of Higher Education".] A cultural historian, she has examined topics ranging from female agency, to ritual space, landscape, life cycles, identity, reception, and complexity. In "Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece", Connelly challenges long held beliefs concerning the “invisibility” of women in ancient Greece and brings together far-flung archaeological evidence for women’s leadership roles in the religious life of the city. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/books/review/Coates-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=5e16305e29883c68&oref=slogin "Keepers of the Faith"] by Steve Coates, "New York Times", July 1, 2007.] [ [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=20335 "The Women and the Gods"] by Peter Green, "The New York Review of Books", Vol. 54, No. 11, June 28, 2007.] [ [http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8368.html "Portrait of a Priestess" Profile] at Princeton University Press] "Portrait of a Priestess" has been named as one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year for 2007 by the New York Times Book Review , [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/books/review/notable-books-2007.html "100 Notable Books of the Year"] from "The New York Times"] and the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers has named it the best book in Classics and Ancient History for 2007. [ [http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/2007PSPAwardsRelease.htm 2007 PSP Awards Press Release] ]

A field archaeologist, Connelly has worked at Corinth, Athens, and Nemea in Greece, at Paphos, Kourion, and Ancient Marion in Cyprus, and on the island of Failaka off the coast of Kuwait. Since 1990, she has directed the Yeronisos Island Excavation and Field School just off western Cyprus. Here, she has pioneered eco-archaeology, undertaking floral and faunal surveys, annual bird counts, and establishing guidelines sensitive to the ways in which archaeological intervention impacts the natural environment. Her fieldwork has focused on cross-cultural exchange in the Hellenized East during the centuries following the death of Alexander the Great.

A graduate of Princeton University in Classics, Connelly received her doctorate in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology from Bryn Mawr College where she later served as an Assistant Dean of the Undergraduate College and Lecturer in Classical Archaeology. She has held visiting fellowships at All Souls College, Magdalen College, New College, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, and has been a Visiting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. She held the Norbert Schimmel Fellowship and Classical Fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was a Visiting Scholar in Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in 2007. Connelly is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Royal Geographical Society, the Explorers Club, and the Society of Women Geographers.

In 2003, President George W. Bush appointed Connelly to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, U.S. Department of State. She was reappointed to the post in 2007.

In collaboration with architect Demetri Porphyrios, Connelly submitted a proposal for the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition in 2003. [ [http://www.wtcsitememorial.com/ent/entI=683466.html World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition Entry for Joan Connelly] ] She has delivered the Benjamin West Memorial Lecture at Swarthmore College; the Theodore S. Lowe Lecture at the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation Senior Visiting Scholar Lectures; [ [http://www.onassis.gr/enim_deltio/foreign/03/story_02.php Onassis Public Benefit Foundation Senior Visiting Professors Program] ] and the Phi Beta Kappa Society Visiting Scholar Lectures. In 2007, she delivered the Spencer Trask Lecture at Princeton University. [ [http://mefeedia.com/entry/3505244 "Visual Space/Ritual Space and the Agency of the Greek Priestess"] by Joan Breton Connelly, Feb. 8, 2007.] She has spoken on Greek Priestesses for Andrew Marr’s "Start the Week" program, BBC Radio 4. [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek_20070226.shtml "Start the Week" February 26, 2007, Episode Information] ] In 2007, Connelly appeared in "" (The History Channel) where she discussed classical antecedents for epic themes in the Star Wars saga. [ [http://www.history.com/minisites/starwarslegacy "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed" Website] ] In 2008, she appeared in “Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Quest” (The History Channel, Lucasfilms and Prometheus Entertainment), in which she discussed new technologies in field archaeology, the importance of stratigraphic context, and the global illicit antiquities market. She has also contributed to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Daily News.

Bibliography

#"Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece" Princeton University Press (2007). ( [http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8368.pdf Sample chapter] )
#"Votive Sculpture of Hellenistic Cyprus" (New York and Nicosia 1988).
#" [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9114(199601)100%3A1%3C53%3APAPAMI%3E2.0.CO;2-C Parthenon and Parthenoi: A Mythological Interpretation of the Parthenon Frieze] ,” "American Journal of Archaeology" 100 (1996) 53-80.
#“Narrative and Image in Attic Vase Painting: Ajax and Kassandra at the Trojan Palladion,” in Peter Holiday, ed., "Narrative and Event in Ancient Art" (Cambridge. 1993) 88-129.
#“Votive Offerings of Hellenistic Failaka: Evidence for Herakles Cult,” "In L'Arabie Préislamique et son Environnement Historique et Culturel, Université des Sciences Humaine de Strasbourg" (Leiden 1989) 145-158.
#Field Reports on the Yeronisos Island Excavations, "Reports of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus", 2002-2007.
#“The Legacy of Classical Athens in Post 9/11 New York,” in "The Future of New York: An International Perspective", ed. E. Posner, "Properties: The Review of the Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute" (Spring 2006) 204-213.

References

External links

* [http://www.nyu.edu/projects/yeronisos Yeronisos Island Excavations and Field School]
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691127468 "Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece"]