Kate Cooper

Biography

Kate works with the culture, history, and archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean, specializing in the Early Iron Age, Archaic, and Classical Greek world.

She has taught courses for the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies since 2014, and has previously taught in the UK at Birkbeck College, London and the University of Cambridge, and in Toronto at York University and University of Toronto. In her teaching she is particularly interested in using ancient material evidence to explain history and society, while also revealing the subjectivity of the interpretation of that archaeological and artistic evidence. Her edited volume New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture in the Greek & Roman World (Brill, 2021) explores the different avenues that the archaeology of the Classical world can take and how these can encourage a more interdisciplinary approach to the study of the ancient world.

As well as teaching, Kate has many years of experience curating Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum in London, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto where she is currently a Research Associate. At the moment, she is running a SSHRC-funded project in partnership with Classics colleagues at the University of Toronto and University of Toronto Mississauga to publish part of ROM’s ancient Greek coin collection. See the progress and project details on X (Twitter) @ROMkomma or on the project website. 

Kate’s research interests are two-fold. She works on the material culture, and particularly the pottery evidence, of the early Greek world. Her PhD from King’s College London focused on archaic Corinthian pottery and what the archaeological contexts of this pottery revealed about trade and the formation of identities in different areas around the Greek world. She also studies the way in which public understanding and perceptions of the Classical world have been shaped by representations of the ancient world in popular culture, and most importantly, the way in which museums display their collections of antiquities.

For further information on her publications and experience see her Academia.edu and LinkedIn pages.

Education

• PhD London, KCL – Classical Archaeology
• MA London, Courtauld Institute of Art – Classical Art History
• BA Oxon – Literae Humaniores (Classics)