Academic & Teaching staff

Dr Penny Goodman

Lecturer

Dr Penny Goodman

+44 (0)113 34 33536

MSt, DPhil (Oxford)

Research Interests

My research focuses mainly on the relationship between the spatial organisation of Roman settlements and the needs and priorities of the communities which built them. This interest sprang from my D.Phil. thesis, which looked at the use of space on the edges of Roman cities, and is now available as a Routledge monograph entitled The Roman City and its Periphery: from Rome to Gaul'. Since publishing this monograph I have continued to work on the organisation of built environments in the Roman world, including papers on the spatial distribution of temples and workshops and on the definition and significance of urban boundaries.

My work on Roman urbanism informs my classroom teaching, especially via my second- and third-year module, 'The City in the Roman world'. But I also teach Roman political history, including a module on the emperor Augustus and his legacy, from antiquity to the modern day. This teaching has inspired my next major research project: an exploration of the ways in which we relate to, conceptualise and commemorate the past, centring around the celebrations of the bimillennium of Augustus' birth on 23rd September 1938, and the upcoming bimillennium of his death on 19th August 2014.

I have always been interested in drawing explicit comparisons and contrasts between the ancient world and our own. This is inherent in my approach to ancient urban space, which regularly draws on theoretical perspectives from other disciplines (especially modern urban geography and economics), and it will of course be central to my new project on the bimillennia of the emperor Augustus. A comparative approach helps me to understand the ancient world better, and to share that understanding with the general public - and this is the guiding principle of my blog, Penelope's Weavings and Unpickings.

 

Biography

I completed my first degree in Ancient History at the University of Bristol (1994-7), before moving to Christ Church, Oxford for my M.St. and D.Phil. (1997-2001). After finishing my post-graduate studies, I taught at the universities of Oxford, Warwick and Reading in England, and Queen's University Belfast. I joined the department at Leeds in September 2006.

 

Publications

  • (Forthcoming) 'Working together: clusters of artisans in the Roman city' in A. Wilson and M. Flohr, eds. Beyond Marginality: craftsmen, traders and the socioeconomic history 
    of Roman urban communities     (Oxford: OUP).
  • (Forthcoming) 'The production centres: settlement hierarchies and spatial distribution' in M. Fulford, ed., Names on Terra Sigillata volume 10 (London: Institute of Classical Studies).
  • (Forthcoming) 'Urban peripheries' in A. Cooley, ed. A Companion to Roman Italy (Oxford: Blackwell).
  • (Forthcoming) 'Defining the city: the boundaries of Rome', in C. Holleran and Amanda Claridge, eds., A Companion to the City of Rome (Oxford: Blackwell).
  • (Forthcoming) 'Temple architecture and urban boundaries in Gaul and Britain: two worlds or one?', in T. Kaizer, A. Leone, E. Thomas and R. Witcher (eds.), Cities and Gods (Leiden: Stichting Babesch).
  • (2011) 'Temples in late antique Gaul' in L. Lavan and M. Mulryan, eds. The Archaeology of Late Antique Paganism (Leiden: Bril): 165-193.
  • (2007) The Roman City and its Periphery: from Rome to Gaul (London: Routledge).
  • (2002) 'The provincial sanctuaries of the imperial cult at Lyon and Narbonne: examples of urban exclusion or social inclusion?', in Proceedings of the Symposium On Mediterranean Archaeology 2001, Liverpool (Oxford: BAR Int. Series 1040): 91-104.