Congratulations to Sarah Castleberry, the spring 2022 Anthropology student marshal! She is graduating with B.A. degrees in Anthropology and Art History, with a minor in Latin. Sarah sang advanced choral repertoire with Penn State Oriana Singers in the Penn State School of Music for six semesters. She also spent three weeks in Rome after her freshman year through the Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies’ Study Tour of Roman History and Archaeology and studied abroad in Perugia, Italy, last fall. After graduation, Sarah will return home to Connecticut to work as a field archaeologist at Heritage Consultants, LLC for the summer and then plans to find anthropological or museum work near Boston, Massachusetts, next fall.

We are happy to announce that Dr. Michael Beshay will be joining the CAMS faculty in the Fall of 2022. Dr. Beshay writes: “I’m a scholar of religions of late antiquity who specializes in the history of early Christianity. My research centers on several interconnected topics, including the development of authoritative traditions; their transmission and reception in diverse artifacts and across confessional boundaries; the significance of ritual and “magic” for the production of novel religious idioms; and the legacies of so-called “heretical” Christians within the beliefs and practices that emerge as “Orthodox.” I explore these dynamics relative to the ritual traditions surrounding the Virgin Mary and King Solomon–two prominent figures whose authorities span multiple religious communities and represent layers of cultural innovation and conflict.”