Overview
I work widely on Latin and Greek literature through the lenses of book history, gender and sexuality studies, queer studies, and the intersections between these critical approaches.
My published and forthcoming work addresses a range of topics, including: the ancient entomological bookworm (how the zoologically-low worm munches through the papyrus scroll and becomes activated by Greek poets as a metaphor for skewering pedantic readers); the relationship between improper book use, bibliomania, and queer bodies in Lucian's satire, "Against the Ignorant Book Collector"; Sappho, lesbians, and literary fakes in the late 19th century; and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's use of the modern Greek-language poet C. P. Cavafy in one of her remarkable artist's books, The Last Days of Pompeii.
I am currently at work on my first book, Bad Readers and Ancient Rome, which traces the cultural category of the "bad reader" across a generically diverse range of Greek and Latin texts from the first to second centuries CE. This project argues that hierarchies of reading are historically and culturally contingent and inextricable from dynamics of power: élite male authors invent "bad readers" to stake claims to power, fashioning them as marked bodies that disrupt performative scripts of gender, social status, and cultural identity. Bad Readers offers a twofold intervention into the study of reading: first, it illuminates the kinds of readers often neglected or shamed in ancient accounts of reading; second, it challenges hierarchies of reading in the discipline of Classics today by showing how scholarly attachments to "good" or "ideal" reading reproduce classical ideologies of mastery and masculinity.
I have taught Classics in a variety of contexts, including a one-year gig at Eton College, where I also coached boys' rugby. My research and teaching have been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at the University of Virginia's Rare Book School, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative, and the POD Network Center for Innovative Pedagogy.
Research Focus
Latin and Greek literature; ancient reading cultures; book history; gender and sexuality studies; queer theory; classical reception studies
Publications
- "Lucian's Queer Book User in the Adversus Indoctum" (forthcoming) American Journal of Philology 145.4: 563-592.
- "Forging Lesbians: Sappho and The Songs of Bilitis" (2024) Classical Receptions Journal 16.2: 162-177.
- "The Ancient Entomological Bookworm" (2020) Arethusa 53.1: 1-24.