معرفی
Professor Zahra Newby is a distinguished academic in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick's Faculty of Arts, where she has been based since 2000. Currently serving as Senior Tutor for 2024-25, she previously held significant leadership roles including Head of Department (2018-2023) and Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Classics and Ancient History.
Her educational background includes:
- M.A. in Classics (Literae Humaniores) from Oxford
- M.A. in Ancient Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London
- Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (2000)
Professor Newby's research centers on the visual arts of the Roman Empire within their broadest cultural contexts, with particular expertise in Roman reception of Greek culture, ancient funerary art, athletics, and festival culture. Her work explores how visual material culture actively shaped meanings in civic festivals and how art interacted with textual traditions in the ancient world. She has made significant contributions to understanding Greek mythology in Roman art, particularly in domestic and funerary contexts.
Her extensive publication record reveals consistent scholarly engagement with Roman visual culture, with a notable evolution toward interdisciplinary approaches examining the materiality of festivals and mourning practices. Recent works demonstrate increasing attention to how visual culture actively participates in creating meaning within social and ritual contexts, particularly in her Leverhulme Trust-funded project on Greek festivals in the Roman Empire.
Her scholarly recognition includes:
- Butterworth Memorial Teaching Award (2006)
- OpenCourseWare Excellence Award at Open Educational Resource 2012 conference
Professor Newby has successfully supervised numerous PhD and MA students across diverse topics in ancient art, including gymnasia in Postclassical Greece, mythological representations, color in ancient art, and responses to tyranny. Her research has been supported by prestigious grants including the Leverhulme Trust and Wellcome Trust, which funded a significant workshop on the materiality of mourning held at Warwick in 2016.
She maintains active engagement with the scholarly community through peer reviewing for classical journals, membership on the Institute of Classical Studies Library Development Committee, and previous service on the Council for the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies and as chair of the JACT Ancient History committee (2007-2010).
