The American Academy in Rome is pleased to announce that Dr. Sinclair W. Bell, a 2003 Rome Prize Fellow in ancient studies, has been appointed to a three-year term as editor of the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Published since 1915, the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome is an annual volume, produced with the University of Michigan Press, which includes articles on topics related to Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
Sinclair is associate professor of art history at Northern Illinois University, where he has taught courses in Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art history, architecture, and archaeology, as well as museum studies, since 2008. Prior to his position at Northern Illinois, Sinclair was a postdoctoral fellow in Roman archaeology at the University of Manitoba. In addition to winning the 2002 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize Fellowship in Ancient Studies, Sinclair has received numerous residential fellowships and grants, including those in Cologne and Mannheim from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, a George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship at Brown University, and a Margo Tytus Visiting Scholar Fellowship from the University of Cincinnati.
Sinclair brings extensive experience to his new role as editor of the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. He is the author of Chariot Racing in Roman Imperial Art and Culture: Athletic Competition and Urban Spectacle (forthcoming, University of Pennsylvania Press) and the coeditor of eleven books, including Role Models in the Roman World: Identity and Assimilation (2008), which is part of the Supplements to the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome series, and Roman Law before the Twelve Tables: An Interdisciplinary Approach (forthcoming, University of Edinburgh Press). In addition, Sinclair has served as both associate editor and book reviews editor at Etruscan and Italic Studies, a journal published by the Etruscan Foundation, and has written articles and reviews for the American Journal of Archaeology, Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei, Kölner Jahrbuch für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, and Pegasus: Berliner Beiträge zum Nachleben der Antike. Sinclair’s research on Roman sport will be profiled in The Greatest Race: The Story of the Real Ben Hur, a television program that will air on the Smithsonian Channel (USA), BBC Four (UK), and ZDF Enterprises (Germany) in 2019.
Sinclair received his BA in classical studies and history from Wake Forest University in 1995 before earning an MSt in classical archaeology from the University of Oxford in 1996. He completed the Summer Program in Italian Archaeology at the American Academy in Rome in 1998 and matriculated at the University of Cologne from 2001 to 2002. At the University of Edinburgh, Sinclair earned an MSc in classical archaeology in 1999 and a PhD in classics in 2004.