Josephine Crawley Quinn (born 10 September 1973) is an historian and archaeologist, working across Greek, Roman and Phoenician history. Appointed on 1 January 2025, she is the first woman to hold the Professorship of Ancient History at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, and is a fellow at St. John's College. Quinn was previously Professor of Ancient History in the

Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford The Faculty of Classics, previously the Faculty of Literae Humaniores, is a subdivision of the University of Oxford concerned with the teaching and research of classics. The teaching of classics at Oxford was present since its conception and was ...

and Martin Frederiksen Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at

Worcester College Worcester College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms was ad ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Career

Quinn obtained a BA in Classics in 1996 from

Wadham College Wadham College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy Wadham, a ...

, Oxford. She then obtained an MA (1998) and PhD (2003) in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. In 2001–2002, she was the Ralegh Radford Rome Scholar at the

British School at Rome The British School at Rome (BSR) is a British interdisciplinary research centre supporting the arts, humanities and architecture established in Rome. Historical and archaeological study are at the core of its activities. History The British Sc ...

. In 2003–2004 she was a College Lecturer in Ancient History at St John's College, and she has been at Worcester College since 2004. In 2008 she was a visiting scholar at the

Getty Villa The Getty Villa is an educational center and an art museum located at the easterly end of the Malibu coast in the Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. One of two campuses of th ...

. Quinn is co-director of the Oxford Centre for Phoenician and Punic Studies, and co-director of the Tunisian-British Excavations at Utica,

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

with Andrew Wilson and

Elizabeth Fentress Elizabeth Barringer Fentress is a Roman archaeologist who specialises in Italy and North Africa. She has collaborated on the excavation of numerous sites in the Western Mediterranean and published their results. She is also the originator and sc ...

. Between 2006 and 2011, Quinn served as the editor of th
''Papers of the British School at Rome''
Quinn won the Zvi Meitar/Vice-Chancellor

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

Research Prize in the Humanities in 2009. She has published numerous articles and two co-edited volumes, the ''Hellenistic West'', and ''The Punic Mediterranean''. In 2018 Quinn published the monograph ''In Search of the Phoenicians'', described as a pioneering and exhilarating volume, which argues that the idea of the

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

ns as a distinct, self-identifying group, is a modern invention. The book was awarded the

Society for Classical Studies The Society for Classical Studies (SCS), formerly known as the American Philological Association (APA), is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization founded in 1869. It is the pree ...

Goodwin Award of Merit in 2019. Quinn contributes to the ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of Book ...

'' and the ''

New York Review of Books New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

'', and has appeared on BBC Radio Three and Four.

Personal life

Quinn is the daughter of the former MEP

Christine Crawley, Baroness Crawley Christine Mary Crawley, Baroness Crawley FRSA (born 9 January 1950) is a British politician for the Labour Party. Early life Crawley was educated at the Notre Dame High School School in Plymouth before going to Digby Stuart College (Universit ...

Selected publications

*Quinn, J.C. 2010. The reinvention of Lepcis. In ''Bollettino di Archeologia ON LINE. Roma 2008 - International Congress of Classical Archaeology Meetings Between Cultures in the Ancient Mediterranean''. *Quinn, J. and Wilson, A. 2013. "Capitolia". ''Journal of Roman Studies'' 103: 117–173. *Quinn, J.C., McLynn, N, Kerr and R.M., Hadas, D. 2014. "Augustine's Canaanities". ''Papers of the British School at Rome'' 82: 175–197. *Quinn, J.C. and Vella, N.C. 2014. ''The Punic Mediterranean: Identities and Identification from Phoenician Settlement to Roman Rule''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Quinn, J.C. 2017. "Translating empire from Carthage to Rome". ''Classical Philology'' 112(3): 312–331. *Quinn, J. 2018. ''In Search of the Phoenicians''. Princeton: Princeton University Press. *Quinn, J. 2024. ''How the World Made the West: A 4,000-Year History''. Bloomsbury Press.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quinn, Jo Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford Fellows of Worcester College, Oxford University of California, Berkeley alumni Women classical scholars Academics of the University of Oxford Irish women archaeologists Archaeologists of Phoenicia Daughters of life peers Irish classical scholars Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Irish archaeologists Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge