Dr Annette Giesecke

Annette Giesecke, PhD, is a specialist in the history, meaning, and representation of ancient Greek and Roman gardens and designed landscapes.

A black and white photograph of Annette Giesecke. Image copyright Annette Giesecke, used with permission.

Her work extends to domestic architecture and décor in the ancient Mediterranean world, the influence of Middle Eastern garden traditions on those of the West, and the many cultural ‘uses’ of plants in antiquity: symbolic, religious, culinary, medicinal, ornamental, and technological included.

Dr. Giesecke’s books include:

  • A Cultural History of Plants, 6 vols. (general editor, volume editor, and contributor; Bloomsbury, 2022)
  • Classical Mythology A to Z (Black Dog and Leventhal, 2020)
  • The Mythology of Plants (Getty Museum, 2014)
  • The Good Gardener? Nature, Humanity, and the Garden (Artifice Books on Architecture, 2015).

A Dumbarton Oaks Fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies 2019-2020 and The Archaeological Institute of America Jashemski Lecturer on Roman Gardens (2013-2014), she has taught at UCLA, Loyola Marymount University, and the University of Delaware, where she was the Elias Ahuja Professor of Classics.

Dr. Giesecke holds a BA from UCLA and an MA and PhD from Harvard.