Mary Danisi

Biography

Mary's research specializes in issues of materiality and aesthetics in Greek art, literature, and religion. Her current work addresses the generative interrelations between ancient visual and verbal media, as well as theoretical models of representation in antiquity. Her research has been supported by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, American Academy in Rome, and Society for the Humanities at Cornell University. She regularly teaches courses in classical languages and literature, as well as on the art, archaeology, and history of the premodern Mediterranean. Mary’s first book project in progress, Fillets and the Making of Value in Ancient Greece, explores the ritual applications of ceremonial textile bands in images and texts from the 7th century BCE through the 4th century CE. The fillet was a highly coveted prize that conferred distinction upon the humans, animals, and objects it adorned, and whose awarding and possession were strictly controlled by sacred laws. Although the object's authority as an emblem of consecration has remained relatively understudied in modern scholarship, Mary argues that the Greek fanaticism for the ribbon has the power to illuminate those values which the Greeks held most dear.