Naoise Mac Sweeney

Naoíse Mac Sweeney (PhD University of Cambridge) is Associate Professor in Ancient History at the University of Leicester, UK. Prior to this, she was a Research Fellow at Cambridge and has also worked in public policy on conflict, development and race relations. Her main area of research is cultural interaction between the Greek world and the Near East, focusing on Anatolia from the Iron Age to the classical period. This work spans ancient history and archaeology: her first monograph, Community Identity and Archaeology (Michigan 2013), adopted an archaeological approach; while her second, Foundation Myths and Politics in Ancient Ionia (Cambridge 2015), was primarily historical. She has wider interests in the politics of heritage and historiography, and is in the final stages of writing two related books – one on the site of Troy, and the other in collaboration with Jan Haywood on receptions of the Iliad (both Bloomsbury). She was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Classics in 2015. At the CHS, she will primarily be researching archaic-classical Rough Cilicia, in relation to a survey project that she co-directs in the Göksu River valley.