Ann Lauren Osthof Successfully Defends Her PhD Dissertation

23 January 2025

Photo: CSMC

Congratulations to Ann Lauren Osthof on defending her dissertation, thus completing her PhD in Archaeology! The viva voce examination took place on 22 January 2025.

Ann Lauren Osthof wrote her dissertation on Immersive City Scripts: Inscriptions and the Construction of Social Spaces in Miletus (Asia Minor), which was part of an RFB research project with the same name. Involving perspectives and methods from classical archaeology, ancient history, and human-computer interaction, the dissertation provides a transcultural and diachronic comparison of inscriptions in the Greco-Roman World, in which they were omnipresent. It argues that their perception was influenced by the particular text as much as by their formal design, material, or location. The work shows that the distribution of the inscriptions and their design can reveal spatial constructions resulting from competing agents.

During her PhD project, Ann Lauren also participated in several knowledge-exchange and science-communication activities of the Cluster. Together with her colleagues in her research project, she developed a virtual-reality reconstruction of the ancient theatre of Miletus and its inscriptions, which she presented at several public events, such as last year’s Science City Day, and which she also introduced to students and museum staff.