Verity Platt

Professor

Overview

I specialize in Greek and Roman art history, and have a particular interest in the relationship between ancient literary and visual cultures, especially in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

My research and publications focus on ancient theories of the image; media and intermediality; the historiography of ancient art (especially the author Pliny the Elder); art, nature, and ecology; the material and visual culture of religion; Roman wall-painting and funerary art; Greco-Roman seal-stones; Hellenistic poetry (especially epigram); and Greek literature under the Roman Empire. I have a special interest in classical reception, as an editor of the Classical Receptions Journal, and have curated exhibitions featuring the work of contemporary artists. Together with Annetta Alexandridis, I am also curator of the Cornell Cast Collection.

I welcome applications from graduate students in Classics, History of Art, and Archaeology working in all areas of ancient visual culture and its receptions, as well as at the intersection of visual, material, and literary studies. You can apply to work with me on a PhD through the departments of Classics or History of Art, and on an MA through the CIAMS program in Archaeology.

As the director of Cornell's Humanities Scholars Program, I work closely with undergraduate juniors and seniors to foster independent, interdiscipinary research in the humanities through a series of curated courses, structured mentorship, and special programming. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to find out more!

Research Focus

My forthcoming monograph, Epistemic Objects: Making and Mediating Classical Art and Text (to be published in the Oxford University Press series "Classics in Theory"), explores how Greek authors drew on ancient models of sense-perception when formulating relationships between texts and objects, with a focus on Hellenistic epigram. Drawing on theories of media and moving beyond the concepts of description (ekphrasis) and imitation (mimesis), which have dominated so much scholarship on the text-image relationship in antiquity, it focuses on the language of the impression (typos), addressing the verbal and conceptual strategies that authors such as Posidippus employed when dealing with the materiality of artifacts and modes of cultural transmission.

I am currently working on several new projects. The first is a monograph on Pliny the Elder's Natural History, which draws together work I have done over several years on the importance of making, materiality, and the environment to Pliny's account of ancient art (Pliny the Elder's Aesthetics of the Overlooked). The second is an article on eco-critical approaches to classical art, for an edited volume on Classics and and environmental humanities. The third is a monograph on ancient sculpture focused on the concept of the fold. As editor of Classical Receptions Journal, I have a keen interest in reception of all kinds (see my article on the Belvedere Torso in Critical Inquiry 2020), especially critical engagements with classicism in contemporary art.

Awards and Honors

Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow Award, for Cornell faculty who have a sustained record of commitment to the teaching and mentoring of undergraduate students and to undergraduate education.

Publications

Monographs

Pliny the Elder's Aesthetics of the Overlooked. In progress.
Epistemic Objects: Making and Mediating between Classical Art and Text. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming.
Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion. Cambridge. 2011 (paperback edition, 2016).

Edited Volumes

Wonder and Wakefulness: The Nature of Pliny the Elder. Catalogue of a 2023 exhibition at the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell, co-edited with A. Wieslogel. 2024.
The Embodied Object in Greek and Roman Art, special edition of Art History, co-edited with M. Gaifman and M. Squire, issue 41.3, June 2018.
The Frame in Greek and Roman Art: A Cultural History, co-edited with M. Squire, Cambridge. 2017.
The Art of Art History in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, special edition of Arethusa, co-edited with M. Squire (Vol. 43.2, Spring 2010).

Articles:

“‘Intimate Immensities’: Posidippus’ Poems on Stones (AB 13)”, in C. Knappett and E. M. Kavaler (eds.), Miniatures as Narrative: Small Worlds and Dream Worlds, Brepols, forthcoming.
“Protogenes’ Sentient Sponge: Pliny on the ‘Truth’ in Painting”, in V. Naas et al. (eds.), Plinio Oggi, forthcoming.
“Ancient Relief: Terminology, Medium, Ontology”, in J. Elsner, M. Gaifman and N. Jones (eds.), Rethinking Classical Relief, Yale Classical Studies/Cambridge University Press, 2024.
“Introduction” Reassessing Pliny the Elder at 2000”, in V. Platt and A. Weislogel (eds.), Wonder and Wakefulness: The Nature of Pliny the Elder, Johnson Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, 2024.
“The Ethics and Aesthetics of Gems: Myth, Matter, and Value”, in V. Platt and A. Weislogel (eds.), Wonder and Wakefulness: The Nature of Pliny the Elder, Johnson Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, forthcoming.
“Earth, Terra-Cotta, and the Plastic Arts”, in V. Platt and A. Weislogel (eds.), Wonder and Wakefulness: The Nature of Pliny the Elder, Johnson Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, 2024.
“Undisciplining the University through Shared Purpose, Practice, and Place,” Nature: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9, no. 172 (2022), with A. Freiband et al.
“Art, Nature, and the Material Divine in Roman Landscape Painting,” in J. Powers, (ed.), Art, Nature, and Myth in Ancient Rome, exhibition catalogue, San Antonio Museum of Art. Forthcoming October 2021.
“Bodies, Bases and Borders: Framing the Divine in Greco-Roman Antiquity,” in R. Wood and J. Elsner (eds.), Imagining the Divine: Exploring Art in Religions of Late Antiquity across Eurasia, British Museum Press, 2021: 19–36.
"Beeswax: The Natural History of an Archetypal Medium," in A. Anguissola and A. Grüner (eds.), The Nature of Art: Pliny the Elder on Materials. Brepols series on "Art and Materiality", 2021: 51–64.
- Translated into Italian as "Cera d’api: la storia naturale di un medium archetipico," transl. C. Ballestrazzi, Journal of the Istituto universitario olandese di storia dell’arte. 2021.
“Re-membering the Belvedere Torso: Ekphrastic Restoration and the Teeth of Time,” Critical Inquiry 46 (Autumn 2020): 49–75.
"Color in Ancient Religion and Ritual," in D. Wharton (ed.), A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity. Bloomsbury, 2020: 63–80.
“The Seal of Polycrates: A Discourse on Discourse Channel Conditions,” in P. Michelakis (ed.), Classics and Media Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, series on “Classical Presences”, 2020: 53–76.
“De l’original perdu aux séries de répliques : nouvelles approches des multiples gréco-romains,” transl. G. Mélère, invited contribution to Perspective: actualité en histoire de l’art, special issue on Multiples. 2019.2: 165–78.
"Ecology, Ethics and Aesthetics in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History," Journal of the Clark Art Institute 17, special issue on Ecologies, Agents, Terrains, ed. C. P. Heuer and R. Zorach, Yale University Press, 2018. 219-42.
"Orphaned Objects: Pliny’s Natural History and the Phenomenology of the Incomplete," Art History 41.3 (June 2018), special issue on The Embodied Object, 492-517.
"The Embodied Object," Introduction to Art History 41.3 (June 2018), special issue on The Embodied Object (co-authored with M. Gaifman), 402-19.
“Ex votos in the Ancient World”, in I. Weinryb (ed.), Agents of Faith: Votive Giving Across Cultures. Bard Graduate Center Gallery Publications, Yale University Press, 2018, 2-19.
"Silent Bones and Singing Stones: Materializing the Poetic Corpus in Hellenistic Greece", in N. Goldschmidt and B. Graziosi (eds.), Tombs of the Poets: Between Text and Material Culture. Oxford University Press, 2018, 21-49.
- Also published in an abridged version as "Des os muets et des pierres sonores : matérialiser le corpus poétique en Grèce hellénistique," Mètis special issue on Place aux objets! Présentification et vie des artefacts en Grèce ancienne, edited by M. Brouillet and C. Carastro, 2019, 15-42.
"Of Sponges and Stones: Matter and Ornament in Roman Painting," in N. Dietrich and M. Squire (eds.), Ornament and Figure in Graeco-Roman Art: Rethinking Visual Ontologies in Classical Antiquity. De Gruyter, 2018, 241-78.
"Double Vision: Epiphanies of the Dioscuri in Greece and Rome," Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 20.1, March 2018, 229-56.
"Framing the Visual in Greco-Roman Antiquity: an Introduction," in V. Platt and M. Squire (eds.), The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History. Cambridge University Press (2017), 3-99 (co-authored with M. Squire).
"Framing the Sacred," in V. Platt and M. Squire (eds.), The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History. Cambridge University Press (2017), 384–91.
"Framing Pictorial Space," in V. Platt and M. Squire (eds.), The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History. Cambridge University Press (2017), 102–16.
"Getting to Grips with Classical Art: Rethinking the Haptics of Graeco-Roman Visual Culture," in A. Purves (ed.), Touch and the Ancient Senses. The Senses in Antiquity, Vol. 6. Routledge (2017), 74-100 (co-authored with M. Squire).
"The Matter of Classical Art History”, in What’s New About the Old? Reassessing the Ancient World, special issue of Daedalus edited by M. Santirocco (Spring 2016), 5–14.
"The Artist as Anecdote: Creating Creators in Ancient Texts and Modern Art History," in J. Haninck and R. Fletcher (eds.), Creative Lives in the Ancient World. Cambridge University Press (2016), 274-304.
"Epiphanies," in The Oxford Handbook of Greek Religion, eds. E. Eidinow and J. Kindt, Oxford University Press (2015), 491-504.
"Agamemnon's Grief: on the Limits of Expression in Roman Rhetoric and Painting," in J. Elsner and M. Meyer (eds.), Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture. Cambridge University Press (2014), 211-31.
"Likeness and Likelihood in Classical Greek Art," in V. Wohl (ed.), Probabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals in Ancient Greek Thought. Cambridge University Press (2014), 185-207.
"Sight and the Gods: On the Desire to See Naked Nymphs," in M. Squire (ed.), Sight and the Ancient Senses. The Senses in Antiquity, Vol. 4, Routledge (2015), 169-87.
"Framing the Dead on Roman Sarcophagi," RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 61/62 (Spring/Autumn 2012), 213-27.
- Revised and updated version published in V. Platt and M. Squire (eds.), The Frame in Greek and Roman Art: A Cultural History. Cambridge University Press (2017), 353–81.
"Art History in the Temple," Arethusa 43.2 (Spring 2010), 197-213.
"Viewing the Past: Cinematic Paideia in the Caverns of Macedonia," in P. Cartledge and F. Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone's Alexander. Film, History and Cultural Studies. University of Wisconsin Press (2010), 285-304.
"Where The Wild Things Are: Locating the Marvellous in Augustan Wall-Painting", in P. Hardie (ed.), Paradox and the Marvellous in Augustan Literature and Culture. Oxford University Press (2009), 41-74.
"Virtual Visions: Phantasia and the Perception of the Divine in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana," in E. L. Bowie and J. Elsner (eds.), Philostratus. Cambridge University Press (2009), 131-54.
"Burning Butterflies: Seals, Symbols and the Soul in Antiquity", in L. Gilmour (ed.), Pagans and Christians - from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, British Archaeological Reports series, Archaeopress (2007), 89-99.
"Honour Takes Wing: Unstable Images and Anxious Orators in the Greek Tradition," in Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.), Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World. Cambridge University Press (2006), 247-71.
"Making an Impression: Replication and the Ontology of the Graeco-Roman Seal Stone", Art History, special edition on Replication in Ancient Art, 29.2 (April, 2006), 233-57.
"Shattered Visages: Speaking Statues from the Ancient World," Apollo (July, 2003), 9-14.
"Evasive Epiphany in Ekphrastic Epigram," Ramus 31 (2002), 33-50.
"Viewing, Desiring, Believing: Confronting the Divine in a Pompeian House," Art History 25.1 (Feb, 2002), 87-112.

Online articles and journalism

“Why People are Toppling Monuments to Racism”, Scientific American, July 2020.
"Picturing Poets," Living Poets (Durham, 2016).
"Classical Cover-Ups" (on ancient statuary, censorship, and fashion), Eidolon, May 2016.
"Reinventing Pygmalion: Tracey Emin’s “Rocky Marriage," Ms. Magazine, April 2016.
"The Empty Chair and the Silent Voice: Symbols of Loss, Grief – and Hope?" Eidolon, Feb. 2016.

Curated exhibitions

“Wonder and Wakefulness: The Nature of Pliny the Elder”, Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (with Andrew Weislogel), Spring 2023.
“The Sculpture Shoppe at Ithaca Mall”, a contemporary art exhibition featuring the Cornell collection of plaster casts (with David Nasca), Spring 2022.
“Cast and Present: Replicating Antiquity in the Museum and the Academy,” Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Spring 2015 (with Annetta Alexandridis and Andrew Weislogel).
“Firing the Canon: the Cornell Casts and their Discontents,” Cornell Sesquicentennial Celebrations, Cornell Chilled Water Plant, Fall 2014 (with Annetta Alexandridis).
“IthaCasts. Plaster Casts of Ancient Sculpture from the Collections of Cornell University,” Tompkins County Library, Ithaca, Fall 2012 (with Annetta Alexandridis).

In the news

120 Goldwin Smith Hall
vjp33@cornell.edu

Education

Prof. Platt received her DPhil in Classics from Oxford University, and also has a Masters in Classical Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She joined the Classics and History of Art departments at Cornell in 2010 having previously taught at the University of Chicago, following a post-doctoral research fellowship at University College, Oxford. She has held fellowships at the Institute of Advanced Study (Princeton); the Franke Institute for the Humanities (University of Chicago); Trinity College, Cambridge; the Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies; the Society for the Humanities (Cornell); and the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (Cornell).

Departments and programs

Classics
Environment & Sustainability Program
History of Art and Visual Studies
Religious Studies Program

Affiliated Colleges

College of Arts and Sciences

Keywords

The history and historiography of Greek and Roman art; text and object/word and image; Roman wall-painting and sarcophagi; seal-stones/glyptics; art and religion; Hellenistic and Imperial Greek literature; Pliny the Elder; cast collections; classics and media studies; environmental humanities; classical reception studies; classicism and contemporary art.