Race and Representation in the Roman Empire: Images of Aethiopians in Imperial Visual and Material Culture

FAIN: FEL-273797-21

Sinclair Wynn Bell
Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL 60115-2828)

Research and preparation of a book on the representation of Africans in ancient Roman art.

This book project investigates how artists and their social patrons conceptualized racial difference in the Roman empire (c. 100 BCE-200 CE). In particular, it seeks to understand how the social roles and status of Aethiopians and their perception by Romans were communicated through visual representations in "art" (e.g., statues, reliefs, mosaics) and material culture (e.g., amulets, earrings, perfume jars). The aim is to study the character, incidence, and contexts of these representations in cultural historical perspective: their formal qualities; their original viewing contexts and geographical distribution; their kinship with and differences from representations of “Others” (non-Romans) generally (e.g., Gauls); and the larger cultural understandings that underwrite them (e.g., "lightness" vs. "darkness"). This project is therefore interdisciplinary in its aims and methodology, as it sits at the intersection of African studies, Classical Studies, archaeology, and art history.

Media Coverage

Professor Sinclair Bell Awarded National Endowment For The Humanities Fellowship (Media Coverage)
Publication: Archaeological Institute of America
Date: 1/4/2021
Abstract: Longtime AIA member, Sinclair Bell was recently awarded a research Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support his research on visual and material evidence of race and ethnicity in the Roman Empire. The NEH awarded $32.8 million in grants to 213 humanities projects, including Bell’s work; they fund approximately 8 percent of proposals.
URL: https://www.archaeological.org/professor-sinclair-bell-awarded-national-endowment-for-the-humanities-fellowship/

Associated Products

Visualizing Difference in the Roman Empire: Aethiopians in Imperial Art and Culture (Article)
Title: Visualizing Difference in the Roman Empire: Aethiopians in Imperial Art and Culture
Author: SINCLAIR BELL
Abstract: The representation of foreign cultures with manifest ethnic or “racial” differences, such as distinct physical traits or exotic dress, has been a long-standing and often visceral site for human artistic expression. The visual and material culture of the Roman Empire provides an abundant record of such encounters, such as the “barbarians” on the Column of Trajan—scenes that render visible complex formulations of ethnicity, social hierarchy, and power. But not all Roman representations show foreign peoples as barbarians, and not all these representations are shaped by the state. How did foreign peoples represent themselves once they became part of Rome? And how did the “typical” Italic-born Roman appear by contrast?
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://www.nga.gov/research/casva/publications/center-report/center-42/members-reports/sinclair-w-bell.html
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Center
Publisher: National Gallery of Art

Images and Interpretation of Africans in Roman Art and Social Practice (Book Section)
Title: Images and Interpretation of Africans in Roman Art and Social Practice
Author: Sinclair Bell
Editor: Lea Cline
Editor: Nathan Elkins
Abstract: Roman imagery and iconography are typically studied under the more general umbrella of Roman art and in broader, medium-specific studies. This handbook focuses primarily on visual imagery in the Roman world, examined by context and period, and the evolving scholarly traditions of iconographic analysis and visual semiotics that have framed the modern study of these images. As such topics—or, more directly, the isolation of these topics from medium-specific or strictly temporal evaluations of Roman art—are uncommon in monograph-length studies, our goal is that this handbook will be an important reference for both the communicative value of images in the Roman world and the tradition of iconographical analysis. The chapters herein represent contributions from a number of leading and emerging authorities on Roman imagery and iconography from across the world, representing a variety of academic traditions and methods of image analysis.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190850326.013.25
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Book Title: The Oxford Handbook of Roman Imagery and Iconography
ISBN: 9780190850357

'Figures of Empire: Statuettes of Aethiopian Boys and the Sexual Economy of Roman Slavery' (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: 'Figures of Empire: Statuettes of Aethiopian Boys and the Sexual Economy of Roman Slavery'
Author: Sinclair Bell
Abstract: In this installment of the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Alumni Fellows Virtual Reading Series, Sinclair Bell, professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University, will present on his project entitled "Figures of Empire: Statuettes of Aethiopian Boys and the Sexual Economy of Roman Slavery" in conversation with Ulrike Roth of the University of Edinburgh.
Date: 11/13/2023
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbE7CaCvQXE
Conference Name: W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Alumni Fellows Virtual Reading Series

"'Race,' Racism, and Representation in Roman Art: Aethiopians in the Visual Arts of the Roman World" (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: "'Race,' Racism, and Representation in Roman Art: Aethiopians in the Visual Arts of the Roman World"
Abstract: HART Public Lecture
Author: Sinclair Bell
Date: 10/26/2023
Location: Rice University
Primary URL: https://arthistory.rice.edu/events/sinclair-bell

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