Elizabeth Ann Pollard
Professor and Department Chair
Office: AL 527
Phone: (619) 594-6992
Email: [email protected]
Curriculum vitae
Academia page
Education
Ph.D. in History, University of Pennsylvania (2001)
M.A. in History, University of Pennsylvania (1995)
B.A. in History, North Carolina State University (1993)
Elizabeth Pollard is Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence at San Diego State University, where she has been teaching courses in Roman History, World History, and witchcraft studies since 2002. Pollard is founding Co-Director of the Center for Comics Studies and co-Champion of Comics and Social Justice for the SDSU President’s Big Ideas Initiative (2020-present). Her research investigates women accused of witchcraft in the Roman world and explores the exchange of goods and ideas between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in the early centuries of the Common Era. Pollard is currently working on two comics-related projects: an analysis of comics about ancient Rome over the last century and a graphic history exploring the influence of classical understandings of witchcraft on their representations in modern comics. Apart from her work on magic and comics, Pollard is co-author of Worlds Together Worlds Apart Concise, WTWA Full 6th edition, and the Worlds Together Worlds Apart, Companion Reader (W.W. Norton). She has also published on various pedagogical and digital history topics, including writing about witchcraft on wikipedia, tweeting on the backchannel of the large lecture, and digital humanities approaches to visualizing Roman History.
Books
Worlds Together, Worlds Apart Full Edition, with Jeremy Adelman and Robert Tignor (W.W. Norton, 6e/2021) [lead author on Volume One]
Worlds Together, Worlds Apart Concise Edition, with Clifford Rosenberg and Robert Tignor (W.W. Norton, 1e/2015; 2e/2019). [lead author on Volume One]
Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, Companion Reader, with Clifford Rosenberg (W.W. Norton, 2e/2016; 3e/2019). [lead author on Volume One]
Edited Volumes
Elizabeth Pollard and Fabrizio Conti, Editors. Nemo Non Metuit: Magic in the Roman World (Trivent Publishing, 2022)
Journal Articles
“Visualizing Time in Ancient Roman History,” (with Pamella R. Lach) Digital Project Handbook 2020, Edited by Beth Fischer and Hannah Jacobs; Available at https://handbook.pubpub.org/; DOI: 10.21428/51bee781.4cf409bd
“Visualizing History in the Classroom: A Faculty-Librarian Partnership in the Digital Age,” (with Pamella R. Lach) New Review of Academic Librarianship (2019); DOI: 10.1080/13614533.2019.1627562
“Researching Student Learning in a Two-Tiered General Education Program,” (with E. Csomay, S. Bordelon, and A. Beck) Journal of General Education 64, no. 3 (2015): 171-195.
“Tweeting on the Back-Channel of the Jumbo-Sized Lecture Hall: Maximizing Collective Learning in a World History Survey,” History Teacher 47, no. 3 (2014): 329-354.
“Indian Spices and Roman 'Magic' in Imperial and Late Antique Indomediterranea," Journal of World History, 24, no. 1 (2013): 1-23
“Prior Incantato: Greco-Roman Magic Flowing from J.K. Rowling’s Wand,” Amphora 9, no. 1 (2010): 20-21, 23. "Rethinking Primary Sources for Cross-Cultural Interaction in World History: ‘Standard’ Problems and Connected Possibilities,” Social Studies Review 49 (2010): 38-41.
“Pliny’s Natural History and the Flavian Templum Pacis: Botanical Imperialism in First Century CE Rome,” Journal of World History 20, no. 3 (2009): 309-338.
“Raising the Stakes: Writing about Witchcraft on Wikipedia,” History Teacher 42, no. 1 (2008): 1-16.
“Witch-crafting in Roman Literature and Art: New Thoughts on an Old Image,” Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 3, no. 2 (2008): 119-157.
“Placing Greco-Roman History in World Historical Context,” Classical World 102, no. 1 (2008): 49-64.
Book Chapters
“Stalking, ‘Erotic’ Spells, and the Exclusus Amator in Ancient Rome” in Nemo Non Metuit: Magic in the Roman World [in Series: Advances in the History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion, ed. by Elizabeth Pollard and Fabrizio Conti (Budapest: Trivent Publishing, 2022).
“‘So dearly do we pay for our luxury and our women:’ Women and the Margins of the Roman World” in The Socio- Economic History and Material Culture of the Roman and Byzantine East: Essays in Honor of S. Thomas Parker, ed. by Walter Ward (Gorgias Press, 2017): 327-348.
“The Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean,” in Companion to Mediterranean History, ed. by Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014): 457-474.
“Magic Accusations against Women in Tacitus' Annals,” in Daughters of Hecate, ed.
Kimberly Stratton and Dayna Kalleres (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 183-218.
Initiatives and Websites
Center for Comics Studies - Co-Director with Pam Jackson
Comics and Social Justice - SDSU President’s Big Idea Finalist
Visualizing Roman History: Scaffolding for Success, Digital Humanities Project (with Pamella Lach).
Podcast Appearances
Women of Marvel Podcast - Scarlet Witch: It’s Complicated (5 May 2022)
Women of Marvel Podcast - The Magic of Marvel: Witches in Marvel and History (2021)