Biography
Susan Heuck Allen is a Lecturer in History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences at the Rhode Island School of Design and Visiting Scholar in the Department of Classics at Brown University. She earned an AB in History from Smith, and an MA and PhD in Classical Archaeology from the University of Cincinnati and Brown University, respectively. She has taught at various New England institutions, including Smith, Yale, and Tufts University. Beginning as a dirt archaeologist, she worked on Bronze Age sites in Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel before devoting her research to the history of archaeology, the subject of her two books: Finding the Walls of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik (1999) and Excavating Our Past: Perspectives on the History of the Archaeological Institute of America (2002). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2006), the American Philosophical Society (in 1992-93 for the Troy book and as Andrew Mellon Fellow, 2007-08, for the spy book), Princeton University's Program in Hellenic Studies (2007), the Fulbright Foundation (Cyprus, 1988-89), the Archaeological Institute of America (Turkey, 1989), and the American Schools of Oriental Research (Israel, 1989). She swam the Hellespont, from Asia to Europe in 1997 as part of her research for the Troy book and won a silver medal. Allen has appeared as an on-screen commentator in several films. She is a National and International lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America and has chaired its Archives Committee and its Women in Archaeology Interest Group. During the preparation of the AIA volume, Allen became intrigued with women's roles in archaeology, the subject of her forthcoming book, Excavating Women. Another "iron in the fire" concerns Anglophone communities in the Ottoman Empire which grew out of her Troy book.She is currently speaking nationally and internationally on nthe subject of her latest book, Classical Spies: American Archaeologists with the OSS in World War II Greece (2011).
Academic Research/Areas of Interest
Areas of Research Specialization
History of Archaeology, Mediterranean History and Archaeology, World War II History: Office of Strategic Services, Women's History, Classical Archaeology, Classical Tradition
Areas of Teaching Expertise
Classical Archaeology, Latin, Greek Art and Archaeology, Roman Art and Archaeology, Medieval Art, Sociology of Women in Ancient Greece, Archaeology: Method and Theory, Homer and Archaeology, Periklean Athens, Augustan Rome, Excavating Women: Pioneering American Women in Archaeology, Classical Mythology, Myth and Greek Tragedy