Paula Gaither is a PhD Candidate in Classical Archaeology at Stanford University, having received her BA in Classics from Columbia University in 2017. She then attended Oxford University as a Kellett Fellow, earning an MPhil in Classical Archaeology in 2019. She comes to Stanford after a year-long graduate internship in the curatorial department at the Getty Villa. She has done fieldwork at Hadrian's Villa through excavations with Columbia and Oxford. Paula's research analyzes the depiction of Black people in Hellenistic and Roman art. Through this she explores questions about race and ethnicity in the ancient Mediterranean, the material culture of slavery, and the Roman economy. She is also interested in Late Antique religion and Hellenistic astrology.
How has your time in Rome shaped or shifted the direction of your project so far?
It's been incredible for my work. I knew that I would be changed a lot by the experience, but it's way more than I anticipated. My project here is examining material in the Naples Archaeological Museum, and it's been incredible to be able to get access to material in their collection and to speak with curators who have been so generous with me. I have found objects that I didn't know about and have learned so much about how Italian museums function. I've been able to go to museums all across Italy in the time I've been here, and that's been really helpful for contextualizing what makes the Naples Archaeological Museum different from its peers, and what is similar.
The interactions with other fellows have been really helpful. I've learned so much about Italian colonialism and the different ways that race is constructed within Italy from them. Italy's history with ideas of race and imperialism, colonialism, state formation, all these things. It's been invaluable to have other fellows around who can tell me about these things and point me to where to look. I have a much better understanding of the contemporary historical context of Italy now.
I'm trying to stay focused on my dissertation, but I'm having so many ideas for future projects, ways to continue asking these questions.
What part of your daily routine or environment at the Academy has most influenced you and your work?
Oh, man, I just love the rhythms of life here. At the moment, I've really committed to learning Italian. So I've been going five days a week, three hours a day, every morning, and every morning before I go at about 8:15, I go to the bar and I get a coffee from Gabri. I have my morning chat with him, get to practice my Italian and warm up my brain. Then I go on with my day and I come back just in time for lunch. I have lunch, then I get to spend the whole afternoon immersed in my research, thinking, and writing, and then I have dinner. The meals really structure my world here, and it's great to not have to think about what I'm going to feed myself. I enjoy cooking and I do miss it sometimes, but I will enjoy the months of not cooking for myself every meal. The mental load taken off by the structure of the meals, and knowing that it's always there, is so special. It's definitely the way that's given me a rhythm to my work, to my life here.
I also love being able to go have a meal and talk to people who are just brilliant and have really interesting conversations, often not about work, but to talk about things that are happening in the world and cool things we've done. The bar and the meals are so fundamental to how I get through my day. Those are the kind of core things that are always present, and just to have that time to check in with other people and be in community is so, so nice, especially because when you're doing research, it's really intense work. You often are just not seeing other people, but here you always can find friendly faces around the table.
Have any encounters – with people, places, new information – opened up new paths in your research or practice in the past months?
I feel like I alluded to this at the beginning of my answer to the first question. This experience has totally opened things up for me. I'm learning Italian and really digging deep. I'm very motivated to develop my facility with a language, and that's been just incredible to think about myself, not just as a classicist or an ancient historian, but as a scholar interested in Italy and in the long durée of history here, and gaining ability to ask those questions and to research those things. So much of my work deals with modern conceptions of race and blackness, and I really didn't have the ability to do that work. I could ask some questions, but I've really been able to develop the skills I need here to do that, and so I'm excited to see where that goes in the course of my career.
I'm organizing a panel at the American Association of Italian Studies Conference with another fellow, Kevin Martín, and another scholar at La Capraia in Napoli. I would not call myself an Italianist, necessarily, but it's been really incredible to be developing these kinds of collaborative relationships. To find people who you can collaborate with and work together is so special. So I'm really grateful for that. And then, my artistic practice has really flourished at the Academy. I was in a film that two affiliated fellows, Ieva and Meral, were here making, and that's going to be shown at the Venice Biennale. So that's great. I did my shop talk with Katie Dennis and Liz Glynn. And talking to Liz, who's a sculptor and a performance artist, has been so interesting. I really want to develop a performance piece associated with my dissertation research, which I never would have thought to do before, even a month ago. So it's really incredible to think about all the ways that my work is growing.
The other thing is David Keplinger, who was the creative writing fellow in the fall, really encouraged many of us to write poetry, and it really opened something up in me. So, I'm a poet now, which is wonderful. I am enjoying really feeling like I have access to more ways to communicate my ideas and the research that I do, and not limit myself to doing it in a manner that is academic, let's say. It doesn't just have to be a dissertation or a peer-reviewed journal article or peer-reviewed book, right? I can do it in an exhibition, which feels like a clear extension of my project, which is so art historical, but also as a performance art piece; or I could collaborate with artists to produce these other ways of engaging with material. All of that is really exciting: to be around people who do work like that and who have done work like that. I feel so fortunate and blessed to be here so young, and just at the start, really, of so much of my career. So I'm just so excited to see what comes of the various things.
What are you hoping to explore or deepen in the remaining months of your residency?
My main goal is to keep learning Italian and to get better with that. And then these artistic things I was just alluding to — really thinking about other ways that I can communicate my research. Obviously, writing the dissertation is the most important thing for me at the moment. That's what I'm here to do, and that's the project that I need to finish next, and the thing that's necessary for my academic career to continue. But I'm just excited to have discovered and opened up all these new pathways within me, with regard to artistic practice, and to really embrace those parts of me. To be in community with all of these amazing, incredible, creative, smart, lively humans is so special. I'm just so excited to continue deepening and developing my relationships with my cohort and to develop my Italian so I can keep meeting Italian people and learning more about the culture. My time here has really just opened up so many things for me, and I'm so grateful for it, and just so curious to see what comes next.