Made possible by a major grant from the Getty Foundation and administered by the American Council of Learned Societies, this program supports exceptional early-career art historians whose projects make substantial and original contributions to the understanding of art and its history. The fellowship includes a $60,000 stipend for the 2022-23 academic year, with an additional $5,000 for travel and research. 

The award will support Professor Rodríguez as she works on her book, The Roman Honorific Arch: Its Making and Ancient Reception from Augustus to Constantine. She looks forward to returning to Rome to conduct fieldwork for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the abstract of her project below:

Freestanding honorific arches were one of the defining features of ancient Roman cities and served a multiplicity of functions that ranged from the public commemoration of military victories to private celebrations of individuals and families. This project is a comparative study of Roman arches, seen as an essential form of communication between ancient patrons and viewers. The analysis focuses on the making and viewing of arches as interdependent processes, revealing how diverse patrons living throughout the Roman world channeled the unique flexibility of the arch form to fulfill multiple commemorative needs, and to reach the diverse audiences of the ever-growing empire. By bringing attention to how local communities responded to an architectural type imported from the capital, this book offers a reconsideration of well-known Roman monuments from a postcolonial perspective.

The Department warmly congratulates Professor Rodríguez for receiving this prestigious award, and will miss her dearly as she travels abroad.