Candace Weddle

Since USC doctoral candidate Candace Weddle fell in love with the classics as an undergraduate at Baylor University, the rest – quite literally – has been history.

Immersing herself in the material culture of the Roman and late antique periods (roughly from the first century to the sixth), Weddle is trying to determine what various artifacts from these periods meant to the people who created and used them. She is particularly interested in what objects and ancient texts can tell us about the end of traditional Roman religion and the beginnings of Christianity.

When she’s not delving into past, Weddle is a dynamic force in the present. She has been an active participant on the Provost’s Graduate Student Advisory Committee and won a USC Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award in 2006.

She’s also become extraordinarily well traveled in the course of her historic pursuits. As part of the American Academy in Rome’s Summer Archaeology Program, Weddle spent summer 2005 in Italy, helping excavate the late Roman/Byzantine site of Classe Harbor near Ravenna. In 2006, she joined a team excavating a Neolithic site in the Transylvanian region of Romania.

Now, as one of USC’s 16 Fulbright scholars for 2008, she’s off for a yearlong stay in Turkey, where she is also funded by a Junior Residential Fellowship from the Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations in Istanbul. She is studying the Roman custom of worshipping their emperors, and the responses of the early Christians to this practice. Her hope is that a clearer understanding of religious differences in antiquity can provide insights into modern interactions and conflicts among religious groups.

• Candace Weddle’s profile on the USC Department of Art History Web site
• Fulbright Advisement at USC: Academic Recognition Programs