Sean Tandy is a social historian of late antiquity, the period between the height of the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages (c. 200–700 CE). Sean’s research focuses on political language in the late Roman Empire and how politics reveals itself in media that might seem surprising to a modern viewer, such as in mosaics and poetry.

While Sean works on late antiquity in his research, in his teaching he likes to expand on either side of that period, teaching on subjects ranging from ancient Egyptian mythology to the history of Italian Renaissance humanism. In his courses on history, mythology, and religion, he loves to see students delve into primary sources, both textual and visual, for themselves.

Sean did his undergraduate work in his native state at the University of New Hampshire before moving to the Midwest for graduate school. Sean earned his doctorate in Classical Studies from Indiana University in 2019. Sean has previously taught at Indiana University and also in Rome, as an assistant for the American Academy in Rome’s Classical Summer School. Having spent a year in Rome as a Rome Prize Fellow and a summer as a student at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Sean is an avid advocate for study-abroad programs and is happy to speak with any students thinking of spending a term abroad.