Lecturer in Classical Studies
I received a BS in biology and a BA in classical studies and ancient Greek, both summa cum laude, from the University of Richmond, where I received a full-tuition merit scholarship and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. I received my PhD in classical studies from the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2024.
Research Interests:
My research sits at the intersection of classics, art theory and media studies and is chiefly concerned with how art can encode complex forms of interaction. My dissertation, Actualized Mimesis: The Processual Animation of Greco-Roman Objects, theorizes the wide array of effects that occur when independent, non-representational processes of life (e.g. pouring a glass of wine, lighting a lamp, executing a criminal, etc.) are used as vehicles to represent something (e.g. what happens when you insert pencils into the back of a Julius-Caesar-shaped pencil holder). It then offers a preliminary study of “actualized mimesis” in the ancient Mediterranean, from the Bronze Age to the Imperial period.
Other major scholarly interests of mine include dreams and the surreal; the dynamics of comedy; entheogens, medicines, magic and natural history, especially as they relate to ancient understandings of the capacities of representation; nineteenth and early twentieth-century receptions (textual and material) of the classics; and reception of the classics in modern, digital media. In my spare time, I enjoy making clothing, toys, and ceramics, communing with cats, and spending time in nature.
