Profile

Professional career

• 04/2003 - 07/2006
  Undergraduate and graduate assistant, Forschungsarchiv für Antike Plastik, Lehr- und Forschungszentrum für die antiken Kulturen des Mittelmeerraumes (editorial tasks) and Archaeological Institute, University of Cologne
• 04/2009 - 09/2009
  Academic assistant (substitute), Archaeological Institute and research associate, deanship of the faculty of philosophy, University of Cologne
• 04/2010 - 03/2011
  Research associate, »Morphomata« International Center for Advanced Studies, University of Cologne
• since 04/2011
  Research associate, Institute for Classical Archaeology and Museum of Antiquities, Leipzig University (permanent position since 2018)
• 11/2021
  Guest Lecturer „Topografia e urbanistica di Solunto antica“ (Università degli Studi di Palermo, Dipartimento Culture e Società)
• since 10/2022
  

Education

• 10/1998 - 09/2004
  Degree course: Classical archaeology, Ancient History (minor) and Cultural Anthropology (minor) Universities of Cologne and Bonn, Università degli Studi di Torino
• 04/2003 - 09/2005
  Supplementary degree course (minor) Papyrology, Epigraphy and Numismatics, University of Cologne
• 09/2005 - 01/2009
  Dissertation: »Mit Wissen geschmückt? Überlegungen zur bildlichen Rezeption griechischer Dichter und Denker in der römischen Lebenswelt am Beispiel kleinformatiger Bildwerke«. Graduate scholarship University of Cologne & DAAD
• 10/2009 - 03/2011
  Travelling scholarship of the German Archaeological Institute
• 10/2019 - 03/2020
  Fellowship at the “Morphomata International Center for Advanced Studies – Genesis, Dynamics and Mediality of Cultural Figurations”

Panel Memberships

• 10/2013 - 09/2016
  
• since 02/2015
  

My academic profiling was initially in the field of ancient iconography. In the course of further activities at the Morphomata Centre of Advanced Studies the University of Cologne and at the University of Leipzig, Classical Archaeology and Museum of Antiquities, I was able to distinguish myself additionally in the field of ancient glyptics, the Roman domestic culture and in the field of the history of science and reception of antiquity, but also in various transdisciplinary dialogues in the humanities. In Leipzig, the exchange between academia and society as well as the examination of the institution of the museum as a place of preservation and mediation, but also of the imagination of cultural heritage were added to the interests. 

The focus of interest is, on the one hand, the exploration of ancient cultures through material-oriented basic research, but also the testing of current perspectives in historical case studies by embedding research in the broadest possible cultural studies context. The professional exploration of material culture in the ancient Mediterranean region is to be accompanied by interdisciplinary dialogues in order to facilitate intercultural comparisons and related reflections on the significance of these categories in contemporary everyday social life.

• Housing in Pergamon between hellenistic and roman times

  Lang, Jörn

  Duration: 07/2019 – 09/2020

  Funded by: Haushaltsmittel (TG51, Overhead)

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Archäologie des Mittelmeerraumes (JP)
  show details
• Die antiken Gemmen im GRASSI Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig

  Lang, Jörn

  Duration: 01/2017 – 01/2019

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Archäologie des Mittelmeerraumes (JP)
  show details
• Zur semantischen Verhältnis von Figur und Ornament in der unteritalischen Vasenmalerei

  Lang, Jörn

  Duration: 04/2013 – ongoing

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Archäologie des Mittelmeerraumes (JP)
  show details
• Plaster Cast and Digital Point Cloud: Documentation and Visualization of Ancient Sculpture Using the Example of the Toro Farnese in the Plaster Cast Collection of the Museum of Antiquities Leipzig

  Lang, Jörn

  Duration: 05/2022 – 12/2025

  Funded by: SMWK Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Kultur und Tourismus

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Archäologie des Mittelmeerraumes (JP); Antikenmuseum
  show details

more projects

• Lang, J.

  Hellenistisch-römische Wohnkultur in der ersten römischen Provinz – Häuser in Solunt im Spiegel ihrer dauerhaften Ausstattung

  Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. 2022. pp. 39–140.
  show details
• Lang, J.; Bazzechi, E. (Eds.)

  Una memoria fragile? Collezioni di calchi in gesso e il loro ruolo di eredate storica tra passato e presente/ Fragile Erinnerung? Sammlungen von Gipsabgüssen als historisches Erbe in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart

  Leipzig: Antikenmuseum der Universität Leipzig. 2021.

  ISBN: 978-3-00-065572-2
  show details
• Lang, J.

  Mit Wissen geschmückt?: Zur bildlichen Rezeption griechischer Dichter und Denker in der römischen Lebenswelt

  Wiesbaden: Reichert. 2012.

  ISBN: 978-3-89500-846-7
  show details
• Lang, J.

  Aus der Frühzeit archäologischer Wissenschaften – Ein Kabinett mit Schwefelabgüssen nach antiken Gemmen. (2022)
  show details
• Lang, J.

  Gems, Cameos and Social Practice

  In: Cline, L.; Elkins, N. (Eds.)

  Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2022. p. 358.

  ISBN: 9780190850326
  show details

more publications

• Archäologie des Mittelmeerraumes (JP); Antikenmuseum

  Hochschuldialog mit Südeuropa (DAAD) »Fragile Leitbilder? Sammlungen historischer Gipsabgüsse als Dialogräume der Gegenwart«

  Start Date of Collaboration: 01/06/2019

  External participating organisations: Università degli Studi di Palermo (Palermo)

  Involved persons: Lang, Jörn; Müller, Hans-Peter; Bazzechi, Elisa
  show details

more cooperations

The focus of my teaching is the material culture of the ancient Mediterranean in the broadest possible chronological and geographical breadth (see overview of the courses). I focus on the basics of activity, the handling and indexing of objects and the cultural contexts associated with them.

In the field of B.A. teaching, I concentrate mainly on courses with an overview-like character and the training of skills of visual perception and the transformation of perception into described and thus comprehensible text. In M.A. seminars and exercises the focus is on the training of knowledge-based critical faculties. Therefore they are primarily oriented towards concrete research questions. 

In addition, great importance is attached to practice-oriented forms of events, for example by working with originals and plaster casts or by developing exhibition projects within the framework of courses. In this context and encouraged by international exchange projects, the approach of research-based teaching is increasingly coming to the fore. Depending on the size of the group of students, teaching formats and digital offerings are also being experimented with time and again.

• Panhellenic Sanctuaries (Ü, 2011)

• Field trip Olympia & Delphi (E, 2011)

• Images of the Greek myth: Development of visual imagery in archaic times (S, 2011/ 12)

• Roman Gems and Cameos: A world in mimiature (Ü, 2012)

• Kuroi and Korai: Body Images in Archaic Greece (Ü, 2012)

• Greek and Phoenician Settlements in Sicily (S, 2012/ 13)

• Images for the dead? Iconography of Roman Sarcophagi (S, 2013)

• Geometric Greece: More than just an epoch of art (S, 2013/ 14)

• Pergamon: Urban Space and environment of a hellenistic metropolis (Ü, 2014)

• Treasure of a civil twon: Engraved Gems in the GRASSI Museum of Applied Art, Leipzig (S, 2014)

• South Italian Vase painting: Regions – Workshops – Visual Imagery (Ü, 2014/ 15)

• Roman Moasics: Iconography and spatial context (S, 2014/ 15)

• Roman Imperial Portraits form Augustus to Constantine (S, 2015)

• Greek Votive reliefs (Ü, 2015)

• Monuments and public space in greek poleis (Ü, 2015/ 16)

• Social Status and Image. On the visual Construction of social groups in the Roman republic and empire (S, 2015/ 16)

• Greek Grave relief of the eastern Mediterranean (S, 2016)

• Ravenna (Ü, 2016)

• Images of Bodies and Social Roles in Attic Red-Figured Vase Painting (S, 2016/ 17)

• Roman Sigillata in the Antikenmuseum Leipzig (Ü, 2016/ 17)

• „ …der nichts gleich ist auf Erden und nichts nachkommt”. The City of Rome in the First Century AD (S, 2017)

• Field trip: Madrid and Evironment (E, 2017)

• Greek Sanctuaries (S, 2017/ 18)

• Greece and Epygt in the Eastern Mediterranean (S with L. Popko, D. Raue and Ch. Schubert, 2017)

• Hellenistic and Roman Domestic Culture I (S with F. Pirson, 2017/ 18)

• Pietas and pulchritudo: Representations of imperial women (S, 2018)

• Hellenistic and Roman Domestic Culture II (S, 2018)

• Archaeology as diverse science (S with U. Veit, 2018)

• Introduction Course Classical Archaeology I: Greek Archaeology (Ü, 2018/ 19)

• Dated monuments of Greek Cultural History (S, 2018/ 19)

• Materiel Culture of Southern Italy between Greek Colonies and the Byzantine Era (S with A. Bergmeier, 2018/ 19)

• Ways of Seing Greek Sculpture (Ü, 2019)

• Dated monuments of Greek Cultural History II (S, 2019)

• Introduction Course Classical Archaeology II: Roman Archaeology (Ü, 2019)

• Roman Villas – Arhcitecture and Representation (S, 2020)

• Archaeology as diverse science (S, 2020)

• Introduction Course Classical Archaeology II: Roman Archaeology (Ü, 2020)

• Summer School “Living in a material world“: Understanding artifacts through their materiality

• The Representation of children in Roman Imperial Times and Late Antiquity II (S. with F. Pirson)

• Introduction Course Classical Archaeology I: Greek Archaeology

• Facebook, Instagram & Co Museums of Antiquities and their modes of communication in the 21st century

• "Art on the Building". Greek architectural sculpture of the archaic and classical period

• Introduction Course Classical Archaeology II: Roman Archaeology (Ü, 2021)

• Aeternae domus - Roman funerary buildings on the Italian peninsula

• Archaeology as diverse science (S, 2021)

• Introduction Course Classical Archaeology I: Greek Archaeology

• From Alexandria to Taranto: Hellenistic funenary cultures in the Mediterranean region

  Since the earliest periods of Mediterranean cultures, dealing with death and loss has given rise to diverse material testimonies that have survived to the present day. This seminar focuses on this area for the period from the late 4th to the 1st century BCE. Central to the course is the question of how to identify approaches for determining local specificities and supraregional constants within funerary cultures.

• Ambiguous images and pictorial ambiguity in the ancient Mediterranean

  Ambiguities are by no means phenomena unique to our postmodern present. Especially in the realm of visual culture in ancient societies, phenomena of ambiguity as well as entirely contradictory interpretations are omnipresent. This seminar explores this field through selected case studies from various categories of objects from the Mediterranean region. In doing so, it places images and visuality at the center as fundamental means of accessing the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world.

• Rome and Its Urban Development from the Perspective of Archaeological Studies

• People and the Museum. Opportunities for Interaction with Visitors at the Museum of Antiquities in Leipzig

• Introduction to Classical Archaeology I: Introduction to Greek Archaeology

  The course offers an introduction to Greek archaeology, focusing on the area between the Aegean and Southern Italy from the 12th to the 1st century BCE. It covers art and cultural history, settlements, necropoleis, sanctuaries, architecture, pottery, and sculpture. Archaeological methods and case studies provide insights into historical topography, society, economy, religion, and transcultural processes. Practical sessions include working with original artefacts.

• From Everyday Life in the Mediterranean – The Material Culture of Greece in the Museum of Antiquities (Winter 24/25)

  The Museum of Antiquities in Leipzig houses around 10,000 objects from the ancient Mediterranean, with a focus on Greek culture. Many objects, such as vessels or sculptures, only acquired their status as works of art once placed in a museum context. Originally, they belonged to everyday life, sanctuaries, or graves. The course explores the opportunities and limitations of using museum objects to convey aspects of the ancient Mediterranean.

• Ancient Worlds in Miniature – Motif Diversity and Everyday Context of the Gemstones at the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts, Leipzig

  Decorated gemstones, so-called engraved gems, are small, portable image carriers from the ancient Mediterranean. They were commonly used in everyday life but were also prone to loss. The seminar focuses on the collection of ancient Roman engraved gems in Leipzig. Students learn about their material properties, motif classification, and chronological dating. The results will contribute to a planned publication.

• AI and Museum – AI in the Museum?

  The course aims to identify applications of artificial intelligence and to explore their potentials and risks. From simple uses such as text generation or AI-based audio guides to complex processes like automated collection sorting, students learn about key AI applications and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Using the example of the Museum of Antiquities in Leipzig, practical applications for small museums are tested.