UMass Boston

Greek Art and Archaeology, Civic Ideology, Hellenistic Architecture and Urbanism

PhD 1994, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Umholtz has published articles on various aspects of the interaction of architectural style with civic ideology, gender roles, and religious expectations. She is co-author of two articles reporting epigraphical discoveries in Greece and a critical edition of a Byzantine commentary on Plato’s Parmenides. She is currently writing a chapter on the spread of Greek architecture as exemplified in the 4th century B.C. Carian sanctuary of Zeus at Labraunda. She is also working on a book, provisionally entitled Architecture and Politics: Hellenistic Kings as Builders. She has served on the Managing Committee of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and frequently returns to Athens as a Visiting Senior Associate Member at the School.

Dr. Umholtz's teaching at UMass Boston covers a range of topics from Greek language, Greek and Roman Mythology, and Greek Civilization, through Greek Art and Architecture, Alexander the Great, Hellenistic Art and Culture, and Greek and Roman Epic.  Her training through the master's level was in Classical Languages and Literature and she enjoys bringing together literature, art and history in her courses.  Her current new teaching project is the revival and redesign of a previously dormant course entitled "Paganism and Christianity."

She has excavated in Greece (at the Athenian Agora and ancient Corinth) and in Turkey (at Sardis) and has participated in architectural field projects in Sicily and Turkey. She has served as enrichment lecturer for a California Alumni trip in Turkey and hopes to lead study trips in Greece in the near future.