I graduated from Cambridge University (Newnham College) in 2001 with a degree in Classics. After this, I studied for four years at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, first for an MA in Greek and Roman Art and then for a PhD on the subject of personifications of nations and cities under the Roman Empire. From 2005-2008, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Archaeology in Cambridge, on a Leverhulme project called ‘Changing Beliefs of the Human Body’: you can read about this project online. I joined the Department of Classical Studies at the Open University as a lecturer in October 2008.
My research focuses on the material culture of Greece and Rome and its reception in later periods. I am currently working on a book about the votive offerings in the shape of human body parts which were dedicated in sanctuaries and sacred places all around the ancient world (The Anatomy of Ritual, forthcoming 2012). I have also written articles about images of classical hybrids, personifications of cities and nations, and the restoration of classical sculpture in the Eighteenth Century.
I am currently involved in two external projects: the Memoria Romana project run by Prof. Karl Galinsky, and a collaborative programme of research into the reception of classical antiquity in the city of Naples. The themes of the body, religion and the transmission and reception of ancient art are central to my research, and I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who would like to work in any of these areas.
My teaching contributions at the Open University include the A330 course on ‘Myth in the Greek and Roman Worlds’ , and a new interdisciplinary first-level course on material culture (A151). I also edit our e-journal Practitioners’ Voices in Classical Reception Studies, and co-present a Classics vodcasting website with my colleague Elton Barker, which you can visit at www.classicsconfidential.co.uk.
Hughes, J. Remembering Parthenope: The Reception of Classical Naples from Antiquity to the Present (in preparation for OUP Classical Presences series; volume co-edited with Dr Claudio Buongiovanni, University of Naples 'Federico II').
Hughes, J. (in prep.) The Anatomy of Ritual: Votive Body Parts in the Greco-Roman World (forthcoming 2014).
Hughes, J. 2013a (in press). ‘The Biography of a Votive Offering from Hellenistic Italy’, in Weinryb, I. (ed.) Ex Voto: Votive Images Across Cultures. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.
Hughes, J. 2013b (in press). Memory and the Roman viewer: looking at the Arch of Constantine. In: Galinsky, Karl ed. Memoria Romana: Memory in Rome and Rome in Memory. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.
Hughes, J. 2011, 'The Myth of Return: Restoration as Reception in Eighteenth-Century Rome', Classical Receptions Journal 3(1): 1-28.
Hughes, J. 2010, 'Dissecting the Classical Hybrid', in Rebay-Salisbury, K., Sorensen, M. L. S. and Hughes, J. eds. Body Parts and Bodies Whole. Changing Relations and Meanings. Oxford, Oxbow.
Hughes, J. 2009, 'Personifications and the Ancient Viewer: The Case of the Hadrianeum 'Nations.' Art History, 32(1), pp. 1–20.
Hughes, J. 2008, 'Fragmentation as Metaphor in the Classical Healing Sanctuary.' Social History of Medicine, 21(2), pp. 217–236.
'A Farewell to Arms: Votive Body Parts and Rites of Passage in Hellenistic Italy', Bodies of Evidence Conference, British School at Rome, 6 June 2012.
'A volte ritornano: teorie e metodi della ricezione del mondo classico nell'arte', University of Naples 'Federico II', 19 March 2012
'Spolia and Memory in Late Antique Rome'. Memoria Romana conference, American Academy in Rome, 14-16 October 2011.
'The Anatomy of Ritual: Representing the Body on the Lydian and Phrygian 'Propitiatory Stelae'. Changing Bodies Seminar Series, Institute of Classical Studies, London, 16 June 2011.
'The Biography of an Anatomical Votive from Nemi'. Ex Voto: Votive Images Across Cultures Symposium at the Bard Graduate Center, New York City. 28 April 2011
'Symbolism in Ruins: Classical Architecture in the Presepe Napoletano'. Classical Association Conference, Cardiff, 8 April 2010.
Contact: jessica.hughes@open.ac.uk
See also Open Research Online for further details of Jessica Hughes’s research publications.
To find out more about my current research into anatomical votive offerings, you can watch this video interview filmed for the OU Platform website.
