A Circumnavigation of Sicily

Aneta Georgievska-Shine is a scholar of the Renaissance and the baroque eras, yet as an art historian, her interests range from ancient to contemporary art.  In addition to her affiliation with the University of Maryland, she frequently presents lectures for museums and art institutions in the Washington D.C. area, including the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian. Her publications include scholarly books and numerous articles in U.S. and international journals, as well as essays in exhibition catalogs. Her most recent book, Vermeer and the Art of Love, was named one of Christie’s “best art books to look forward to in 2022” and made the prestigious CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles list.

A popular Smithsonian Journeys Expert, Aneta has led numerous journeys to France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, as well as Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to expertise in art history, she brings a deep knowledge of the history, politics, and languages of Central and Eastern Europe. Aneta is a native speaker of Macedonian and has working knowledge of several other European languages.

Dr. Robert Stephan is a classical archaeologist, award-winning educator, and veteran of Mediterranean fieldwork whose passion lies in making the ancient world come alive for modern travelers. With a PhD in classics from Stanford University and a BA in classical archaeology from the University of Michigan, Rob blends deep academic expertise with an engaging and down-to-earth teaching style.

He has excavated and surveyed ancient sites across Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Armenia, and Britain, and currently co-directs the Bays of East Attica Regional Survey (BEARS), a long-term archaeological project focused on ancient Greek coastal communities. In his role as associate dean of the University of Arizona's Honors College, he helps shape innovative learning experiences that stretch beyond the classroom—including virtual reality reconstructions of ancient cities and video game explorations of cultural heritage.

Rob's archaeological research has been presented and published in journals throughout the world, while his dynamic teaching has earned him national recognition. Most recently he was presented the 2025 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Archaeological Institute of America and the 2024 Sherrill Creative Teaching Award from the University of Arizona. He specializes in connecting the past to the present, and his lectures invite travelers to not just learn about ancient history, but to experience it through stories, artifacts, monuments, and ethical questions that still matter today.

Equally at home on a mountaintop ruin or in a Roman amphitheater, Rob brings humor, energy, and curiosity to every journey. When he’s not on site or in the classroom, you might find him hiking desert trails, cheering on Michigan football, or hunting down the best nachos in Tucson.

Janet Duncan Jones, Professor Emerita of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Bucknell University, is an archaeologist with over 40 years‘ experience in the field. She has participated in excavation projects in Turkey, Greece, Tunisia, and Jordan. Her experience as a glassblower out of college ignited a career long research interest in preindustrial technologies and the lives of early craft workers. While living in villages in the Middle East she became interested in the impacts of preindustrial technologies on the ancient environment and the evolution of cultural landscapes. Her publications include studies of the ancient glass from sites in Turkey and Jordan, and synthetic considerations of the landscape of ancient ruins and of the messages and impacts of ancient mega-engineering projects. Recently she has focused her work on the impact of the Moors in southern Spain on urbanism, architecture, technology, and intellectual history.

Janet has lived in Turkey and Greece, and has traveled widely with an eye toward the messages that landscapes send us about the values and concerns of past peoples. She holds degrees from the College of William and Mary and from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she also acquired a devotion to ACC basketball. She lives in the mountains of central Pennsylvania with her geographer husband and hounds descended from those she originally imported from the Euphrates Valley in southeastern Turkey. 

Dr. Ross King is the bestselling author of books on Italian and French art and history, including Brunelleschi's Dome (2000), Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (2002), and Leonardo and The Last Supper (2012). His study of the origins of French Impressionism, The Judgment of Paris, was published in 2006, and Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies in 2016. He is the co-author with Anja Grebe of Florence: The Paintings & Frescoes, 1250-1743 (2015), the most comprehensive book ever undertaken on the art of Florence. His current project is a two-volume history of Italy, The Shortest History of Ancient Romeand The Shortest History of Italy, covering some 3,000 years of history from Romulus and Remus to the present.

Ross has also appeared in a number of television documentaries, such as The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance (PBS, 2003), Raphael: A Mortal God (BBC, 2004), The Great Cathedral Mystery (Nova, 2014), Florence's Invisible City (BBC, 2016), and, most recently, Ken Burns's Leonardo da Vinci (2024).

Ross serves on the Council of Academic Advisors for Friends of Florence, a fundraising charity ensuring the survival of Florence's art and architectural treasures. He has participated in numerous Friends of Florence tours throughout Italy and Sicily, and is a regular participant in Italian Renaissance seminars at the Aspen Institute, including programs on Giotto, St. Francis, and Dante. He has lectured in many American museums, including the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Frick Collection, and the National Gallery of Art. When not traveling for work or pleasure, Ross lives near Oxford, England, with his wife Melanie.

Joanne M. A. Murphy is a professor of Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Archaeology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where she has worked since 2008 and serves as Department Head. She is also the current Director of the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies and President of The American Friends of the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies (a 501c non-profit). She received her BA and first MA from University College Dublin, Ireland, and an MA and PhD from University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses primarily on religion and death and how they connect with identity, community, and political economies. As well as giving lectures both nationally and internationally, she has published over 30 papers and five edited volumes on these and related topics and has one monograph in press and two other volumes underway. She has led two major research projects: one, a legacy study, on the tombs around Pylos in southwestern Greece and one, an archaeological survey on the Greek island of Kea. She has received awards for her research and for initiatives at UNCG and non-profits from various foundations including INSTAP, the Mellon Foundation, the Onassis Foundation, the NEH, and the Loeb Foundation.  In 2023, she was awarded the Archaeological Institute of America’s Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. She has a great love of sharing the past and has led tours in Greece, Ireland, France, England, Italy, and Turkey, as well as running an annual archaeological field school in Greece.