Alice Sharpless received her PhD in February 2022 with a dissertation entitled “The Value of Luxury: Precious Metal Tableware in the Roman Empire.” Her dissertation focused on the economic and social value of precious metal tableware, especially silver, from the late republic through the 3rd century CE. Alice shows how that the value of precious metal tableware, in both an economic and cultural sense, provided its owners with opportunities to convey particular messages aimed at navigating the fraught networks of status that existed in Roman society. Gold and silver dining ware could be a store of wealth, but not one which produced financial returns like other assets. Rather, the benefits of storing wealth as luxury dining products were social in nature. The use of precious metal dining ware at communal dinners, or for display, could project an image of wealth, taste, and generosity. Luxury commodities like silver and gold plate were enmeshed in the social interactions and behaviors of elite Romans and so become agents in defining the social personas of their owners. In 2019, she was awarded the Bothmer Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for her dissertation research.
In her time at Columbia, Alice taught elementary and intermediate Latin and served as a TA for courses on Augustan poetry, Roman history, and Roman art. She also taught Art Humanities, part of the Columbia College core curriculum. She has participated in five excavation seasons at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli and currently serves as the Manager of Digital Archives for the project. She is also part of a collaborative effort to publish a catalogue of the Roman coins in Columbia Library’s Olcott Collection (manuscript in preparation for submission in Fall 2022). Her interest in Roman numismatics brought her to the American Numismatic Society in 2021 where she now serves as a post-doctoral curatorial assistant on the Roman Republican Die Project (RRDP).
Originally from Philadelphia, Alice received her BA in Latin Language and Literature from Oberlin College in 2009, and an MA in Classical Studies from Vanderbilt University in 2012. She has studied abroad at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (Fall 2007) and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (Summer 2011). Before coming to Columbia, Alice held internships at the Penn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cleveland Museums of Art, and taught Latin at the Penn Charter School in Philadelphia. In her limited free time, Alice participates in the Barnard Columbia Ancient Drama productions, quilts, and tends to her orchids. Email Alice Sharpless.