Scholarship and Biography
Professor Johnston has taught at Brandeis since 1975. She is particularly well known not only for her extensive work on Vergil, both his Georgics and his Aeneid, and for her work in Ancient Religion, but also for her introductory Latin text, "Traditio: An Introduction to the Latin Language", the third edition of which was published, along with a revised workbook, in 2014 by Brandeis University (New England Press).
As president of the Vergilian Society, she initiated the Society's Symposia Cumana, which she organized annually for the Society for eighteen years (through 2012) (co-sponsored by Brandeis University). The symposia have since continued as the"Symposium Classicum Peregrinum," and has been moving to different sites (hence 'Peregrinum', which connotes 'wandering') in Europe, including:
in Grumentum Nova, Italy (2013: June 5-7 2013) “The Role of Animals in Ancient Myth and Religion”;
in 2014 in Verona, Italy: (June 18-21, 2014) “The Age of Augustus”(Verona, Italy);
in 2015 in Budapest, Hungary (June 16-19, 2015), “Hera and Juno: The Functions of the Goddesses in Prehistoric and Historic Greece and Rome”.
n 2016 in Tarquinia, Italy (June 16-19, 2016), "Mithras and Related Ancient Mysteries."
In 2017, in Szombathely, Hungary, from June 15-18, where one of the main Isis temples remain, and where a Mithraic temple has also been found, she directed the Symposium Peregrinum on "Egyptian and Eastern Cults in the Roman Empire."
In 2018, in Lonato del Garda (June 21-24), "Blessings and Curses in Antiquity."
In addition to organizing these symposia, she has edited all the volumes of collections of papers from these symposia, as well as continuing to publish her own separate works; she is currently editing the collections of papers from the "Hera and Juno" and the "Mithras and Ancient Mysteries" volumes, as well as the one on Egyptian cults.
As editor of the Vergilian Society, she published seven volumes of their publication, Vergilius.
She has published, among other things, a new translation of the Aeneid. She also produced a separate commentary on Aeneid 6, which was later incorporated into a collection of commentaries on books 1-6 commentaries of the Aeneid. She has also been quite active in other areas of the scholarly world of Classics.
She is working now on a new text on the evolution(s) of the goddesses Hera/Juno/Uni.