A New Recruit

From Laura:

Hi, this is Laura, "reporting for duty."

Mark G. has invited me to join War Historian as an occasional contributor concerning ancient military history.

I think that will be fun. But first I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself.

I'm 22 years old and a senior at Ohio State University. Around my second year in college, I decided I wanted to be a history major--just your average undergraduate you might say, where drinking beer and playing Halo ranked above that research paper on the role of women in World War II.

Things changed during Winter Quarter 2003 when I took Mark Grimsley’s History of War class. For the first time I was engaged in history. I began taking academics and my own scholarship more seriously. Mark and I have have discussed many issues involving military history and we collaborated to organize two educational forums concerning the war with Iraq, the first a few weeks before the war began and the other in May of last year.

After finishing History of War, I went on to take numerous courses in ancient history, including War in the Ancient Mediterranean World taught by my academic advisor and mentor, Nathan Rosenstein (whose new book Rome at War: Farms, Families, and Death in the Middle Republic is terrific).

My main interest lies in classical archaeology as I am fascinated by what scant remains tell us about the past, including Greek and Roman warfare. This past fall, I traveled to Greece to conduct my own archaeological research in the Eastern Corinthia. My senior honors thesis, “Data Collection and Methodological Consistency in Intensive Survey” will present the data and conclusions from my trip to Greece. This trip was possible because of Professor Timothy E. Gregory and his ongoing project in the Corinthia and the OSU Excavations at Isthmia. I also keep a personal blog on Xanga. There you can view many of my pictures from my trip to Greece.

More soon.