Rome Program Dean & Faculty

Valeria Cupelli
Intermediate Italian Teacher

Valeria Cupelli comes from Rocca Priora, the highest of the Castelli Romani. In 2003 she graduated from La Sapienza University with a degree in Oriental Studies. She came back to Italy after some work experiences abroad to specialize in teaching Italian to foreigners. In 2007 she obtained the DITALS certification (teaching Italian as a foreign langauge) and in 2008 she co-founded Koinè, a training and language consultancy. She also works in helping foreign students integrate into the Italian school system. In July 2010 she married Adriano. 

Sister Catherine Joseph Droste
Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology

Sister Catherine Joseph is a Dominican Sister of the Congregation of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee. After receiving a B.A. and M.A. in history, Sister studied theology and received her S.T.L. and S.T.D. from the Pontifical University of Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. She recently returned to Rome and teaches dogmatic and moral theology at her alma mater. 
 

Dr. Peter Hatlie
Director, Academic Dean and Associate Professor of History

 Dr. Hatlie is a specialist in Late Antique, Medieval and Byzantine history. Since 1999 he has taught Ancient Greek and Western Civilization I for the Rome Program. With a B.A. in Classics from St. Olaf College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval and Byzantine History from Fordham University, he is the recipient of research awards from the American School of Classical Studies, the Fulbright-Hays Program, the Harvard University / Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, the Kosciuszko Foundation and the University of Texas at Austin. His teaching interests include the general history of the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean, Medieval Church History and the social, religious and cultural history of Byzantium. He is the author of numerous articles, two brief text editions and one book, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350-850 (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Dr. Hatlie can be contacted at peter.hatlie@gmail.com.

Select Publications

  • "Images of Motherhood and Self in Byzantine Literature," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 63 (2009) 31-57.
  • The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350-850. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
  • "The Religious Lives of Children and Adolescents," in A People's History of Christianity. Vol 3: Byzantine Christianity, ed. Derek Krueger (Minneapolis, Fortress Press: 2006)
  • "Monks and Circus Factions in Early Byzantine Political Life," Monastères, images, pouvoirs et société à Byzance, ed. Michel Kaplan (Byzantina Sorbonensia, 23) (Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne: 2006) 13-25.
  • "A Rough-Guide to Byzantine Monasticism in the Seventh Century," in The Reign of Heraclius (610-641): Crisis and Confrontation, eds. Gerrit J. Reinink and Bernard H, Stolte (Groningen Studies in Cultural Change) (Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA: 2002) 205-226.
  • "Friendship and the Byzantine Iconoclast Age," in Friendship and Friendship Networks in the Middle Ages, ed. Julian Haseldine (London, England: Sutton Press, 1999), 137-52.


Dr. Elizabeth Lisot
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art

Elizabeth Lisot has taught art history classes at the University of Dallas since 2007. Her specialties include Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, nineteenth-century French painting, and critical theory. She received her doctorate in aesthetic studies, with a focus in art history, from the University of Texas at Dallas. Her dissertation, “Passion, Penance and Mystical Union: Early Modern Catholic Polemics in the Religious Paintings of Federico Barocci,” contextualizes the artist’s work within Franciscan contemplative practices and the Tridentine doctrinal concerns of the early modern period. She completed her M.A. in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art history and her B.F.A. in studio art at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Additionally, as an undergraduate, she attended the University of California, Los Angeles and the Sorbonne, University of Paris. As part of her graduate studies, she attended courses in Renaissance and Baroque art history in Rome and Florence.

Dr. Lisot’s recent projects include writing a review of the recent Federico Barocci exhibition, “L’incanto del colore”, held in Siena, Italy in 2010 and giving a lecture for the University of Dallas’ Rome Walking Tours Lecture Series on "The Chiesa Nuova: Philip Neri's Oratorian Church and the Catholic Reformation". Research from her Ph.D. dissertation is currently being used in preparation for a four-hundred year anniversary exhibition commemorating the death of Federico Barocci to be held at the St. Louis Museum of Art, Missouri, in 2012.

Dr. Lisot is a member of the Renaissance Society of America, the College Art Association and a secular Discalced Carmelite.


Dr. Griffin Nelson
Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Dr. Griffin T. Nelson specializes in ancient philosophy, with a particular interest in the ethics of Plato.  He received his B.A. in philosophy from LaSalle University in Philadelphia, an M.A. from Kent State University in Ohio, and a Ph.D. from Marquette University in Milwaukee.  Dr. Nelson's current research interests include a political argument about ruling in the Republic and the concept of natural virtue in Plato's ethics.  Dr. Nelson is also revising his doctoral dissertation, entitled "Virtue Theory in Plato's Republic," for a publication aimed at a broader public.

Dr. Andrew Osborn 
Associate Professor of English

A graduate of Harvard College (A.B.), the Iowa Writers' (W.F.A.), and the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D.), Andrew Osborn specializes in modern poetry, lyric theory, and the writing of lyric poetry, but he deeply enjoys teaching epic, drama, and narrative fiction, as well. Before joining the English Department at the University of Dallas in 2007, he taught modern literature and writing as a Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellow at Miami University of Ohio and as a visiting assistant professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He is the founding director of the Stark Visiting Writers Series and the recipient of a Haggerty Teaching Excellence Award. Andrew Osborn is the author of Plato's Aviary, a chapbook of poems selected by former Poet Laureate Robert Hass as co-winner of the Aldrich Poetry Competition, as well as numerous articles and reviews. His own poetry has appeared in such journals as American Letters & Contemporary, Bat City Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Erato, Fence, The Graham House Review, Southwest Review (Morton Marr Poetry Prize), and Spoon River Poetry Review. Several new poems, including the long "On Beyondness" are forthcoming in the 50th anniversary issue of Columbia; an entry on "Difficulty" is forthcoming in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Links to works available online may be found here. Dr. Osborn is accompanied in Rome by his wife, Kari, and two daughters, Riley and Zoe.

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