Mary Danisi

Overview

Mary C. Danisi is a postdoctoral associate of the Humanities Scholars Program. Her research specializes in issues of materiality and aesthetics in Greek art, literature, and religion. Her current projects address 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 Cornell Institute for Archaeological and Material Studies (CIAMS), Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Society for the Humanities, Lemmermann Foundation, and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. In 2024, she was the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

Mary has taught courses in classical languages and literature, as well as on the art and archaeology of the premodern Mediterranean. She has fulfilled internships at the Institute for Classical Architecture and Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Frick Collection. Her archaeological fieldwork has included supervisory roles for the excavations at ancient Corinth by the American School of Classical Studies and for The Onchestos Excavation Project.

Research Focus

Mary’s first book in progress, Fillets and the Craft of Value in Ancient Greece, explores the ritual applications of sacred textile bands in images and texts from the 7^th century BCE through the 4^th 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 fillet’s authority as an emblem of consecration has remained relatively understudied in modern scholarship, Mary argues that the commodification of the fillet was a perennial anxiety as ancient handlers of the artifact sought to manipulate the band to personal advantage. By thus examining representations of fillets in the material, visual, and verbal media of devotion, the book illuminates those values which the Greeks held most dear and which they vied to protect.