Dr Emma-Jayne Graham

Professional biography

My research is focused primarily on the archaeology of Roman Italy and the ways in which it informs us about the construction of ancient identities and lived experiences. Mortuary practices and the treatment of the human body lie at the heart of much of my earliest work and I have written several articles which explore themes such as personhood and manipulation of the corpse, funerary commemoration and memory, as well as sensory interactions with human-made and natural environments. I am particularly interested in exploring the application of relational approaches to the Roman past. My recent book project addressed this by adopting a broadly posthumanist and new materialist approach to ancient lived religion, using assemblage theory to explore the intersection of divergent experiences of the body in relation to material things and religious practices in Roman Italy.

Recent work has also taken me into the realm of ancient disability and bodily well-being, particularly mobility impairments, as well as infant health and ritual practice in early Roman Italy, including a project focused on terracotta votive offerings modelled in the form of infants wrapped in swaddling bands. You can listen to a discussion about these here. This has led to an interest in votive practice more generally, especially anatomical ex-votos. In June 2012 I organised a conference on this subject at the British School at Rome (Bodies of Evidence). With Jessica Hughes I also edit a website devoted to discussion of votive offerings of all types: The Votives Project. I am the Deputy Director of The Baron Thyssen Centre for the Study of Ancient Material Religion and have regularly contributed to the Centre's audio discussions, as well as a recent online seminar series on 'Reassembling Ancient Religion' linked to the publication of my book Reassembling Religion in Roman Italy (2021). The recordings of these seminars can be viewed on the website.   

I was recently academic advisor for the BBC/Lion TV/OU three-part documentary series 'Pompeii: The New Dig'. More information and an interactive tour of Pompeii are available on the associated website.

I am Series Editor for Routledge Studies in Ancient Disabilities - please get in touch if you are interested in contributing to the series. 

You can hear me talking about my experiences of making learning material for the OU and some of my research on ancient disabilities, votives, and sensory archaeologies in a Coffee and Circuses podcast. For Disability History Month 2021 I gave a talk (with captions and BSL) for the MMU 'Cultures of Disability' project/Manchester Classical Association on 'Disability in Ancient Rome: Discovering the Lived Experience of Ancient Mobility Impairments'. I also contributed to a Classics Confidential podcast on Roman Memory and a (filmed) British School at Rome 'Being Human 2018' event on 'Origins and Endings in Italian History', at which I talked about my research on Roman mortuary practices and the change from cremation to inhumation.

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who would like to work in any of these areas. (You can find more information about how to do this on the Classical Studies Postgraduate Research Applications page.) 

Selected publications

Books

Graham, E-J. 2021. Reassembling Religion in Roman Italy. Abingdon and New York, Routledge. (For a preview, see the Routledge website.)

Draycott, J. and Graham, E-J. (eds). 2017. Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future. Abingdon and New York, Routledge.

Devlin, Z.L. and Graham, E-J. (eds). 2015. Death Embodied: Archaeological Approaches to the Treatment of the Corpse. Oxford, Oxbow Books.

Carroll, M. and Graham, E-J. (eds). 2014. Infant health and death in Roman Italy and beyond. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary series 96.

Graham, E-J. 2006. Death, disposal and the destitute: The burial of the urban poor in Italy in the late Roman Republic and early Empire. BAR Int. Series 1565. Oxford, Archaeopress.

Articles and book chapters

Graham, E-J. 2024. The Fluidity of Things. Exploring the sensory transposition of place in late Roman Italy and beyond. Accordia Research Papers 16, pp. 199–215.

Graham, E-J. 2024. The haptic production of religious knowledge among the Vestal Virgins: a hands-on approach to Roman ritual. In A. Graham and B. Misic (eds). Senses, Cognition, and Ritual Experience in the Roman World. Cambridge, pp. 59–88. 

Graham, E-J. 2024. Death's ritual symbolic performance. In M. Erasmo (ed.). A Cultural History of Death in Antiquity. Bloomsbury, 67–82.

Graham, E-J. 2021. At home with the Lares: lived religion rematerialized at Pompeii. In J. Hughes (ed.). Material Religion in Pompeii. Open Arts Journal 10 (Summer 2021). Available at: https://openartsjournal.org/issue-10/article-2/ 

Graham, E-J. 2021. Interactional sensibilities: bringing ancient disability studies to its archaeological senses. In E. Adams (ed.) Disability Studies and the Classical Body: The Forgotten Other. Routledge, pp. 165–191.

Graham, E-J. 2020. Hand in hand: Rethinking anatomical votives as material things. In V. Gasparini, M. Patzelt, R. Raja, A-K. Rieger, J. Rüpke, E. Urciuoli (eds). Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Approaching Religious Transformations from Archaeology, History and Classics. Berlin, De Gruyter, pp. 209–235. (Open Access). Available at https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110557596-012 

Graham, E-J. 2020. Mobility impairment: identifying lived experiences in Roman Italy. In C. Laes (ed). A Cultural History of Disability in Antiquity. Bloomsbury, pp. 31–45.

Graham, E-J. 2019. Pilgrimage, mobile behaviours and the creation of religious place in early Roman Latium. In J. Kuuliala and J. Rantala (eds). Travel, Pilgrimage and Social Interaction from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Routledge, pp. 15-36.

Graham, E-J., Sulosky Weaver, C.L., and Chamberlain, A.T. 2019. ‘Pars Pro Toto’ and Personhood in Roman Cremation Ritual: New Bioarchaeological Evidence for the Rite of ‘Os Resectum’, Bioarchaeology International 2(4), pp. 240–254, DOI: http://doi.org/10.5744/bi.2018.1026   

Graham, E-J. and Robson, J. 2018. Classics online at the Open University: teaching and learning with interactive resources. In A. Holmes-Henderson, St. Hunt and M. Musié (eds). Forward with Classics: Classical Languages in Schools and Communities. London, Bloomsbury, pp. 217–229.

Graham, E-J. 2018. ‘There buds the laurel’: Nature, temporality, and the making of place in the cemeteries of Roman Italy. Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal 1(1): 3, pp. 1–16, DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/traj.147  (Open Access).

Graham, E-J. 2017. Babes in arms? Sensory dissonance and the ambiguities of votive objects. In E. Betts (ed.). Senses of the empire: multisensory approaches to Roman culture. London and New York, Routledge, pp. 122–38.

Graham, E-J. 2017. Partible humans and permeable gods: enacting human-divine personhood in the sanctuaries of Hellenistic Italy. In J. Draycott and E-J. Graham (eds). Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future. London and New York, Routledge, pp. 45–62.

Graham, E-J. and Draycott, J. 2017. Debating the anatomical votive. In J.Draycott and E-J. Graham (eds). Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future. London and New York, Routledge, pp. 1–19.

Graham, E-J. 2017. Mobility impairment in the sanctuaries of early Roman Italy. In C. Laes (ed.). Disability in Antiquity (Rewriting Antiquities series). London and New York, Routledge, pp. 248–66.

Graham, E-J. 2016. Wombs and Tombs in the Roman World. Material Religion 12(2), pp. 251–254. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/WVPxymHgCIZtdTZRqHnT/full

Graham, E-J and Hope, V.M. 2016. Funerary Practices. In A. Cooley (ed.). A Companion to Roman Italy. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 159–180.

Graham, E-J. 2015. Corporeal concerns: the role of the body in the transformation of Roman mortuary practices. In Z.L. Devlin and E-J. Graham (eds). Death Embodied: Archaeological Approaches to the Treatment of the Corpse. Oxford, Oxbow, pp. 41–62.

Graham, E-J. 2015. Embodying death in archaeology. In Z.L. Devlin and E-J. Graham (eds). Death Embodied: Archaeological Approaches to the Treatment of the Corpse. Oxford, Oxbow, pp. 1–17.

Graham, E-J. 2014. Infant votives and swaddling in Hellenistic Italy. In M. Carroll and E-J. Graham (eds). Infant health and death in Roman Italy and beyond. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary series 96, pp. 23–46.

Graham, E-J. 2013. The making of infants in Hellenistic and early Roman Italy: a votive perspective. World Archaeology 45.2, pp. 215–231.

Graham, E.-J. 2013. Disparate lives or disparate deaths? Post-mortem treatment of the body and the articulation of difference. In C. Laes, C. Goodey and M.L. Rose (eds). Disabilities in Roman antiquity. Disparate bodies ‘a capite ad calcem’. Brill, Leiden, pp. 249–274.

Graham, E-J. 2011. Memory and materiality: re-embodying the Roman funeral. In V. M. Hope and J. Huskinson (eds.). Memory and Mourning: Studies on Roman Death. Oxford, Oxbow, pp. 21–39.

Graham, E-J. 2011. From fragments to ancestors: re-defining os resectum and its role in rituals of purification and commemoration in Republican Rome. In M. Carroll and J. Rempel (eds) Living through the Dead: Burial and Commemoration in the Classical World. Oxford, Oxbow, pp. 91–109.

Graham, E-J. 2009. Becoming persons, becoming ancestors: personhood, memory and the corpse in Roman rituals of social remembrance. Archaeological Dialogues 16(1), pp. 51–74.

Graham, E-J. 2006. Discarding the destitute: Ancient and modern attitudes towards burial practices and memory preservation amongst the lower classes of Rome. In B. Croxford et al. (eds). TRAC 2005. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference. Birmingham 2005. Oxford, Oxbow, pp. 57–71.

Graham, E-J. 2005. The Quick and the Dead in the extra-urban landscape: the Roman cemetery at Ostia/Portus as a lived environment. In J. Bruhn, B. Croxford and D. Grigoropoulos (eds). TRAC 2004. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference. Durham 2004. Oxford, Oxbow, pp. 133–143.

Forthcoming

Articles and book chapters

Graham, E-J. Moving with time and space at the Sanctuary of Juno, Gabii (Italy). In S. Hamilton, P. Jordan, and S. Mura (eds) Sensing the Past: Recent Advances in Applied Sensory Archaeology and Heritage Assessment. London, UCL Press.

Graham, E-J. Getting a feel for things: objects, senses and affect in Roman polytheism. In J. Alvar Ezquerra (ed.) Steps Ahead: New Trends in the analysis of Roman polytheism. Leiden, Brill

Graham, E-J. Woollen objects, neighbourhood rituals and non-human others: reassessing the materiality of the urban Compitalia. In M. Flohr and A. Haug (eds) Objects and Urbanity. 

Graham, E-J. Mobility, kinaesthesia, imagined movement and the making of place in the sanctuaries of ancient Italy. In E. Angliker and M. A. Fowler (eds). Archaeology of Ritual in the Ancient Mediterranean: Recent Finds and Interpretative Approaches. Liége, Kernos suppléments. 

Graham, E-J. Relationships, establishing and maintaining (gifts, votives). In J. Bremmer, G. Petridou and J. Rüpke (eds) Religion in Context, New Pauly Supplement. 

See also Open Research Online for further details of Emma-Jayne Graham’s research publications.

In addition to the history and archaeology of the Roman world I have experience of teaching a wide range of subjects, from Etruscan Italy to Viking Scandinavia and from Greek temples to early Christian art. At the Open University my teaching contributions include chairing and writing for A340 The Roman empire. This Level 3 module draws on archaeological, textual and epigraphic evidence to explore what the empire was and what it meant to ‘be Roman’ in different places and at different times. I wrote about Roman childhood and the archaeology of the Acropolis for the module A229 Exploring the Classical World. I have also been closely involved in the development of the new MA in Classical Studies for which I wrote units on fragmented bodies, humans, non-humans and the environment, sensory worlds, ancient rivers, and religion and the non-human world. I am interested in developing innovative forms of learning and assessment and completed a scholarship of assessment project looking at ways to re-design examinations. As Director of Level 1 Teaching (Arts) I was responsible for overseeing the initial stages of the remake of the Level 1 curriculum for the Arts programme and was chair of the Level 1 interdisciplinary module A112 Cultures, for which I wrote a unit about the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi among other things. I am also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Watch a brief video introduction to A340 The Roman empire.

Watch a brief video introduction to A112 Cultures.

I also developed a fun interactive educational game for Open Learn based on the emperor Hadrian's travels around the Roman empire during the second century CE.