UC professor Danielle Kellogg has spent years studying one of democracy’s oldest experiments, not from the center of power in ancient Athens, but from its outskirts. 

Now, that work has earned national recognition. 

Kellogg, associate professor of classics in the University of Cincinnati’s College of Arts and Sciences, recently received a fellowship from the National Humanities Center, one of the nation’s leading institutes for advanced study in the humanities. The highly competitive fellowship will support Kellogg as she completes a book examining citizenship, migration and political participation in ancient Athens’ rural communities. 

For Kellogg, the project began with a desire to look beyond the broad historical narratives that often define the ancient world. 

“When I was working toward my PhD, it was clear we knew a lot about Rome and Athens, but once you got past that 30,000-foot view, we know a whole lot less than we assumed,” Kellogg said. “I became really interested in local history and how ordinary people experienced democracy outside of the major power centers.” 

Her research focuses on the demes of ancient Athens, local communities spread throughout the region of Attica that formed the foundation of Athenian democracy. Every citizen belonged to one of 139 demes, which maintained citizenship rolls, elected local officials and participated in the broader political system of Athens. 

“Athens controlled an area about the size of Rhode Island,” Kellogg explained. “What the Athenians did with their democracy was divide up their population into these demes. All citizens had to register in one of them and be recognized by that community.” 

While Athens is often remembered as the birthplace of democracy, Kellogg’s work examines how that democracy functioned for people living far from the city itself. Her research explores questions of mobility, citizenship and political participation, topics that continue to resonate today. 

“When I started this project years ago, migration and immigration were not the hot-button issues they are now,” Kellogg said. “But the Athenians were dealing with many of the same questions we still ask today: Who belongs? How do communities recognize citizenship? What happens when people move away from where their family originated?” 

Unlike modern governments, ancient Athens lacked passports, birth certificates or centralized documentation systems. Citizenship was tied to ancestry and recognition by a citizen’s ancestral deme, a system that became increasingly complicated as people moved throughout the region. 

“As an example, if my grandparents were from Connecticut, I’d have to go back to Connecticut to vote,” Kellogg said. “If your family moves away for generations and later returns, how do you prove citizenship? The Athenians were debating these same kinds of questions, even if their solutions looked very different from ours.” 

Reconstructing those debates requires painstaking historical work. Kellogg relies heavily on archaeological evidence and inscriptions, many of which survive only in fragments. 

“We’ve probably lost 90% of the records that once existed,” she said. “It’s like trying to put together a 1,000-piece puzzle with only 100 pieces and no picture on the box.” 

Despite those challenges, Kellogg’s research has helped illuminate how democracy functioned at the local level in ancient Greece, particularly among communities often overlooked in traditional histories. 

The National Humanities Center fellowship will provide dedicated time for Kellogg to complete her manuscript, which is already deep into the writing process. She said the timing of the application was critical to its success. 

“At this point, the research is done and I’m writing the book,” Kellogg said. “I was able to clearly explain what I needed to accomplish during the fellowship period and what the final product would be.” 

Kellogg credited UC’s Office of Research, particularly Kate Furmanski, with helping shape the application. 

“Kate was incredibly helpful in tailoring the materials toward what the National Humanities Center was looking for,” Kellogg said. “Honestly, I thought the application process was much easier than some non-NCA applications I’ve done in the past.” 

The fellowship reflects UC’s continued momentum in nationally competitive awards and research recognition across disciplines, including the humanities. 

For Kellogg, the recognition also highlights the enduring relevance of studying the ancient world. 

“One of the things I consistently tell my students is that Athenian democracy was more complicated than it needed to be,” she said. “It probably shouldn’t have worked as well as it did, but they kept it going for a remarkably long time.” 

Thousands of years later, the questions Athenians wrestled with, citizenship, belonging and participation in democracy, remain just as important. And through Kellogg’s work, those ancient conversations continue to inform modern ones.