Typically, between 3 and 5 graduate students begin their Ph.D. studies in Classics at Brown every year. The approximately 30 graduate students in the Classics department form part of a community of scholars studying the ancient world, together with graduate students in the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and the Departments of Comparative Literature, Egyptology and West Asian Studies, History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. Recent years have seen the inauguration of several graduate student-focused activities, including the Graduate Student Symposium, the Mellon Ancient Studies Workshop, various ad hoc reading groups, and Friday social hours.
For a list of Graduate Alumni, see here.
Current Graduate Students
Classics:
Ancient History:
| Bryan Brinkman | Joseph Kurz | Michael Pierpoint | David Thomas | David Yates |
Classics:
Scott Digiulio [Scott_DiGiulio@brown.edu]
2009
Scott received an AB in the Classics from Harvard University in 2009, graduating magna cum laude with highest honors in field. His senior thesis, entitled "The Mask of the Alien: Attitudes Towards Foreigners in Satiric Literature Under the Roman Empire," explored conceptions of identity and social attitudes in the Roman Empire by looking at satiric literature, both Greek and Latin, and attempted to articulate the ways in which the Romans looked at others shaped the way they viewed themselves; the thesis earned a departmental prize for excellence. In addition to Roman satire and its influences on other genres, Scott is interested in issues of identity in the Roman Empire; Second Sophistic Greek; multilingualism and code-switching in the ancient world; and historiography.
Christopher Geggie [Christopher_Geggie@brown.edu]
2009
.
Adrianne LaFrance [Adrianne_LaFrance@brown.edu] 
2009
Adrianne received her B.A. in Classics from nearby Roger Williams University in 2008. She earned distinction for her honors thesis, "The Latin Ut Clause: A Frequency Analysis and Pedagogical Evaluation," an investigation of the ut clause that compares and evaluates British and American latin textbooks. In 2008-09, Adrianne studied abroad in Leipzig, Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, working on her proposed research project, entitled, "Resuscitation versus Recitation: The Effects of Teaching Latin as a Living Language," which explores how the absence of conversational Latin affects students' perceptions of ancient Roman culture. Currently, she is interested in Roman epic and lyric poetry as well as the reception of Greek literature by the Romans. Outside of the Classics, Adrianne is an ardent francophile, working on collaborative translations of surrealist poetry of francophone authors from the Caribbean and Africa. .
Byron MacDougall Byron_MacDougall@brown.edu[]
2009
Byron started learning Latin under the instruction of the late Imre Lagler at The Webb School in Bell Buckle, TN at what would prove in the light of subsequent events to be the fatefully impressionable age of 11. After graduating from Harvard in 2007 he taught Greek and Latin at schools in Brookline, MA, and in the summer of 2008 had the good fortune to join the throng of Father Reginald Foster’s devoted acolytes. At Brown he is looking forward to studying the cultural history of the Mediterranean during Late Antiquity and (significantly) beyond, a chronological orientation confirmed last spring with his first glimpse of the Golden Horn from Seraglio Point. .
Tara Mulder [Tara_Mulder@brown.edu] 
2009
Tara Mulder received her B.A. in Classical Languages and Literature from the University of Michigan, graduating with highest honors. She completed an honor's thesis entitled A Woman Possessed: The Role of the Furies in Ovid's Tale of Procne and Philomela. At the time of graduation she was also awarded the department's Seligson Prize for Classical Greek and the University's Arthur Miller Award for achievement in the Arts. Tara is currently interested in exploring Greek theater and its reflections in Roman poetry, as well as the creative process of translation.
Melissa Sassin [Melissa_Sassin@brown.edu] 
2009
Melissa received her B.A. in English from UCLA in 2002. In 2009, upon completion of her post-baccalaureate work at University of Washington, she received her B.A. in Classics (with distinction), Greek, and Latin. Her honors thesis, "The Barbarian Bitch Bays – Cassandra from Homer to Euripides," only temporarily calmed her obsession with the mantic maid, and she hopes to continue her work on Cassandra by wrestling Lykophron's Alexandra. Her other interests include epic poetry, Latin elegy and Greek tragedy.
.
Jennifer Swalec [Jennifer_Swalec@brown.edu]
2009
.Jennifer received her B.A. in Classics from the University of Virginia in 2009, graduating with high honors and as a Jefferson Scholar. At the time of her graduation she was also awarded the Anne Marye Owen Prize for Outstanding Work in the Classics. Her honors thesis (Simonides and Sophocles: A Shared View of Mankind?) compared the views of these two Archaic Greek poets with respect to the nature of the gods, of arete, and of kleos. Some of Jennifer's primary interests include popular ancient religion, Greek tragedy, Latin palaeography, and the classical poetry of all genres and time periods.
Matthew Wellenbach [Matthew_Wellenbach@brown.edu] 
2009
Matthew received his B.A. in Classics in 2009 from Williams College, where he graduated magna cum laude and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. His senior thesis, which investigated use of the term atasthalie in the Odyssey, earned highest honors. During the 2007-08 academic year, he studied at the University of Oxford as a member of Exeter College. Some of his primary interests are the Greek epic cycle, Athenian drama, and especially the interactions between the two genres. .
Barbara Blythe [Barbara_Blythe@brown.edu]
2008
Barbara earned her BA in Latin from the College of William and Mary in 2008, where she graduated summa cum laude, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and received the departmental Hogan Prize for Outstanding Graduating Senior. Her senior thesis explored allusions to the rape of Persephone in Vergil's Aeneid. She has also presented papers on Vergilian themes at the 2008 and 2009 meetings of CAMWS. Barbara is primarily interested in sexuality in Augustan literature, the ancient novel, and the Latin historiography of Alexander the Great.
Joseph McDonald [Joseph_McDonald@brown.edu]
2008
Joseph McDonald completed his B.A. in ancient Greek and Latin at the University of Minnesota in 2008, graduating with high honors. As a senior, he wrote a commentary on books VIII and X of Virgil's Aeneid. While remaining fond of Roman love elegy and Homer, Joe plans to focus on ancient Greek history.
Anne McEnroe [Anne_McEnroe@brown.edu]
2008
Anne graduated from the University of Kansas in 2007, receiving degrees in classical languages and creative writing with highest distinction. She spent her junior year as a visiting student at the University of Edinburgh, and upon returning to KU, she submitted as honors theses a study of St. Augustine’s relationship with Virgil and a collection of creative essays. Anne returned to the U.K. in 2007 to study for her M.A. at the University of Bristol, and she has recently completed
a dissertation entitled, “Augustine against the Clock: Time, Language and the Economics of Salvation.” Her interests include the Latin literature of Late Antiquity, the construction of identity by writers of all periods, and the reception of the classical tradition, especially in
English literature.
Mitchell Parks [Mitchell_Parks@brown.edu]
2008
Mitchell received his B.A. in Classics from Grinnell College in 2008, graduating with honors. At that time he also received his department's Seneca Prize in Classics and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. His interests include characterization in Greek historiography, the Greek models of Latin poetry, and translation theory.
Anne Rabe [Anne Rabe@brown.edu]
2008
Anne received a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Kansas in 2002, graduating with Highest Distinction and in Phi Beta Kappa. She then completed a B.A. in Classical Languages in 2004 and an M.A. in Classics in 2007, both at the University of Kansas. While working on her M.A., Anne was awarded the university-wide Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in 2006, and in 2007 her paper Language and Discordia in Cicero's De Haruspicum Responsis 41 won the Albert O. Greef Essay Award. Upon the completion of her M.A. she taught at William Jewell College as an Adjunct Instructor of Classics in 2008. Currently, Anne is interested both in Cicero and oratory of the late Republic as well as identity studies in post-classical Latin of Northern Africa.
Jeanmarie Stinson [Jeanmarie_Stinson@brown.edu]
2007
Jeanmarie received her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999, where she graduated with highest honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 2003, and practiced law thereafter. She recently returned to classics, and she is interested primarily in Greek history, law, and tragedy.
Christopher Geadrities [Christopher_Geadrities@brown.edu]
2006
Christopher received a B.A. in Classical Languages and Philosophy from the University of Scranton, where he graduated summa cum laude in 2002. He went on to pursue graduate work in Classics at the University of Pittsburgh, where he received his M.A. in 2004. During his time in Pittsburgh he developed an interest in post-Vergilian epic and Greek tragedy (especially Euripides). Since arriving at Brown he has also become interested in ancient Greek scholarship (scholia, ancient commentaries, etc.), Senecan tragedy, and Late Latin poetry.
Karen Kelly [Karen_Kelly@brown.edu]
2006
Karen received a B.A. in the University Scholars program at Baylor University in 2006, where she graduated summa cum laude and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Her focus within the program was on Latin and Greek, and she wrote a thesis titled, "The Birds and the Bees: The Roman Poet as a Metaphorical Bird." Karen did her Latin Special Author on Statius' Silvae with Shadi Bartsch and is currently working on Sophocles as her Greek Special Author with Deborah Boedeker. She enjoys reading from several different genres and time periods, but her main interests lie with Senecan tragedy and poetry in general, and specifically, portrayals of death and the afterlife and the literary traditions of imagery. This year, Karen is teaching first-semester Ancient Greek (Fall) and second-semester Latin (Spring).
Leo Landrey [Leo_Landrey@brown.edu]
2006
Leo received a B.A. in classics from Bowdoin College in 2005, where he graduated cum laude and recieved highest honors for his senior thesis on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica. Before enrolling in Brown's graduate program, he attended Georgetown University’s Post-Bac program for the 2005-2006 academic year. Leo is excited to be teaching the introductory Latin sequence, and he is exploring Valerius Flaccus and Herodotus for his special authors. Leo’s interests cover Hellenistic, Augustan, and Flavian epic as well as Hellenistic didactic and scientific poetry.
Lauren Donovan [Lauren_Donovan@brown.edu]
2005, ABD
Lauren graduated from Cornell University in 2003 summa cum laude and phi beta kappa with a B.A. in Classics, having written an honors thesis “Ilia and Early Imperial Rome: The Roman Origin Legend in Text and Art.” Before coming to Brown in 2005, she taught Latin and Greek
at the high-school level for two years. Her current research interests include: Julio-Claudian literature and visual culture, with special emphasis on the Neronian age and its reception after Nero; historiography, and the representations of and allusions to the historical tradition in Roman poetry; Alexandrian poetry with special emphasis on Apollonius Rhodius; and the art of Imperial Rome and
the interaction between visual culture and text. On the Greek side, her special author was the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (with David Konstan). On the Latin side, she worked on a special topic concerning Augustan Age literary representations of the Roman Regal Period (with Kurt Raaflaub). She also conducted an independent reading topic on Neronian public art and architecture and its reception during the year of the four emperors and under the Flavians (with Rebecca Molholt). She is currently working on her dissertation (with John Bodel), ‘Literary and Ideological Memory in the Octavia’, which examines the way the playwright reconstructs the memory of Nero, the Julio-Claudian family, and their ideology through allusions to Julio-Claudian literature and Julio-Claudian Rome.
Timothy Haase [Timothy_Haase@brown.edu]
2005
Timmy graduated in 2005 with a B.A. in Classical Languages at Fordham University, summa cum laude, with an honors thesis entitled "Amor and Rape: Sexual Violence in Ovid's Fasti." As Timmy fancies himself a rather cheeky fellow, his research interests currently revolve around various humorists (an admittedly tendentious term) of the ancient world and typologies of humor. Last year he completed his special Latin and Greek authors on Petronius (with John Bodel) and Aristophanes (with Rene Nuenlist). His other interests include Ovid, Roman verse satire, Apuleius, the Greek novel, Roman comedy, and Augustan poetry in general. He was delighted, this year, to complete a study tour with the 2nd summer session of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens; during his undergraduate career, he had also spent a semester abroad in Rome with the ICCS program in the fall of 2003. He is excited to be presenting his first paper at the next APA in Philadelphia (2009) on lies and Callimachus' poetics.
David Berger [David_Berger@brown.edu]
2004, ABD
David finished writing his dissertation, “Inhabiting the Epistemic Frame of Mind: Plato’s Protagoras and the Socratic Denial of Akrasia,” in his very first year in this program! Unfortunately, he submitted it under the auspices of the Philosophy Department at the University of Pittsburgh, so he's writing another one, this time on Plato's Lesser Hippias. The project has three parts: a translation, a grammatical commentary, and a philosophical essay. Latin special author: Lucretius (with David Konstan); Greek special author: Plato (with Mary Louise Gill). Other authors he regards as special: Seneca, Boethius, Henry David Thoreau, Martin Buber.
Robin McGill [Robin_McGill@brown.edu]
2004, ABD 
Robin McGill earned her BA in Latin and Greek from the University of Georgia (2003), with a minor in psychology. She graduated summa cum laude, writing her Honors thesis on Prudentius' Cathemerinon. The Lionel Pearson Fellowship through the American Philological Association enabled her to spend a year studying at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where she received a Masters of Letters (M.Litt.) with distinction in Latin and Greek (2005). Her Masters thesis, entitled, “Refuting Democracy: A Study of Dialectic as Political Discourse in Plato’s Gorgias” reflects her interest in rhetoric and rhetorical theory, interests which she has continued to pursue at Brown with special fields on Athenian Law and Quintilian. Robin has returned to her interest in Late Antique Poetry for her dissertation, which she is writing under the direction of Joseph Pucci. Her dissertation considers the role of prophecy in early Christian Latin hymns as an expression of a collective Christian identity.
Asya
Sigelman [Asya_Sigelman@brown.edu]
2004, ABD 
Asya graduated summa cum laude from Boston University in 2004 with a BA in Ancient Greek and Latin and two minors, in German and Music. In her senior thesis, titled “Goethe’s Ewig Weibliche: A Transfiguration of the Plotinian endon eidos,” she investigated Goethe’s Faust I and II in light of Neo-Platonic influences. During her years at Brown, Asya has become fascinated with the theme of Odyssean nostos and the cyclical perception of time and history in Latin historiography (Tacitus), drama (Seneca), and novel (Apuleius). She is also interested in the role of the sea and marine deities in Homer and the Nachleben of this role in Classical literature. In March 2007 she presented her paper on the Catalogue of Ships and the structure of Iliad II at a graduate student conference—Homer and his Worlds—organized by the New York University. Asya has been privileged to spend the summer of '05 in the American Academy in Rome Classical Summer School Program. She has worked with Michael Putnam on her Latin Special Author (Horace) and with Charles Fornara on her Greek one (Pindar). Currently, she teaches Introduction to Latin Literature and is busy with her dissertation on the role of the poet and the unity of time in Pindar’s victory odes. In her spare time, Asya studies classical singing, primarily German Lieder and operatic arias for the mezzo.
Mark Thatcher [Mark_Thatcher@brown.edu]
2004, ABD
Mark received his BA from Northwestern University in 2004, earning Honors in Classics with the thesis "Educating the Statesmen: Polybius and Cultural Conflict," and a minor in history, and participated in the ICCS program in Rome in the fall of 2002. His primary field is ancient history, specializing in Archaic Greece and Republican Rome, but he tries to keep his secondary interests as broad as possible (including, among others, historical linguistics and Hellenistic/Augustan poetry). He has also recently become interested in theories of ethnicity and colonialism. Since arriving at Brown, Mark has worked on special authors with Profs. Kurt Raaflaub ("Roman Conquest of Greece, 200-146 BC") and Charles Fornara ("Sicilian Local Historians"). His dissertation (under the direction of Kurt Raaflaub) is entitled "Tiers of Identity in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy, c. 600-200 BC."
Jennifer Lewton Yates [Jennifer_L_Yates@brown.edu]
2003, ABD
Jenni completed her B.A. summa cum laude and with University Honors at Ohio Wesleyan University in 2003, majoring in Humanities/Classics and minoring in Medieval Studies and Ancient Studies. Before coming to Brown she participated in the ASCSA summer session. Jenni's special authors were Euripides and Ovid, and she is currently working on a dissertation about tragedy and the ancient novels. When she isn’t busy with Classics, Jenni serves as the Head Teaching Consultant for the Humanities and Social Sciences for Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning.
Heidi Broome-Raines [Heidi_Broome-Raines@brown.edu] 
2002, ABD
Heidi received a BA from Georgetown University in 2002 in Classical Languages with a minor in Modern Greek. Her main research interests include many aspects of ancient theater, especially tragedy; Modern Greek literature; and Greek history. Her special authors were Sophocles and Seneca. She attended the American School of Classical Studies at Athens Summer Session in 2003 and Regular Program in 2006-2007, and is currently the Alison Frantz Fellow at the Gennadeios Library of the American School of Classical Studies, researching her dissertation on Classical tragedy in Early Byzantine literature. At Brown she has taught Greek and Latin language classes since 2004. She has excavated at the sites of Despotiko and Corinth, and enjoys teaching study-travel courses in Greece..
Wendy Teo [Wendy_Teo@brown.edu]
2001, ABD
Wendy received her B.A. in Classics from Reed College. Her undergraduate thesis focused on Tibullus, but also examined the development of the genre of Latin Love Elegy as mythopoesis. During her time at Brown University, she has worked on the Pre-Socratics and Lucretius for her special author exams. She is currently writing her dissertation on the appeal of Greek tragedy, specifically on the pleasure to be gained from the painful experience. Her primary interests are in the intellectual and emotional responses to literature, and the interaction between poetry and philosophy.
Alexander Alderman [Alexander_Alderman@brown.edu]
ABD
Interests: Greek tragedy, Roman elegy, Sokratikoi logoi, moral psychology, and virtue ethics.
Alex is currently teaching at Baylor University.
Peter Lech [pgl6@caa.columbia.edu]
ABD
Michael McArthur [Michael_McArthur@brown.edu]
ABD
William Tortorelli [William_Tortorelli@brown.edu]
ABD
Interests: Archaic Greek lyric, elegiac, and iambic poetry; Roman lyric poetry; textual criticism; meter; Ovid.
Dissertation: "Lyric Wisdom: Alcaeus and the tradition of Paraenetic Poetry from Hesiod to Horace"
Miryana Vassileva [Miryana_Vassileva@brown.edu]
ABD
Christopher Welser [Christopher_Welser@brown.edu]
ABD
Interests:Greek and Latin historiography; economy of antiquity and ancient economic thought; ancient literary theory; didactic poetry.
Ancient History:
Bryan Brinkman [Bryan_Brinkman@brown.edu] 
2008
Bryan received his B.A. in History and Classics from the University of Utah in 2006, graduating with honors. Upon graduation he was selected as the Alumni Association’s Outstanding Senior in the College of Humanities. Bryan attended the ASCSA Summer Session in Athens, Greece in 2007. In 2008, he received his M.A. in History at the University of Washington, earning highest honors in the fields of Roman Imperial and Hellenistic history. His research focuses on the cultural and social history of the Roman Empire and is very interdisciplinary, working closely with the departments of Archaeology and Religious Studies. His interests include Roman religion, constructions of space and time in antiquity, and the intersection between imperialism and memory.
Joseph Kurz [Joseph_Kurz@brown.edu]
2009
Michael Pierpoint [Michael_Pierpoint@brown.edu]
2009
Michael received his BA with First-Class Honours from the University of Liverpool, UK, where he was awarded the Dawson Turner Prize for 'conspicuous excellence in the final year exams' to add to his Rathbone Award, which he had won earlier in his Undergraduate career. His interests are focussed primarily around the intellectual history of Antiquity and its influence on the thought, particularly on the political theories, of the humanists of the late Mediaeval and early-Modern eras. In line with such interests, his honours thesis was entitled 'An investigation into the influence of the Aristotelian concept of "natural slavery" in the works of Marsilius of Padua, Bartolome de Las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda'. At Brown, affiliated both to the Classics and to the History department, Michael intends to continue his research into this field, with particular focus on the ancient strains present in the thought of the Spanish and Italian Renaissance.
David Thomas [David_Thomas@brown.edu]
2008
David Yates [David_Yates@brown.edu]
2003, ABD
Dave earned his B.A. in History and Classics from the University of Virginia and his M.A. in Classics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dave’s interests include Fifth-Century Greek History, Atthidography, and the late Roman Republic.