Susanna MCFADDEN

Assistant Professor 助理教授
MA Coordinator

Tel: 3917-2897
Email: smcfadde@hku.hk
Office: Room 10.23, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus

BA Dartmouth College; PhD University of Pennsylvania

Dr. McFadden is a specialist in the art, architecture, and archaeology of the Greco-Roman and late antique Mediterranean, with a particular emphasis on the medium of wall painting. Prior to joining the faculty of Hong Kong University, she taught art and archaeology at Bryn Mawr College, Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. McFadden has authored several articles and book chapters on late Roman wall painting in Rome and Egypt and is the primary author and co-editor of the book, The Art of Empire: The Roman Frescoes and Imperial Cult Chamber in Luxor Temple, winner of the 2017 James R. Wiseman book award from the Archaeological Institute of America. Her current book project focuses on the visual culture of late Roman Egypt and explores the spatial, ritual and material dynamics of wall paintings in the ancient Mediterranean at large. Dr. McFadden has also been a fellow in residence at the American Academy in Rome (2009-2010) and the Getty Research Institute (2016), and since 2005 has been a member of the team excavating the late Roman site of Amheida in Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis, an archaeological project sponsored by New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

Art and Archaeology of the Greco-Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean

Roman wall painting in Rome and Egypt

Selected Publications

McFadden, Susanna, and Michael Jones, eds. The Art of Empire: The Roman Frescos and Imperial Cult Chamber in Luxor Temple. New Haven: ARCE / Yale University Press, 2015.

McFadden, Susanna, and Sarah Lepinski, eds. Beyond Iconography: Materials, Methods and Meaning in Ancient Surface Decoration. Selected Papers in Ancient Art and Architecture. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America, 2015.

“Iconography and Style in the Late Roman Empire.” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Imagery and Iconography, eds. L. Cline and N. Elkins, 200-221. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.

“The Villa of Serenos and Wall Painting in the Western Oases,” in The Great Oasis of Egypt: Kharga and Dakhla Oases in Antiquity, eds. R. Bagnall and G. Tallet, 281-296. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

“Wall Painting in Egypt Outside of Alexandria: State of the Field,” in Antiqua 55, Pictores per provincias II – Status quaestionis. Actes du XIIIe Colloque de l’AIPMA – Université de Lausanne, 12-16 septembre 2016, ed. Y. Dubois and Ur Niffeler, 193-204. Basil: Archaéologie Suisse, 2018.

“A Constantinian Image Program in Rome Rediscovered: The Late Antique Megalographia from the So-Called Domus Faustae,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 58 (2013): 83-114.

Current Courses

ARTH2109 Art and Life in Ancient Rome: Pompeii and Herculaneum

ARTH3030 Interrogating the “Classical”: The Art of ancient Greece and Rome for the 21st Century

Past Courses

ARTH2084 Art of the Classical World

ARTH2113 Art of the ancient Roman world

ARTH2115 The city of Rome: From village to empire

ARTH3035 Monumental painting in the ancient Mediterranean

ARTH4003 Perspectives in Western art

ARTH7001 Art History: Goals, Methods, and Writing

ARTH7002 Art History: Materials, Techniques, and Collections

PROFILE @ HKU Library

HKU Scholars Hub research page

Reaching beyond HKU
Chaired Conferences – AIA and CAA 2012-2015
Susanna McFadden at the Asia Society HK Center – Rome and her Legacy: Classical Art in the 21st Century