Biography

I completed my PhD at Harvard University, Department of History of Art and Architecture. My research interests lie in the art, visual culture and social history of the Roman Empire in the Imperial period and Late Antiquity. I specialize on relief-decorated sarcophagi, honorific statuary, and in general the urban culture and history of the Greek East between the first and sixth centuries C.E. My research interests involve archaeological method and theory, namely 'thing theory' and historical network analysis, and the novel interpretive depth that these paradigms might offer to classical art and archaeology. I am also a field archaeologist, with several years of excavation and supervision experience at Aphrodisias (Turkey), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, unique for its sculpture workshop and extraordinary amount of historical evidence it provides.

My first book was a monograph named Columnar Sarcophagi from Aphrodisias. My second book-in-progress is on the 'end' of the honorific statuary in Late Antiquity and early Medieval period. I explore the cultural and administrative reasons why the thousand-year habit of honorific statuary came to demise, drawing conclusions from historical and archaeological evidence in the Greek East, particularly Asia Minor. My current article project involves the 'agency' and 'ontology' of portrait statuary in Late Antiquity, and provides an account of how statues were perceived not as inanimate media representative of, but rather as their subjects.

At UVU, I offer a wide range of courses, including Art History surveys, Medieval art, and seminars on Greek and Roman art.
Please reach me at: Esen.Ogus@uvu.edu

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