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Matthew Roller

Professor
B.A., Stanford University, 1988
M.A., University of California at Berkeley, 1990
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley, 1994

Office: 118 Gilman Hall
Phone: 410-516-5095
E-mail: mroller@jhu.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Matthew Roller is a Romanist who is engaged with the literature, history, art, philosophy, and culture generally of the ancient Roman world.  He is the author of two monographs. The most recent, Dining posture in ancient Rome : bodies, values, and status, was published in June 2006 by Princeton University Press.  This book investigates the social practices and ideologies associated with the three bodily dispositions--reclining, sitting, and standing--that were available to Romans of different ages, sexes, and social statuses when they dined. His earlier book, Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome, was published in 2001 by Princeton University Press.  This book examines the processes by which aristocrats of the early Imperial period negotiated the nature and scope of the Roman emperor's authority in the context of the emerging autocratic regime.  A recent article entitled "Horizontal Women," American Journal of Philology 124 (2003) 377-422, was named "best article" of 2003-04 by the Women's Classical Caucus, a group associated with the American Philological Association. This same issue of AJP (a special issue on Roman dining) was named "Best Single Issue of a Journal" in 2003 by the Association of American Publishers. 

Roller's current project, "Exemplarity in Ancient Roman Culture", examines the Roman habit of extracting from history models to govern behavior in the present.  A prolegomenon to this project has appeared in Classical Philology 99 (2004) 1-56.  The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has awarded Roller a Forschungsstipendium for academic year 2007-08, to pursue this project in cooperation with colleagues at the University of Cologne in Germany . Roller also continues to work on problems related to Roman dining and foodways.

Professor Roller has been at Johns Hopkins since 1994.