Stanford Humanities Center
Mike Chin is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California at Davis, and is a practicing artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work crosses genres from the intellectual history of late antiquity, reception of classical texts in modern art and literature, to contemporary puppetry and experimental theater.
SHC Project
Diocletian: A Reckless Autobiography
This project is a short book composed using a mix of traditional academic prose, literary nonfiction, autobiography, graphic novel and photographic techniques. My narratives are drawn from the life of the Roman emperor Diocletian, who reigned from 284–305 CE, and from the legends surrounding him. By nearly all accounts, Diocletian’s reign transformed the Roman Empire: he radically, sometimes violently, changed its governing structures, army, economy, and religious policies. His conscious adoption of political, cultural, and aesthetic practices from the neighboring Iranian empire were unprecedented in Roman history, as was his unorthodox decision to abdicate after a successful twenty-year reign and live his post-imperial life in private retirement. His life and reign generated many fantastical stories both in the fourth century and for many centuries afterwards. In my project, I ask how this real and fantastical figure forces historians to reconsider our own storytelling practices.
Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe (University of California Press, 2024)
