This article is part of a monthly series celebrating research breakthroughs and successes at Brock University over the past 60 years. To read other stories in the series, visit The Brock News.

David Rupp’s interest was hooked when a passerby found what looked like the remains of 19th-century red earthenware pottery near Niagara’s Bruce Trail.

Then-Ontario Minister of Culture and Recreation Robert Welch toured the Jordan Pottery Study Project site in 1977 with Hamilton’s CHCH TV airing a news feature on the visit. Then-Professor of Classics David Rupp (far right) pointed out one of the dig’s features to Welch (second from the left) and other members of the delegation.

Curious about what lay beneath the discovery, the then-Professor of Classics at Brock organized a dig in 1976 with students from his Classical Archaeology course and wrote proposals to create the Jordan Pottery Study Project.

Sponsored by what was known as the Brock University Museum of Cypriote Antiquities, the Jordan Historical Museum of the Twenty and the Niagara Peninsula Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, the project soon took off.

“Our discoveries documented a previously unknown but important, local red earthenware pottery kiln and workshop that operated between 1831 and 1841,” says Rupp, who is now retired. “Many of the vessels were restored and given to the Jordan Museum of the Twenty for their collections.”

Four decades later, more of Niagara’s history was unearthed with maritime archaeologist and Adjunct Professor of History Kimberly Monk’s exploration of a plot under the present-day Burgoyne Bridge in St. Catharines.

With help from community volunteers, her research team excavated and studied the site of the former Shickluna Shipyard. Constructed on the shores of Twelve Mile Creek by Maltese immigrant Lewis Shickluna, the shipyard was used to build and repair ships from 1834 to 1894.

Monk and Rupp are among the many Brock University humanities researchers have made close to home and around the world.

Then-Professor of Classics David Rupp (far left) shows Welch (second from the left) a piece of pottery found at the Jordan Pottery Study Project site while other delegation members look on.

“Brock was founded with a conviction that inquiry into human stories, cultures and actions is of prime importance,” says Carol Merriam, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Professor of Classics.

She notes Brock’s first president and most of the University’s initial group of professors came from humanities disciplines.

Merriam says research in subjects such as history, classics, philosophy, literatures, languages and arts “helps form our responses to human events and interactions, and our understanding of the forces that unite us and divide us.”

Humanities research achievements over the years include:

• Rupp, then-Professor of Classics Noel Robertson and former Director of the Brock University Museum of Cypriote Antiquities Laura Robertson’s research appeared in the 1978 Report of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus.
• Then-Professor of Fine Arts Mary Jane Miller’s research on television genres enabled her to be one of three outside guests to participate in a 1983 meeting of CBC executives mapping out future directions for CBC TV dramas.
• Associate Professor of Visual Arts Amy Friend’s images have appeared in almost a dozen national and international exhibitions, projects and festivals as well as some of the world’s leading publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Time magazine and The Atlantic
• Associate Professor of History John Bonnett and Kevin Kee, then-Associate Professor in the Departments of History and Digital Humanities were both appointed Canada Research Chairs in Digital Humanities from 2005 to 2015.
• Then-Dramatic Arts Assistant Professor Karen Fricker applied her expertise as theatre critic for the Toronto Star, which she landed in 2016, winning a national award for her writing two years later.
• Professor of English Language and Literature Elizabeth Sauer is one of the world’s foremost experts on the poet and historian John Milton, having received the highly prestigious Killam Research Fellowship in 2009 for her work.

Research facilities and groups created throughout the decades have played an important part in advancing Brock humanities research. Some of these include the Brock University Cypriot Museum established in 1970; the Humanities Research Institute, which will soon celebrate its 25th anniversary; and the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts located in downtown St. Catharines.

“At a time when humanities research and creative activities are overlooked by many institutions, Brock stands up for and supports the studies that underline our common humanity,” says Merriam. “No university can aspire to better.”