Parrish Elizabeth Wright received her Ph.D. in Greek and Roman History and her M.A. in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan. She holds a B.A. in Classics from McGill University. Before coming to South Carolina, she was the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She studies the history and archaeology of pre-Roman and Roman Italy with the use of both textual and material evidence. Her research centers on foundation stories in southern and central Italy, specifically how both Greek settlements and indigenous groups use myth to articulate identity and build connections throughout the Mediterranean. In her book project, she demonstrates the value of these stories to building communities and argues for a rich historiographic tradition in southern Italy largely independent of Rome and Athens. 

Parrish is also actively engaged in archaeological research in Italy. She has worked in Pompeii and is currently a trench supervisor at the Gabii Project, an ancient city just outside of Rome, where she has worked since 2014.

For the academic year 2024-2025, she is on teaching leave thanks to a grant from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation. In Spring 2025 she will hold a Tytus Fellowship at the University of Cincinnati.

Recent Publications

Wright P, Terrenato N. 2023. “Italian Descent in Middle Republican Roman Magistrates: The Flipside of the Conquest.” In: Bernard S, Mignone LM, Padilla Peralta D, eds. Making the Middle Republic: New Approaches to Rome and Italy, c.400-200 BCE. Cambridge University Press; 2023:19-37. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009327978.003

Samuels, J. T., Naglak, M., Opitz, R., Marilyn Evans, J., Johnston, A. C., Wright, P., … Gallone, A. 2021. “A Changing Cityscape in Central Italy: The Gabii Project Excavations, 2012–2018.” Journal of Field Archaeology, 46(3), 132–152. DIO: https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2021.1877958