Sean Silvia (USA)

Sean Silvia graduated from the University of Southern California in 2022 with degrees in History and Archaeology, where he earned the Discovery Scholar Prize and best History Honours Thesis for his work “A Battlefield of Imperial Identity: Classical Spoliation in a Contested Aegean During the Long Nineteenth Century.” Sean has a fierce love of research, and thanks to the Ertegun Programme he plans to continue his analysis of the Ottoman 19th-century Aegean at Oxford. For his dissertation, he will examine the ways the Ottomans asserted ownership of classical heritage by reusing ancient ruins as building materials for new structures. He will also investigate travel accounts of western European collectors and the way their illustrations 'de-Ottomanised' classical sites to assert a competing "western heritage" claim of ownership over classical remnants and thus justify extracting artefacts.

Outside of the classroom, Sean is passionate about engaging a general audience, making entertaining educational videos with the USC College of Arts and Sciences communications team and publishing YouTube videos to his channel, Archaeologists Anonymous https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeWt97j3Qk_IE_Lyq_6-BgmNotCJPNzq8 

In his free time, Sean loves visiting museums, writing music on piano and guitar, painting, and singing in the Hertford and Christ Church choirs.