Diana Spencer

Diana Jane Spencer (born 1969) is an Irish classical scholar. She is Professor of Classics and dean of liberal arts and natural sciences at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on how ancient Romans articulate and explore their own identity.

Early life and education Spencer was born in 1969. As an undergraduate, she attended Trinity College, Dublin, where she was awarded a BA (Hons) in Modern English and Classical Civilization in 1991. She completed an MA in Late Antique and Early Byzantine Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London in 1992. Her PhD in Classics, awarded by the University of Cambridge in 1997, focused on the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus: During her time at Cambridge, Spencer was a member of St John's College. She currently serves as Dean of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences, and has held the position since the LANS programme was established in 2013. She had previously served as the Director of the University's College of Arts and Law Graduate School.

She has served as an Ambassador at the British School of Rome (2016–19). Her second book, Roman Landscape: Culture and Identity, made "a valuable contribution" to the field of understanding how the Romans understood their engagement with the space around them. She has written extensively on how Roman literature articulates ideas of space, motion and movement, as well as how these patterns of speech help formulate and solidify Roman identity.

Selected publications