Rhodora Grate Vennarucci

Professor Rhodora G. Vennarucci’s main research interests lies in the socio-economic history of the Roman world with published and forthcoming works that focus on both ends of the distributive system in Italy: rural production and the development and use of urban commercial landscapes. As field director and co-PI of the Marzuolo Archaeological Project, she collaborates in the investigation of a Roman minor center in rural south-central Tuscany (IT) that has produced evidence of agricultural and crafts production as well as warehousing and commerce. She is also the scientific director and co-PI of the Virtual Roman Retail project, which leverages immersive VR technology to put sensory archaeology into practice and explore how shop environments may have shaped ancient consumer experience and behavior. She has, in addition, contributed to the Virtual Pompeii project, which tests predictive analyses against experiential modeling to study the intersection of spatial configuration, decoration, and social phenomena in the Roman house.

Before arriving at Denison University, Professor Vennarucci taught at the University of Arkansas, where she received the J. Williams Fulbright College of Arts and Science’s Master Teaching Award, and the University of Rochester. She has taught a wide variety of courses on the ancient Mediterranean world, including ancient Greek and Roman art and archaeology, Shopping in Ancient Rome, Virtual Pompeii, Roman Urbanism, Ancient Historians and Historiography, Roots of Culture to 500 CE, and Latin Epigraphy. She is also active in international education and has led short-term study abroad programs in Rome, the Bay of Naples, and Sicily and taught twice at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome.