
Teaching Philosophy: A Joyful Philology
Aiming at 'education' in an ancient sense of the word—a 'leading out' from provincial beginnings into larger, more cosmopolitan worlds—my teaching centers on combining scholarly rigor with a sense of wonder. Although as a professor I have information to convey, above all I seek to emphasize diverse modes of inquiry and the high value of divergent thinking. Students in my classes are thus encouraged to discover how a deepening mastery of materials and methods leads to more meaningful spontaneity in inquiry and interpretation: joyful philology as a foundation for lifelong learning.
I have been a visiting assistant professor at Trinity since fall 2015. Previously, I taught at Bryn Mawr College, Hollins University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Bard College, including for the Bard Prison Initiative.
My research falls into two main areas:
articles
“Classical Desires in Call Me by Your Name.” Antiquipop (online, n.s.) 2018.
“Smell and Sociocultural Value-Judgments in Catullus.” CW 109.4 (2016) 465-486.
“per gestum res est significanda mihi: Ovid and Language in Exile.” CP 104.2 (2009) 162-83.
“Pliny and the Dolphin: Or, A Story about Storytelling.” Arethusa 42.2 (2009) 161-79.
“Symbolic Language and Indexical Cries in Lucretius 5.1028-1090.” AJP 129.4 (2008) 529-557.
“The Scent of Language and Social Synaesthesia at Rome.” CW 101.2 (2008) 159-171.
“Aeolism: Latin as a Dialect of Greek.” CJ 102.2 (2007) 115-144.
book chapters
“The chorus cinaedorum in Apuleius’ Golden Ass” (for T. Gazzarri and J. Weiner, eds., Searching for the Cinaedus in Classical Antiquity, forthcoming).
“Sensory Media: Representation, Communication, and Performance in Ancient Literature” (invited for Jerry Toner, ed., A Cultural History of the Senses, Bloomsbury 2014).
articles
“Virgilian Underworlds in A. S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book.” CRJ 8.4 (2016) 529-553.
“Medea in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones.” IJCT 23 (2016) 1-20.
“Classical Receptions in Science Fiction” (with Brett M. Rogers). CRJ 4.1 (2012) 127-47.
book chapters
“Translating Greek and Roman Epic into Film” (for R. Armstrong, ed., Greek and Roman Epic in Translation, forthcoming).
“Middle-Earth as Underworld: from katabasis to eucatastrophe” (for H. Williams, ed., Tolkien and the Classics, forthcoming).
“Dante” (for C. Pache, ed., Cambridge Homer Encyclopedia, forthcoming).
“Psammetichus’ Experiment and Modern Thought about Language” (for V. Zali and J. Priestley, eds., Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond, Brill 2016).
“Morality and Comics History in Kingdom Come” (for G. Kovacs and T. Marshall, eds., Classics and Comics (Oxford, 2011))
CLASSICAL RECEPTIONS FILM SERIES
Every week (Thursdays, 7pm, RCC 319), I screen a film drawing on an ancient story. The theme for fall 2019, combining FYE HUMA and HIST 3318, is ‘Dreams of Power & Truth.’