Karen Polinger Foster is delighted to join the Classics faculty in the fall of 2017 to teach the survey of Greek and Roman art and archaeology. She has published widely in the field of ancient Near Eastern and Mediterrranean studies, and has participated in numerous digs in the region. Her current major project is her tenth book, Strange and Wonderful: Exotic Flora and Fauna in Western Image and Imagination (Oxford, forthcoming).  Of her previous books, personal favorites include Civilizations of Ancient Iraq (winner of the AIA's Horton Prize, co-authored with B. R. Foster) and The City of Rainbows: A Tale from Ancient Sumer (retold and illustrated for children).  For the past 20 years, she has taught at Yale in the Departments of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and History of Art.