People > Steering Committee > Eleanor Betts

Eleanor Betts is Lecturer in Classical Studies at the Open University. Her research focuses on pre-Roman and Roman Italy, specifically the interrelationships between people, objects and places in urban and sacred landscapes. She is interested in how the development and application of multisensory approaches (phenomenological and sensory studies) may help us to understand better people's construction, experience and use of urban and ritual space. Eleanor publishes on religion in pre-Roman Italy (primarily Picenum - modern Marche and North Abruzzo) and sensory studies of Roman urbanism. Recent publications include Senses of the Empire (Routledge, 2017) and ‘Places of transition and deposition: phenomena of water in the sacred landscape of Iron Age Central Adriatic Italy’ (Accordia, 2016).

Eleanor is a founding member of the Sensory Studies in Antiquity network, which seeks to promote the development of sensory studies as part of the toolkit with which to approach the classical world. Eleanor is currently co-editing Capturing the senses: digital methods for sensory archaeologies and City of Senses, and is a member of the series advisory board for Studies in Roman Space and Urbanism.