Mario Erasmo

MARIO ERASMO (PhD Yale 95) is Professor of Classics at the University of Georgia. His teaching and research focus are on Death, Classical Reception, and Spectacle Entertainment as Metatheatre. He merges these seemingly disparate themes in his forthcoming book, The Spectacular Dead (Bloomsbury, 2025) that explores the staging and viewing of Roman corpses from Classical antiquity to contemporary funerary practices and museum displays. 

Other publications include: A Cultural History of Death: Antiquity (ed.); Death: Antiquity and its Legacy; Reading Death in Ancient Rome; Roman Tragedy: Theatre to Theatricality and a recent article that focuses on semiotics and the portraiture of space, “The Theatre of Pompey: Staging the Self Through Roman Architecture” for the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome.  His walking guides, Strolling Through Rome and Strolling Through Florence allow contemporary visitors to experience the historical reception of Classical Antiquity.