Dr. Trevor Luke

Assistant Professor of Classics

Tuesday 9-11:30 am and by appointment

Research and Teaching Specializations

• The origins and development of the Principate
• Civic ritual and spectacle
• Charismatic leadership and "shamanic" figures in antiquity
• Roman religion, imperial cult, and early Christianity
• Tacitus and Suetonius

Background

Trevor Luke (Ph.D., Penn) received a B.A. in Classics and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Brigham Young University. He received a William Penn Fellowship in the Graduate Group in Ancient History, where he completed an M.A. and Ph.D. His dissertation, "Presence, Prophecy, and Power in the Early Roman Empire," explored the significance of civic receptions in the production of charisma, religion, and imperial consensus. He is currently reworking it into a book. His main research specialization is the history and development of charismatic leadership in the Roman Empire. He is also interested in imperial cult, Roman imperialism and resistance to it, imposture, Latin biography, and Tacitus.

He is recipient of a FYAP award from the FSU Council on Research and Creativity.

Research Projects in Progress

• Book on civic reception in the Roman Empire
• Vespasian and the Roman navy
• Nero and the death of Agrippina
• The false Nero phenomenon

Recent Publications and Lectures

• Presence, Prophecy, and Power in the Early Roman Empire (in progress)

• "A Healing Touch for Empire: Vespasian's Wonders in Domitianic Rome," forthcoming in G&R 57.1 (2010)
• "The Parousia of Paul at Iconium," Religion & Theology 15.3-4 (2008), 225-51

• “From Crisis to Consensus: Nero and the Murder of Agrippina,” APA, Philadelphia, 2009
• “Nero, Prophecy, and the Production of Religious Community,” Orality and Literacy, Netherlands, 2008
• “Reading Past the Body: Paul’s Arrival,” Redescribing Graeco-Roman Antiquity, South Africa, 2007
• “Vespasian and Hadrian: The Healing Emperors,” CAMWS, Cincinnati, 2007
• “Numa and the Hadrianic Legacy,” APA, Montreal, 2006

Recent Courses

• Pagan Holy Man
• Scandalous Emperors of Rome
• Greek and Roman Civilization
• Roman Way

• Emperor in the East
• Suetonius, Lives of the Flavians
• Early Roman Empire
• Tacitus, Annales IV