Diana E. E. Kleiner
Dunham Professor of History of Art and Classics: Roman art and architecture
She has done seminal work on Roman women (I, Clavdia I and II) and her latest book, Cleopatra and Rome, published by Harvard University Press, opens a new perspective on one of the most intriguing women who ever lived. The study reveals how the iconic episodes of Cleopatra's life, absorbed into a larger historical and political narrative, document a momentous cultural shift from the Hellenistic world to the Roman Empire.
Professor Kleiner is also Founding Project Director and Principal Investigator for Open Yale Courses. Supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the initiative provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the Internet. One of her own courses, HSAR 252: Roman Architecture, recorded at Yale in spring 2009, is available at http://oyc.yale.edu/history-art/hsar-252, as well as through iTunes U and YouTube.
Professor Kleiner was Yale's Liaison for Faculty Programs at AllLearn from 2001 to 2006. She authored three online courses, including “eClavdia: Women in Ancient Rome,” which she regularly teaches as a Yale College seminar. She has also created web portals for her two undergraduate lecture courses — Roman Art and Roman Architecture — which are among the most sophisticated at Yale in their use of digital technology and the online discussion board.
From 1995 to 2003, Professor Kleiner was Yale’s Deputy Provost for the Arts with responsibility for arts, divinity, and new media.
Selected Recent Publications
- Cleopatra and Rome (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press,
2005; paperback edition, 2009). - With Susan B. Matheson, I, CLAVDIA II: Women in Roman Art and Society,
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000) - With Susan B. Matheson, I, CLAVDIA: Women in Ancient Rome, (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1996, distributed by the University of Texas Press)
- Roman Sculpture, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1992;
paperback edition, 1994) - Roman Imperial Funerary Altars with Portraits (Rome: Bretschneider, 1987)
- With Bridget Buxton, "Pledges of Empire; The Ara Pacis and the Donations of Rome," American Journal of Archaeology 112 (2008) 57-89.
Click here for CV
featured Courses This Year
CLCV 170/HSAR 250/ARCG 170
Roman Art: Empire, Identity, and Society
Fall 2012, T/TH 9-10:15
This course fulfills the area requirement in the humanities and arts (HU).
Masterpieces of Roman art from the Republic to Constantine studied in their historical and social contexts. The great Romans and the monuments they commissioned: portraits, triumphal arches, columns, and historical relief.
Topics include the concept of Empire and imperial identity, Roman biography and storytelling, the politics of portraiture, the making and unmaking of history through art, and the art of women, children, freedmen, and slaves. For syllabus and course web portal, see Classes*v2.
