Dr. Timothy Doran, Professor of History

Dr. Doran is Full Professor in Cal State Los Angeles' History Department and Advisor in the Classical, Ancient, and Medieval Global Studies Undergraduate Minor. 

He is a classicist (scholar of Greco-Roman culture) specializing in Ancient Sparta.

He has taught in many fields of Greek and Roman history, religion, literature, art, archaeology, and other aspects of material culture, and occasionally teaches classes in the Greek and Latin languages.

At CSULA he teaches Greek, Roman, Ancient Near Eastern, and Egyptian history (political, cultural, and social) and ancient religions, as well as Big History, which is the history of everything from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the Universe, drawing on astronomy, geology, biology, anthropology, demography, political science, and history. 

At the moment he is working on a textbook on Spartan history contracted with Routledge, to be followed by a book on Spartan eugenics for Palgrave-MacMillan. 

Classes taught

Graduate seminars:

• Methods, Sources, and Problems in the Study of Greek and Roman Civilizations
• Ancient Mediterranean Economies
• Ancient Mediterranean Religions
• Sparta and Ancient Slavery
• Big History, World History, and Ancient History
• Inequality and the State, Ancient and Modern
• Citizenship, Race, and Eugenics in World History 
• Historical Research and Writing (History 5940)

Upper-division advanced undergraduate courses:

• Bronze and Archaic Greece
• Classical and Hellenistic Greece
• Early Rome
• Roman Empire
• Ancient Religions
• Ancient Near East
• Ancient Egypt
• The Indo-Europeans (research seminar)
• Big History: from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the Universe
• Classical Civilization and the Modern World
• Gender and Sex in World Religions 
• Historical Research and Writing (History 3090, Seminar)
• Historiography (seminar)
• Europe 1890-1945

Lower Division:

• World History to 1500 AD
• Ancient Greek language 1 and 2
• Latin 1 and 2
• Early American History

Education

Ph.D. University of California – Berkeley: Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology. 2011.

• Major field: Ancient Greek History and Material Culture
• Second field: Roman History
• Third field: Phoenician Economy, Society, and Culture
• Dissertation title: Demographic Fluctuation and Institutional Response in Sparta
• Examiners: Emily Mackil, Erich Gruen, Kenneth Wachter, Walter Scheidel

M.A. University of California – Berkeley: Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology. 2006.

B.A. University of California – Berkeley: History (Concentration: Ancient). 2002. High Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Alpha Theta.

• Honors Thesis: Ethnos, Okhlos, and Eikones: The Anti-Jewish Riots in Alexandria, 38 A.D. and the Constitutive Power of Emperor Worship
• Senior Thesis: Early Christianity and the Mystery Religions

 Selected publications:

Book:

• Spartan Oliganthropia. Brill Research Perspectives in Ancient History (monograph series), 2018.

Articles:

• "Eugenic Ideology in the Hellenistic Spartan Reforms." Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 66, 2017.
• "Nabis of Sparta: Heir to Agis IV and Kleomenes III?" Ancient History Bulletin 31, 2017.

Articles in Conflict in Ancient Greece and Rome: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO. June 2016. Peer-reviewed (150 – 4500 words each):

• Demography and Greek History
• Achaean Revolt
• Patrician-Plebeian Conflict (Main Article)
• Patrician-Plebeian Conflict (Causes)
• Patrician-Plebeian Conflict (Consequences)
• Civil Conflict in the Late Republic
• Hasdrubal
• Germanic Wars (Main Narrative)
• Germanic Wars (Causes)
• Germanic Wars (Consequences)
• Acrotatus
• Agis III
• Thebes’ Invasion of the Peloponnese
• First Peloponnesian War
• Lysander,
• Mithridates VI Eupator
• Astyochus
• The King’s Peace
• Agesilaus II
• Agesipolis I
• Boeotian League
• Epaminondas
• Battle of Mantinea
• Pausanias Son of Cleombrotus
• Peloponnesian League
• Sparta’s Campaign against Olynthus
• Battle of Sellasia

Review Articles in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (ca. 2000 words each):

• Myth, text, and history at Sparta by Thomas Figueira (ed.). Gorgias studies in classical and late antiquity, 18. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.05.16
• The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta: The Persian Challenge. The Yale Library of Military History by Paul Rahe. Yale University Press. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2016.12.13.
• Die Wirtschaft Spartas by Lukas Thommen. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2015.09.29
• Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History by George Cawkwell. Oxford University Press. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.01.19
• Demography and the Graeco-Roman World: new insights and approaches by Claire Holleran and April Pudsey. Cambridge University Press. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.7.49
• Thucydidean Narrative & Discourse by Mabel Lang. Michigan Classical Press. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.01.45

Selected Short Reviews in Choice, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, and a division of the American Library Association (this list is constantly growing and seldom up to date)

• Podany, Amanda. Weavers, Scribes, and Kings. Oxford, 2022. Choice, Feb. 2024, Vol. 61, no. 6.
• Villmoare, Brian. The Evolution of Everything. Cambridge University Press, 2023. Choice, Oct. 2023, Vol. 61, no. 2. 
• Jigoulov, Vadim. The Phoenicians. Reaktion Books, 2022. Choice, July 20, 2022. 
• Hussein, Ersin. Revaluing Roman Cyprus. Oxford, 2021. Choice, Sept. 2022, Vol 60 no. 1. 
• Roller, Duane. Empire of the Black Sea. Oklahoma, 2020. Choice, April 2022, Vol. 59 no. 8.
• Price, Max D. Evolution of a Taboo: Pigs and People in the Ancient Near East. Oxford, 2021. Choice, May 2021, Vol. 59 no. 2.
• Dever, William G. Has Archaeology Buried the Bible? Eerdmans, 2020. Choice,  December 2020, Vol. 58 no. 9. 
• Radner, Karen. A Short History of Babylon. Bloomsbury, 2020. Choice, January 2020, Vol. 58 no. 5. 
• Osgood, Josiah and Christopher Baron (eds.). Cassius Dio and the Late Roman Republic. Brill, 2019. Choice, June 2020, Vol. 57 no. 10
• Hawthorn, Ainsley and Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel eds.) Distant Impressions: The Senses in the Ancient Near East. Eisenbrauns, 2019. Choice, January 2020, Vol. 57 no. 5. 
• Roller, Duane. Cleopatra’s Daughter and other royal women of the Augustan era. Oxford, 2018. Choice, November 2018 Vol. 56 No. 3.
• Wicks, Yasmina. Profiling Death: Neo-Elamite Mortuary Practices, Afterlife Beliefs, and Entanglement with Ancestors. Brill, 2019. Choice, August 2019, Vol. 56 no. 12. 
• Garroway, Kristine Henriksen. Growing up in Ancient Israel: children in material culture and biblical texts. Society of Biblical Literature, 2018. Choice, April 2019, Vol. 56 no. 8.  
• Crawley Quinn, Josephine. In Search of the Phoenicians. Princeton, 2018. Choice, August 2018, Vol. 55 no. 12.
• Teitler, H.C. The Last Pagan Emperor: Julian the Apostate and the War Against Christianity. Oxford, 2017. Choice, November 2017, Vol. 55 no. 3.
• Dickenson, Christopher P. On the agora: the evolution of public space in Hellenistic and Roman Greece (c. 323 BC-267 AD). Mnemosyne Supplements: History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity, 398.Choice, July 2017, Vol. 53 no. 11.
• Marek, Christian. In the Land of a Thousand Gods: A History of Asia Minor in the Ancient World. Princeton, 2016. Choice, April 2017, Vol. 54 no. 8.
• Elayi, Josette. Sargon II; King of Assyria. Archaeology and Biblical Studies 22. Society of Biblical Literature, 2017. Choice, February 2018, Vol. 55 no. 6.
• De Giorgi, Andrea. Ancient Antioch: from the Seleucid Era to the Islamic Conquest. Cambridge, 2016. Choice, December 2016, Vol. 54 no. 4.
• Venit, Marjorie. Visualizing the Afterlife in the Tombs of Graeco-Roman Egypt. Cambridge, 2015. Choice, September 2016, Vol. 54 no. 1.

Research Interests

• Sparta (demography, historiography, history, literature, art)
• Greek, Roman, and Ancient Near Eastern history (political, cultural, and social), historiography, art, literature, and demography. 
• Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern religion.
• Big History.
• Demography.
• Selectionist/Darwinian modes of cultural transmission.
• Sociobiological and evolutionary-psychological study of religion, state formation, and human behavior.
• Comparative eugenic ideologies.
• Comparative pre-modern religious development.
• Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean.
• Proto-Indo-European linguistics, culture, and archaeology.
• Human evolution. 
• Paleolithic human migration and diffusion of cultural forms including mythology and religious beliefs. 

Archaeological Experience

- Summer 2005: Tel Dor, Israel. Vase-fragment classification, digging.

Peer Review Work

Anonymous peer review for (among others) Evolutionary Psychology; Yale University Press; Oxford University Press; Routledge; The Journal of Big History

Selected Presentations at Professional Meetings and Conferences

• "Lucretius and Big History" Big History and SETI Conference, Milan, Italy, July 2019
• "Who's Afraid of Spartan Eugenics?" UCLA History Department, April 9, 2019
• "Tyrtaios and the Spartan Genos," Friends of Ancient History conference at Cal State Long Beach, April 6, 2019
• “Population Politics and Spartan Imperialism” for “Popular Politics and Ancient Warfare” panel chaired by Michael Taylor, Society for Classical Studies conference in San Francisco, January 2016
• Respondent to Christopher Kegerreis’ paper “Xenophon at Mieza,” Friends of Ancient History conference at California State University, Riverside on November 15, 2014
• “Leveraging a Liberal Arts Education for Social Workers in Pursuit of Social and Economic Equality: How Ancient Sparta Speaks to Social Workers Today,” Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development in Melbourne, Australia, July 12, 2014
• “Representations and Realities in Ancient Sparta,” Friends of Ancient History conference at UC Riverside May 4, 2013 (Larry Tritle, respondent)
• “Christian Reproduction and Paternity from Paul to Augustine,” Paternity in the Ancient World conference at UCLA, October 7-8, 2008

Biographical Information

Timothy Doran is the third Los Angeles-based Professor Doran in his family. His father was Matt H. Doran, who was the first person to earn the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in the USA (from USC), and who was a professor of musical composition, theory, and harmony at Mount Saint Mary's College in Los Angeles. His grandfather was Edmund Doran, professor of speech, rhetoric, and debate at Los Angeles City College.

Dr. Doran is married. He has two children. He lives in the Long Beach area.

Doran worked for years after high school in a natural foods grocery store in San Francisco. He attended City College of San Francisco, where he studied Sociology, Geography, Anthropology, Italian, French, creative writing, and many other classes. He then transferred to UC Berkeley where he majored in History with concentration on Ancient Mediterranean History. He also studied languages, particularly Latin and Ancient Greek. He was then accepted into Berkeley's notoriously rigorous Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology. His specialty became Sparta, although he received a broad and full training in everything Greek and Roman including history, historiography, archaeology, art (especially sculpture), demography, ethnicity, poetic meter, a great deal of tragedy, comedy, elegy, iambus, lyric, biography, epistolary works, and every other form of ancient literature. He was a graduate student instructor for Greek Mythology, Greek Religion, and several other classes, and taught Latin; and he even co-taught a class on Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean at San Quentin State Prison as a graduate student. He then received the PhD, being examined in ancient Greek history; ancient Greek art; Phoenician Economy, Society, and Culture; ancient demography; and Roman history, and writing his dissertation on the causes and effects of the population crisis in ancient Sparta. 

After this he taught ancient history at Berkeley as a lecturer for one year, including classes of his own devising such as a seminar on Sparta, and immediately was hired for a full-time tenure-track position at Cal State L.A in 2012 where he has taught a variety of classes, primarily in Ancient History and Religious Studies, and has brought new courses to campus, including History of Greek and Roman Religions and the very popular Big History (which fills two sections each semester). 

His favorite students tend to be the ones who are deeply intellectually curious -- who think that the world is a genuinely interesting and wonderfully strange place, and that they are lucky to be alive -- and who work hard, including trying to strengthen areas of inexperience such as improving their writing, and are civil and amusing. He has had many such students at CSULA, and takes pleasure in watching his students grow intellectually.

His hobby is vintage collecting, mostly 1900-1950, including vintage clothing, antique furniture, old lamps, old books, and so on. His house has been described as museum-like, and is full of antique telephones, strange artifacts, Phoenician masks, genuine Roman era pot-handles, reproduction ancient Egyptian statuary, books on phrenology, treatises on religion and the occult, and other odd and old things. Over the years, he has collected some 300+ neckties primarily from the 1930s and 1940s and many vintage suits, mostly from that period.

He enjoys travel and has been to Poland, Egypt, Mexico, Greece, Turkey, Italy, San Marino, Israel, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Finland, England, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Australia, Jamaica, and Canada.

His favorite places in Los Angeles include the Getty Villa, the Huntington, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, the El Cid, and the Institute for the Scientific Study of Human and Non-Human Phenomena. He is always hunting for restaurants, cafes, theaters, and bars with character and remarkable, visually interesting settings, and that are very old, very interesting, and not very expensive; cafes with gardens where one can sit and read amidst flowers and bubbling fountains are a great favorite. He welcomes recommendations for such places. 

Other Relevant Experience

• Huntington Library Reader, 2019.
• American School of Classical Studies, Athens: Member, Summer 2016, including research tour of historical and archaeological sites in Greece (6-week intensive program)
• American School of Classical Studies, Athens: Visiting Student Associate Member, Summer 2010
• Humanities West, San Francisco: Content expert and discussion moderator for teachers at programs on Periclean Athens (2008) and the Hellenistic period (2010)
• Aleshire Center for Greek Epigraphy: Student Representative for 2005-7
• Center for Tebtunis Papyri: Summer 2002
• Research Assistant: 2003-2005 (for Robert N. Bellah’s book Religion in Human Evolution, published Fall 2011)
• Archaeological Excavation and Pottery Classifier, Tel Dor, Israel: Summer 2005 (for Andrew Stewart and Ayelet Gilboa)

Selected Community Lectures

• "Did the Spartans Practice Eugenics?" for Sparta Live, Nov. 30, 2023. 
• “Spartan Oliganthropia.” Book Talk/Library discussion with Stan Burstein: Cal State Los Angeles, February 14, 2019.
• “Titus and the Flavian Dynasty.” Los Angeles Opera, Spring 2019.
• “The Spartan Population Crisis, and Why This Should Matter to Us Now.” Greater Los Angeles MENSA Meeting, February 19, 2017.
• “Secret Societies and Fraternities in the Ancient World,” Masonic conference, Shrine Auditorium, Fall 2016.
• The Ancient Roots of Patriarchy and Limitations on Female Roles: A Demographic View.” Greater Los Angeles MENSA Meeting, February 18, 2018.