Jane F. Gardner

Jane F. Gardner
Born	1934
Nationality	British
Occupation	Roman Historian
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Glasgow University of Oxford
Academic work
Institutions	University of Reading Cardiff University Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology
Main interests	Roman History Roman Law Women in ancient Rome

Jane F. Gardner, is emerita professor of Roman History at University of Reading, specialising in Roman law and Roman social history. She was a professor at the University from 1993 until her retirement in 1999, having taught there since 1963. She was curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology from 1976 to 1992. In 1999 she was awarded a D. Litt by the University of Oxford for her outstanding monographs on Roman social and legal history. Alongside these, she has published extensively on the Roman family, Roman property law, the legal status of individuals, and the role of slaves and freedmen in Roman society.

Career

Gardner studied Classics at the University of Glasgow. She was awarded the Cowan Blackstone Medal in 1953, and graduated with an MA in 1955. From there she went on to study Literae Humaniores at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, graduating in 1962. From 1621 to 1963 she taught Greek and Roman History at University College, Cardiff (now Cardiff University), followed by two years teaching Classics and English at Forest Fields Grammar School in Nottingham.

Gardner joined the Classics Department at the University of Reading in 1963, at first as a part-time lecturer. Over the following 36 years she was promoted several times, becoming assistant lecturer in 1964, lecturer in 1966, senior lecturer in 1988 and finally professor in 1993. In that time she held a Leverhulme Trust Research fellowship (1995-6) and was also curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology (1976-92). The three monographs she wrote while at Reading (Women in Roman Law and Society (1986), Being a Roman Citizen (1993) and Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life (1998)) have had a significant impact on the fields of Roman legal and social history. Reviewers have praised these books for presenting often difficult and complicated legal material in readable and accessible ways. Gardner also produced a revised translation of Julius Caesar's Gallic War (1983), as well as a new translation of his Civil War (1976).

Although Gardner retired in 1999, she has remained active as a researcher. For three years after her retirement (until 2002) she was special professor at the University of Nottingham, helping to develop the International Centre for the History of Slavery (now the Institute for the Study of Slavery). She has continued to write and publish on Roman law and society, especially on slavery, and continues to review books in The Classical Review.

Selected publications

• Gardner, Jane F. 1986. Women in Roman Law and Society. Croom Helm
• Gardner, Jane F., Weidemann T. 1991. The Roman Household: a sourcebook. Routledge
• Gardner, Jane F. 1993. Being a Roman Citizen. Routledge
• Gardner, Jane F. 1998. Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life. Clarendon Press
• Weidemann, T., Gardner, Jane F. 2002 Representing the Body of the Slave. Frank Cass

External links

Category:Living people Category:Women classical scholars Category:British women historians