Public Lecture: Slave Life in the Roman Luxury Villa with Professor Lauren Hackworth Petersen

Lauren Hackworth Petersen, Professor of Art History, University of Delaware (co-author, The Material Life of Roman Slaves)

Enslaved people were everywhere in the world of ancient Rome. Yet visitors to sites along the Bay of Naples walk through a landscape that appears untouched by slavery. Scholars and tourists alike have been trained to recognize owners and the free in the archaeological record of ancient Italy and to overlook and "un-see" slaves living and laboring in the same place. In her book, The Material Life of Roman Slaves (co-authored with Sandra Joshel), Dr. Lauren Hackworth Petersen seeks to make slaves appear or, more accurately, searches for ways to see them-to make slaves visible where evidence tells us they were in fact present. In her lecture, Dr. Petersen will discuss slavery in ancient Rome and explore the presence of the enslaved at Villa A at Oplontis.

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