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Dorian Borbonus

Professor; Associate Director of Research, University Honors Program

Full-Time Faculty

College of Arts and Sciences: History

Contact

Email: Dorian Borbonus
Phone: 937-229-2802
AH 125E

Degrees

  • Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2006

Profile

Dr. Dorian Borbonus is a professor in the Department of History where he teaches courses in ancient Greek and Roman history. He studied classical archaeology in Berlin and Philadelphia, and was a regular member at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens from 2001-02. He has traveled and excavated in Greece and Turkey and lived in Athens and Rome. He speaks German and Italian and reads French, Latin and ancient Greek.

Dr. Borbonus is interested in Roman cities and his research concentrates on the development of Roman funerary architecture and art. He was a contributing author on the Mapping Augustan Rome project and has written a book on Columbarium Tombs, enigmatic tombs in Rome that resemble the more familiar catacombs. Currently, he is working on a research project on the development of funerary culture in imperial Rome and spent the academic year 2016-17 as a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome to carry out the research underlying this book. The goal of this project is to create a narrative of historical change in the imperial capital that is based primarily on material culture. Dr. Borbonus is also engaged in Fieldwork (see video below) that documents the extant architecture of the Roman Cemetery of San Paolo in Rome.

Curriculum Vitae >

Courses taught

  • HST 103: The West and the World
  • HST 220: Survey of Ancient History
  • HST 302: Identity in Ancient Greece
  • HST 303: Roman Imperial Rule
  • HST 304: Ancient History and Modern Ideology

Research interests

  • Roman art and archaeology
  • Roman funerary culture
  • Topography of Rome
  • Roman social history

Selected publications

Borbonus, D., Columbarium Tombs and Collective Identity in Augustan Rome (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Borbonus, D. and E. Dumser (ed.), Building the Classical World. Bauforschung as a Contemporary Approach (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).

Bargfeldt, N. and D. Borbonus. “Architectural documentation and digital reconstruction: problems and possibilities,” Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 123 (2022) 297-313, DOI: 10.48255/0392-7636.BCAR.CXXIII.2022.21

(In production) Freed Persons in the Roman World: Integration, Diversity, and Representation, co-edited with Rose MacLean and Sinclair Bell.

Selected presentations

Feb. 1, 2024: “Dignity and social control through burial practices in ancient Rome” AIA society, Lubbock, TX.

Jan. 6, 2024: “VR environments as spaces for virtual collaboration” AIA/SCS joint workshop Ancient Maker Spaces, 2024 Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Chicago IL.

April 6, 2022: “Ancient History Six Feet Under: The Tombs of Rome from Antiquarian Pursuit to Digital Humanities,” Ancient Studies Program, Ball State University, Muncie, IN.

Jan. 3, 2020: “Mapping Funerary Monuments in the Periphery of Imperial Rome,” 121st Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Washington, DC, panel on “Blurring the Boundaries: Interactions between the Living and the Dead in the Roman World.”