Tyrus Miller

The new Dean of the School of Humanities, joins the faculties of both the Departments of Art History and English (each a 50% appointment), focusing on 20th-century literature, theory and culture (especially modernist, avant-garde, and contemporary experimental writing and visual arts.) His influential scholarship includes numerous significant articles and books on the history and theory of the avant-garde and modernism.

Dean Miller brings with him more than 20 years of experience in humanities and interdisciplinary research as well as extensive administrative experience, including as a member of the provost’s senior academic leadership team at UC Santa Cruz, where he was vice provost and dean of graduate studies at UC Santa Cruz. Miller also managed 36 Ph.D. and over 50 master’s programs as head of the graduate division, and helped position UC Santa Cruz’s entrepreneurship program to have a wider interdisciplinary scope across the university. UCSC embarked on an ambitious 10-year plan under Miller’s tenure to grow its graduate programs to Association of American Universities levels. He also spearheaded successful grant applications and fundraising campaigns totaling more than $2.4 million in grant-backed humanities and arts initiatives and recently conceived and helped secure a five-year, $1.5 million Mellon Foundation grant to support doctoral students from underrepresented backgrounds and fund internships and other programs.

Dean Miller earned his B.A./M.A. in humanities and an M.A. in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in English at Stanford University. He previously taught at Yale University and directed the UC Education Abroad Program in Budapest, Hungary.

Matthew P. Canepa

Our newest faculty member joined us this fall in the Department of Art History as Professor and Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djalali Presidential Chair in Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran. He is an historian of art, archaeology and religions whose research, teaching and advising focus on the intersection of art, ritual and power in the eastern Mediterranean, Persia and the wider Iranian world, from the Achaemenids to the coming of Islam.

Matt specializes in ancient Iranian art and archaeology in global context. His research focuses on the intersection of art, ritual and power in the eastern Mediterranean, Persia and the wider Iranian world. He begins teaching this fall and will spend winter quarter 2019 at the Getty Research Institute at the Villa Scholar.

Prof. Canepa's latest book, “The Iranian Expanse” (University of California Press), is a large-scale study of the transformation of Iranian cosmologies, landscapes and architecture from the height of the Achaemenids to the coming of Islam. His publications include “The Two Eyes of the Earth” (University of California Press), the first book to analyze the artistic, ritual and ideological interactions between the late Roman and Sasanian empires in a comprehensive and theoretically rigorous manner. It was awarded the 2010 James Henry Breasted Prize from the American Historical Association for the best book in English on any field of history prior to the year 1000 CE. "Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction" (Smithsonian, 2010) studies the phenomena of cross-cultural interaction between the ancient to early Medieval Mediterranean, Western Asia and China.

Matt also served as area advisor and editor for the The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (2018), the first comprehensive reference covering every aspect of history, culture, religion, and life in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East (including the Persian Empire and Central Asia). Other recent publications include an examinations of diplomacy and cross-cultural interaction among Hellenistic Asia and India, a study of rock art and religion in ancient Iran, and a study of post-Achaemenid Persian kingship in Anatolia and the Caucasus.

He is an elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and has been the recipient of numerous research fellowships including from Getty Research Institute (2019 and 2013), the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2015-2016),  as well as numerous other honors.