Emma Dench Emma Dench Emma Dench is an English ancient historian, classicist, and academic. She has been McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard University since 2014, and Dean of its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences since 2018. She was previously Professor of Ancient History at Birkbeck College, University of London, and then Professor of Classics and of History at Harvard. Dench was born in York, Yorkshire, England, and grew up near Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. Her father was Jeffery Dench, a Shakespearean actor, and her mother, Betty, was a speech therapist. Her paternal aunt is Judi Dench, an award-winning film
Judi Dench 365 in 1966, as Terry in the four-part series Talking to a Stranger, for which she won a BAFTA Television for Best Actress. The 1966 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles was made to Dench for her performance in "Four in the Morning" and this was followed in 1968 by a BAFTA Television Best Actress Award for her role in John Hopkins' 1966 BBC drama "Talking to a Stranger". In 1968, she was offered the role of Sally Bowles in the musical "Cabaret". As Sheridan Morley later reported: "At first she thought they were joking. She