Sarah Beckmann, an assistant professor of classics and a faculty member at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, has been selected as a 2022 Rome Prize fellow in ancient studies. She is being recognized for her book project, “The Villa in Late Antiquity: Roman Ideals and Local Identities.”
The distinction, which is distributed by the American Academy in Rome, provides a stipend and residency at the academy’s campus, where selected scholars will perform independent humanities research. Beckmann is one of 37 awardees. The 2022 fellows were presented in April during the annual Arthur and Janet C. Ross Rome Prize ceremony in New York.
Beckmann’s book focuses on the architecture and decor of late antique villas, with a special focus on regional variations of so-called elite display traditions. The second part of the book goes beyond villa owners to analyze evidence for estate laborers as “actors in their own right and as pawns in the promotion of the villa into a status symbol,” she said.
