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 Also in 2017, Dench reprised the role of Queen Victoria when she headlined Stephen Frears's "Victoria & Abdul". The biographical comedy-drama depicts the real-life relationship between the monarch and her Indian Muslim servant Abdul Karim, played by opposite Ali Fazal. While the film was met with lukewarm reviews for its "imbalanced narrative", Dench earned specific praise for her performance, earning the actress her 12th Golden Globe nomination. Dench's last film that year was Kenneth Branagh's "Murder on the Orient Express", based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie. The mystery–drama ensemble film follows world-renowned detective Hercule