The new People’s University series being offered at the Ohio County Public Library in WEheeling on Thursday evenings beginning January 5 will explore the ancient world, including Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The eight classes begin at 7 pm in the Library’s auditorium through February 23. The classes will also be live-streamed on the Library’s People’s University Facebook (https://bit.ly/3YbKP9i) and People’s University YouTube (https://bit.ly/3BN6SK3) channels.
The primary instructor, Dr. Laura Michele Diener has taught ancient and medieval history at Marshall University since 2008, where she has won several awards for teaching. She received her PhD in history from The Ohio State University and has studied at Vassar College, Newnham College, Cambridge, and most recently, Vermont College of Fine Arts. She enjoys teaching classes on fascinating peoples of the past, including Vikings, Romans, Ancient Egyptians, and Celts. She runs the History Club at Marshall and enjoys organizing the yearly Viking Feast and Yuletide Celebration. If you google her, you will find some of her creative essays online. She has written about medieval spirituality, medieval embroidery, and medieval hair. She is currently writing a biography of the Norwegian Nobel-prize-winning writer, Sigrid Undset titled A World Perilous and Beautiful.
Fresh off a European lecture tour, Dr. Marie N. Pareja (her students call her Doc) will teach two of the classes. She is a Bronze Age Aegean archaeologist and art historian who focuses on iconography, exchange, and identity in prehistoric Afro-Eurasia. She currently works as an Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology and Religious Studies at Marshall University and as a Consulting Scholar for the University of Pennsylvania. Some of her most recent work has been featured in Smithsonian magazine, and her up-and-coming projects on the interconnectivity in the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods were hosted by the University of Oxford in early December 2022. She is thrilled to be part of People’s University.
