Faculty

Jenn Finn

Degrees

B.A., University of Michigan
M.A., Columbia University
M.A., University of Michigan
Ph.D., University of Michigan
Ph.D., Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat

Research Interests

Ancient Near East, Alexander the Great, ancient warfare

Selected Publications

Recent books and articles:

• Much Ado about Marduk: Questioning Discourses of Royalty in First Millennium Mesopotamian Literature(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017).
• Contested Pasts: A Determinist History of Alexander the Great in the Roman Empire (University of Michigan Press, 2022).
• Editor, Brill’s Companion to Courage and Cowardice in Ancient Mediterranean Warfare (forthcoming, 2025).
• “The Center of the Earth in Ancient Thought.” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History4 nos.1-2, 2017 (177-209).
• “Herodotus’ Poor Man of Nippur.” Classical World2, 2019 (13-38).
• “The Ship of Aeneas.” The Ancient History Bulletin1-2, 2020 (1-24).
• “Plutarch’s Themistocles: The Serpent of Hellas.” Histos14, 2020 (185-205).
• “Persian Collections: Center and Periphery at Achaemenid Imperial Capitals.” Studia Orientalia 2, 2021 (154-173).
• “The Grand Strategy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.” Brill’s Companion to War in the Ancient Iranian Empires, 2024 (120-156).
• “Urbicide, Memory Sanctions, and the Perso-Macedonian Dynasty: The Destructions of Thebes and Persepolis in the Reign of Alexander the Great.” Colloquia Antiqua volume, Festschrift in honor of Ed Anson, 2024 (71-103).

Recent Papers:

“Innovative and Experiential Pedagogies in Classical Studies.” Invited workshop presenter at the Focus on Teaching and Learning Conference, Loyola University Chicago (January 2022).

“The Seven Wonders of the World and the Hellenistic Imaginary.” Invited Presenter at the Ancient Societies Workshop, University of Chicago (February 2022).

“Greek Military Generals in the Service of Foreign Armies: Some Case Studies.” Invited Presenter at the Society for Military History (April 2022).

“The Hoplite Enigma: Ancient Persian War Strategy and its Failures.” Invited Workshop Presenter, Conference on Ancient Military Strategy at Quantico (April 2022).

“The Last Plans of Alexander the Great.” Invited Speaker at the Global Antiquities Workshop, Northwestern University (May 2022).

“Virtual Empires: Cultural Heritage and the Politics of Power in the Ancient Mediterranean.” Invited Speaker at Stanford University (March 2023) and University of Texas-Austin (March 2023).

“Text and Artifact: Reading Cultural Interaction against the Grain.” Invited participant at Northwestern University, “Text and Artifact: Approaches to Cultural Interaction in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Early First Millennium BCE” (April 2024).

“Diodorus on the Nature of War.” Invited speaker at the conference “1^st Trends in Classics: Ancient Historians on the Nature of War,” University of the Peloponnese (May 2024).

“Courage and Cowardice in Ancient Mediterranean Warfare: A Book Project in Progress.” Brill’s Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World Conference, Amsterdam (August 2024).

“Urbicide, Memory Sanctions, and the Perso-Macedonian Dynasty: The Destructions of Thebes and Persepolis in the Reign of Alexander the Great.” Annual Conference on Alexander the Great, University of Nebraska Omaha (September 2024).

“An Ancient Historiographer’s Epic Journey.” Invited speaker at the conference “Composing Complexity: The Interconnectivity of Literary, Cultural and Historical Levels in the Histories of Herodotus.” Christian Albrechts University Kiel (November 2024).

Works in Progress:

• The Great Man’s Grand Tour: Cultural Heritage and the Politics of Power in the Ancient World.