I study Greek literature and, at present, my research focuses on Greek prose written during the Roman Imperial era. Within that broad area, I’m interested in the history of rhetoric and oratory, the figure of the author, issues of professional self-presentation, and also ancient medical writers, including Galen. I received my PhD from the University of Chicago and came to Princeton in 2008.
Currently, I am writing a book on Aelius Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi (Sacred Tales), a unique first person account of dreams, illness, and divine healing that reveals the place of the eccentric and the sacred in the social construction of late ancient subjectivity.
I have taught courses in Greek, at all levels, from Homeric epic to Roman imperial prose. Recently, I have offered undergraduate courses on the Greek novel (“Fiction and Fantasy”), Greek oratory (“The Rhetoric of Praise”), and post-classical Greek (“Miracles and Miracle Workers), as well as Sophocles and Plato. I also teach in the department’s introductory language sequence and in the lecture course on classical mythology.
