Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis

Dr Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Teaching at the University of St Andrews' School of Classics, specializing in Classical material culture and its reception in the 18th-19th centuries. She co-founded the Inclusive Classics Initiative and directs teaching across the School while maintaining an active research profile focused on marginalized perspectives in antiquity.

Education:

• BA in Classics, Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1995)
• MA in Art History (Byzantine and Classical), The Courtauld Institute of Art (1996)
• PhD in Art History, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2001)

Her research centers on two interconnected strands: religion, travel, and the body in Hellenistic/Roman Greece, and reception of Classical material culture through 18th-19th century travel and collecting. She pioneers methodologies for recovering non-elite voices and examines intimate object encounters within natural/built environments. Recent work analyzes Ottoman Greece travel narratives and the intersection of classical reception with revolutionary movements.

Her publications reveal consistent focus on marginalized perspectives in classical reception, with recent monographs and edited volumes exploring 19th-century archaeology in Ottoman contexts. Key themes include travel writing as historical evidence, material culture studies, and the politics of collecting practices. Her 2024 edited volume Travel and Classical Antiquities in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Greece represents a significant intervention in reception studies.

Scientific Awards:

• British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2020)
• Fellow of Society of Antiquaries of London (2019)
• Fellow of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (2020)
• Times Higher Education Teaching Awards Shortlist (2021)
• St Andrews Teaching Excellence Award (2020)
• McCall MacBain Teaching Award (2019)

She supervises PhD candidates including Justin Lorenzo Biggi and Annabel Crawshaw-Brown, focusing on classical reception and material culture. Major research grants include a £106,839 British Academy award for Greece Above and Below Ground (2021-2022) and Paul Mellon Centre funding (£15,000) for The British Art of Travel (2022). Her Loeb Foundation grant (2020-2021) supported archival work on Thomas Burgon.

She directs the St Andrews Centre for Receptions of Antiquity and Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies, while co-leading the Inclusive Classics Initiative with Professor Barbara Goff. Her 2021 workshop Towards a More Inclusive Classics II advanced equity-focused pedagogy across classical studies globally.