Sarah Culpepper Stroup (She / Her / Hers)

My primary research focus is late Republican and early Imperial cryptology—coded writing—and in particular the cryptological habitus that arose toward the end of the so-called crisis of the Roman Republic and into the triumviral period.  To this end, my primary Republican authors are Cicero, Catullus, and—more recently—Varro, and my primary Imperial authors are Seneca, Martial, and Lucian.  

A secondary research focus is the advanced technologies of the ancient world—and the public familiarity with such technologies—as they can be recovered through literature both technical (Aristotle's Meteorologika; Seneca's Natural Questions, Ptolemy's Almagest; ancient mathematical treatises) and popular (Aristophanes' Clouds; Pliny's Natural History, Lucian's True Story, Claudian's de Torpidine).  

Related to these foci I have two manuscripts in progress: Varro's Dystopian Rome: Political Cryptology and the Shadow of the Triumvirate in the de Rebus Rusticis, and Ex Machina: Stories of STEM in the Ancient World.  The latter of these is intended for a non-specialist audience and is under contract with Princeton University Press.

I am the Program Director for Humanities First, a first-year program at the University of Washington intended to introduce incoming students to the interpretive and analytical tools and skills used by most humanists both in the academy and beyond.  Humanities First consists of a series of three courses, the latter two of which engage deeply in place-based learning and public humanities communications.

I am Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies through June 2026.