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Academics - Classics Faculty & Staff

Academics - Classics Faculty & Staff

Bronwen Wickkiser

Professor of Classics

CONTACT:

Detchon Center 124
765-361-6489
wickkisb@wabash.edu
Curriculum vitae

Picture of Wickkiser, Bronwen

Bronwen Wickkiser is a specialist in ancient Greek history and culture, especially in the areas of medicine and religion. Her first book explores the appeal of healing deities in relation to the rise of Hippocratic medicine (Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing in Fifth-Century Greece), while her second book examines the interrelation of sound, architecture, and music therapy in the sanctuary of a prominent healing god (The Thymele at Epidauros: Healing, Space, and Musical Performance in Late Classical Greece). She has also co-edited a book about Greek religion (Aspects of Ancient Greek Cult: Context – Ritual – Iconography).

At Wabash, Professor Wickkiser teaches courses related to these topics, such as Uncovering Greek Religion, and Medicine, Magic & Miracle: Healthcare in the Greco-Roman World (in conjunction with the College's Global Health minor). Recently, she has been delving into ways that modern culture receives the ancient past, a field known as Classical Reception. 

In 2019-20, she was a Mellon Pedagogy Leadership Fellow at Wabash, collaborating with colleagues here and at other institutions to think about how we attract and retain first-year students in the Beginning Greek sequence. In 2021-22, she was a Lilly Equity & Inclusion Pedagogy Fellow, working to diversify and enrich her course called Ancient Greece.

A passionate proponent of study abroad, Professor Wickkiser enjoys taking students to Greece and also exploring with Wabash students some of the classical traditions here in Crawfordsville (the "Athens of Indiana"), from the Lew Wallace Study to war memorials and burial monuments.  In 2020, she joined the Board of Trustees of the Lew Wallace Study Preservation Society.

Professor Wickkiser also serves on the Managing Committee of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (Greece), and has received research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation.

She is an avid fan of kayaking, paddleboarding, and rowing, and has trained and competed in national regattas. If you take her Freshman Tutorial on the Odyssey, chances are that you'll visit the Indianapolis Rowing Center on beautiful Eagle Creek and learn how to row like the ancients did.

EDUCATION

  • PhD, Classics, University of Texas at Austin
  • MA, Classics, University of Texas at Austin
  • BA, Latin Language and Literature (major), Religion (minor), Oberlin College

RECENT PRESENTATIONS

"Embodied," 42nd annual LaFollette Lecture, Wabash College, Sept 22, 2022.

"Sea / Sick: Sailing with the Gods in Search of Healing in Greco-Roman Antiquity," Religion and Maritime Mobility in the Ancient World, sponsored by the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions, Malta, June 2022.

"Galen and Pergamum: The Role of Religion in Framing Medical Authority," SAPERE  colloquium, in preparation for a new volume on Galen's The Best Doctor is also a Philosopher, April 2022.

"Recurrent Outbreaks: Plague, Politics, and Asklepios in Classical Greece," AGORA / Uppsala University, Apr 2021. 

"Classics and STEM at a Small Liberal Arts College: Rethinking the Senior Seminar," Classical Association of the Middle West and South annual meeting, Apr 2021.

“Agony: Medicine and Religious Authority in Galen and the Gospels,” Society for Biblical Literature annual meeting, Nov 2020.

"Classics, Commemoration, and the Confederate Memorial at Arlington," Kalamazoo College, Nov 2019.

"Sound and Epiphany in Asklepieia: The Case of Epidauros," Archaeological Institute of America annual meeting, Boston, Jan 2018.

“Materiality and Performance in Fourth-Century Cultic Paeans: The Case of Epidauros,” Materiality, Representation, and Performance in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry, University of Edinburgh, June 2017.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Books

The Thymele at Epidauros: Healing, Space, and Muscial Performance in Late Classical Greece.  Co-authored with P. Schultz, G. Hinge, C. Kanellopoulos, and J. Franklin.  Theran Press, 2017.

Aspects of Ancient Greek Cult: Context, Ritual and Iconography. Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity 8.  Edited with J. Jensen, G. Hinge, and P. Schultz.  Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2009.

Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing in Fifth-Century Greece: Between Craft and Cult.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Select Recent Articles

“Laomedon, Hesione and the Sea-Monster.” In The Oxford Handbook to Heracles, ed. by D. Ogden.  Oxford University Press, 2021: 209-223.

"’Water is Cold and Wet’: Reflections on Properties and Potencies of Water in the Cult of Asklepios.”  In Ancient Waterlands, B.A. Robinson, S. Bouffier, I. Fumadó Ortega, eds.  Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence, Archéologies méditerranéennes series, 2019, pp. 131-141.

“Cupid’s Arrows: Lead, Gold, Magic and Medicine in Ovid, Met. 1.452-567.”  Mnemosyne 71 (2018) 100-124.

HONORS AND AWARDS

Select:

Lilly Equity & Inclusion Pedagogy Fellow, Wabash College.  2021-22.

Mellon Pedagogy Leadership Fellow, Wabash College.  2019-20.

McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Research Scholar Grant, Wabash College: "Circularity, Spectacle and Performance: Fourth-Century Tholoi and the Changing Landscape of Greek Ritual." 2016-17.

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute: "Mortality: Facing Death in Ancient Greece," Athens, Greece; Director: Karen Bassi. 2014.

Robert Penn Warren Center Faculty Fellow, Vanderbilt University, "Sacred Ecology: Landscape Transformations for Ritual Practice." 2011-12.

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, preparation of The Thymele at Epidauros, 2010.

Margo Tytus Senior Residency Fellowship, University of Cincinnati, “The Function of Tholoi at Delphi, Olympia, and Epidauros.” 2009.

Margo Tytus Senior Residency Fellowship, University of Cincinnati, prepartion of Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing. 2007.

Loeb Classical Library Foundation Grant, preparation of Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing. 2005-06.

Harry Bikakis Fellowship, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, “The Telemachos Monument.”  2003-04.

Outstanding Dissertation Award in Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at Austin, 2003.

Gareth Morgan Memorial Prize in Classics, for Excellence in Teaching, University of Texas at Austin, 1998 and 1999.

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