College of Charleston’s School of the Arts is proud to announce that Matthew Canepa, assistant professor of Art History, was inducted into the Society of Antiquaries of London, in March 2009. In company with the Royal Academy, the Linnean Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Geological Society of London and the Royal Astronomical Society, the Society of Antiquaries of London is the world’s premier learned society for heritage.

The Society’s 2,500 Fellows include many distinguished archaeologists and art and architectural historians holding positions of responsibility across the cultural heritage. Fellows gain membership through nomination and election by current fellows. International in its reach, fellowship is regarded as recognition of significant achievement in the heritage field.

In addition, Canepa was awarded the Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for 2009/2010. The Fellowship is one of the ACLS’ most prestigious awards and also one of the most competitive, with nearly 200 applications for the twelve awards. The Fellowships, generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in honor of Charles A. Ryskamp, literary scholar, distinguished library and museum director, and long-serving trustee of the Foundation, support advanced assistant professors and un-tenured associate professors in the humanities and related social sciences whose scholarly contributions have advanced their fields and who have well-designed and carefully developed plans for new research.

Canepa will take a leave to use the fellowship ($80,000 salary and research funds) to research and write a book entitled “Iran between Alexander and Islam,” which explores the global idea of Iranian Kingship in the Hellenized and Iranian Near East, South and Central Asia. University of Oxford’s Merton College will host Canepa for the summer and fall semesters, where he will be a visiting research professor. He will conduct field research in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and work in several research libraries and libraries in the U.S. and Europe for the rest of the award period.

Professor Canepa earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. A specialist in the art and cultures of the late Roman/early Byzantine Empire and Pre-Islamic Iran, Canepa’s research focuses on cross-cultural interaction in the pre-modern world. His forthcoming book entitled “The Two Eyes of the Earth” (University of California Press) will be the first to analyze the artistic, ritual and ideological interactions between the Roman and Sasanian empires in a comprehensive and theoretically rigorous manner. His current projects include an exploration of Middle Iranian art and the global idea of Iranian Kingship and an edited volume that studies the phenomena of cross-cultural interaction between the Mediterranean, Iran, and China. He has been the recipient of numerous research grants including the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (2002-2003), the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (2007), and the Archaeological Institute of America (2008).  He has taught in College’s Department of Art History since 2005 and is currently serving as the president of the South Carolina Society of Archaeological Institute of America.