by Sarah Levin-Richardson
Lorraine Abagatnan (BA Classics 2020; minor in Anthropology) was recently featured in Pasts Imperfect, an online publication highlighting the most recent trends and scholarship in ancient studies. Abagatnan’s contribution highlighted the intersection of food and identity studies as it pertains to Early Christianity, a set of interests foreshadowed in her Senior Honors Thesis, The Role of Food in the Hellenistic and Roman Colonization of Ancient North Transjordan, advised by Prof. Sarah Levin-Richardson (Classics).
While at UW, the Classics Department awarded her a competitive Jim Greenfield scholarship for 2019-2020, and her scholarly writing was recognized in 2020 with our highest prize, the Meg Greenfield Essay Prize. In addition, she was a fixture in the department and the wider community, participating in the Critical Archaeology Reading Group of the Puget Sound Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.
Now in graduate school at the University of Michigan’s Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art & Archaeology, her main research interests include community archaeology; food studies; archaeobotany; zooarchaeology; Christians; Late Antiquity; anticolonial theoretical frameworks; and identity formation. Currently, she is assisting with the Notion Archaeological Project (2023) at Notion, Izmir, Turkey. Lorraine has participated in the Balu’a Regional Archaeology Project in Jordan (2019) and the Issei at Barneston Project in Washington State (2020). She also has experience working in cultural resource management and archaeological consultation through her work with Cultural Resource Consultants in Seattle, Washington. Last but not least, she was recently elected treasurer of the Asian and Asian American Classical Caucus (AAACC; co-founded by UW Classics Prof. Chris Waldo).