UDLAPS Scholar in the Library Series to feature Lauren Hackworth Petersen

9:51 a.m., Feb. 4, 2015--The University of Delaware Library has announced that Lauren Hackworth Petersen, professor of art history, will present “The Art of Seeing Slaves in Roman Society” at noon, Thursday, Feb. 19, in the Class of 1941 Lecture Room in the Morris Library as part of the University of Delaware Library Assembly of Professional Staff (UDLAPS) Scholar in the Library series.

The brown-bag luncheon program is open to the public. Light refreshments will be available.

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Petersen will base the talk on her book The Material Life of Roman Slaves, which was written in collaboration with Sandra Joshel of the University of Washington. The book was published by the Cambridge University Press in 2014.

The talk will confront the paradox that slaves were visible nearly everywhere in ancient Roman daily life yet modern visitors to the sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, for example, view a landscape that appears untouched by slavery, thereby erasing slaves from narratives of cities. 

Petersen will attempt to make slaves visible where Roman literature, law and art say they were present. 

Piecing together the written word with archaeology remains, this presentation will offer new ways of seeing slaves on the move in both expected and unexpected ways in ancient Roman contexts and will reveal how the art of seeing Roman slaves is an art of remembering human presences.