Diana Spencer

Professor Diana Spencer is a distinguished academic at the University of Birmingham, serving as Professor of Classics in the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology within the College of Arts and Law. She has held the significant leadership position of Dean of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences since 2014 (with a brief return to the role in 2019 after a sabbatical). Her academic career spans over two decades at the University of Birmingham, following doctoral studies at Cambridge where she focused on Q. Curtius Rufus.

Professor Spencer's educational background reflects a deep engagement with classical studies and interdisciplinary approaches:

• PGCert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University of Birmingham (2003)
• PhD in Classics, University of Cambridge (1997)
• MA in Late Antique and early Byzantine Studies, University of London (1992)
• BA (Hons) in Modern English and Classical Civilization, Trinity College Dublin (1991)

Her research interests coalesce around questions of Roman identity, cultural politics, and the relationship between people and place in antiquity. Professor Spencer investigates how identity and cultural politics are manifest through narratives emphasizing space, territory, cultivation of place, and ethos. She is particularly fascinated by authors and texts engaged in interrogation of what 'self,' 'nature,' and 'wild' mean in the Roman context. Her work spans multiple interconnected strands including Varro studies, literary Roman landscapes, language and identities, and her current project 'Out of Place' which examines the significance of places in relation to the bodies that defined, occupied, and dwelt in them.

Professor Spencer's recent publications reveal a consistent focus on Roman cultural identity, with particular emphasis on Varro's linguistic and cultural contributions, the representation of Rome and its landscapes in literature, and the interplay between environment and identity formation. Her work bridges traditional classical scholarship with innovative approaches from ecolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, and social geography, demonstrating the continued relevance of ancient texts to contemporary questions about place, identity, and environmental experience.

Among her notable professional contributions:

• Author of the monograph 'Language and Authority in de Lingua Latina: Varro's Guide to Being Roman' (2019)
• BBC's 'In Our Time' expert speaker on Alexander the Great
• British School at Rome Ambassador (2016-2019)
• Journal editorial board member for American Journal of Philology, Classical Association Journals Board, and Intertexts
• External examiner for PhDs at multiple prestigious institutions including University of London, University of Reading, Bristol University, University of Nottingham, and University of Cape Town

Professor Spencer has supervised numerous doctoral students, often in collaborative arrangements, with research topics spanning Roman urbanism, literary representations of Rome, autocracy in Julio-Claudian literature, and ancient ecological experience. Her current project 'Out of Place' continues to develop through interdisciplinary approaches, uniting ecolinguistics, neuroscience, social geography, discourse analysis, and literary criticism to explore embodied experience across different eras. As Dean of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences, she plays a key role in shaping innovative interdisciplinary education at the University of Birmingham while maintaining active research engagement despite her administrative responsibilities.

Her research network extends across multiple institutions through the Midlands4Cities AHRC Doctoral Training Programme, connecting her work with colleagues at the Universities of Nottingham, Warwick, and other partner organizations, demonstrating her commitment to fostering collaborative academic communities.