Dissertations / Placement
A list of Ph.D. alumni is listed below by decade. Each entry includes current job title and employer when known as well as the title of the dissertation. Please send corrections or updates to classics@umich.edu.
2011-present
2018
Drew Stimson
Characterization and Politics in Thucydides (Director: Sara Forsdyke)
Mara Kutter
Emotion in Politics: Envy, Jealousy, and Sovereignty in Archaic and Classical Greece (Director: Sara Forsdyke)
Louise Loehndorff
Translation as Narrative and Translator as Active Guide: Rufinus' Process of Translating Origen's Narrative of the Soul's Descent (Director: Sara Ahbel-Rappe)
2017
Jacqueline Stimson
Killing Romans: Legitimizing Violence in Cicero and Caesar (Director: David Potter)
2016
Nicholas Rupert
Statius' Achilleid and the Poetics of Self-Reception (Director: David Potter)
Zach Andreadakis
Reading for Clues: Detective Narratives in Heliodorus' Aithiopika (Director: Richard Janko)
Amy Pistone
When the Gods Speak: Oracular Communication and Concepts of Language in Sophocoles (Director: Ruth Scodel)
2015
Kate Allen
"Malo quam bene olere nil olere": Odor in Roman Thought and Literature (Director: Ruth Caston)
Ellen Cole
Postdoctoral Fellow at Connecticut College
Lethaeus Amor: Love and Memory in Latin Elegiac Poetry
(Director: Basil Dufallo)
Nicholas Geller
Intern at the Getty Center in Los Angeles
Roman Architexture: The Idea of the Monument in the Poetic Reimagination of the Augustan Age (Director: Basil Dufallo)
Michael McOsker
Instructor, Ohio Wesleyan
On the Good Poem According to Philodemus (Director: Richard Janko)
Matthew Newman
The Ruins of Heaven: Linguistic and Poetic Indices of Cosmic Instability in Ancient Mediterranean Myth and Thought
(Director: Richard Janko)
Nicholas Rupert
The Evolution of a Poet: Statius’ Achilleid and the Poetics of Self-Reception (Co-Directors: Paolo Asso and Kathleen Coleman (Harvard))
Bram ten Berge
Tacitus on Principate and Empire: From Agricola to Annals
(Director: David S. Potter)
2014
Clara Bosak-Schroeder
Assistant Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Ecology, History, and the Other in Ancient Greece (Director: Francesca Schironi)
Harriet Fertik
Assistant Professor, University of New Hampshire
Publicity, Privacy, and Power in Neronian Rome (Director: David S. Potter)
2013
Evelyn Adkins
Lecturer, Penn State University
Rudis Locutor: Speech and Self-Fashioning in Apuleius' Metamorphoses (Director: David S. Potter)
Emily Bembeneck
Academic Technology at U of Chicago
The Princess in Another Castle: Multi-Linear Stories in Oral Epic and Video Games (Director: Ruth Scodel)
Matthew Cohn
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto
The Admonishing Muse: Ancient Interpretations of Personal Abuse in Old Comedy (Director: Richard Janko)
2012
Carolyn Gersh
Naming the Body: A Translation with Commentary and Interpretive Essays of Three Anatomical Works Attributed to Rufus of Ephesus (Director: Sara Ahbel-Rappe)
Joseph Groves
Visiting Professor, Hillsdale College
Ethics and Imperialism in Livy (Director: David S. Potter)
Katherine Lu Hsu
Assistant Professor, Brooklyn College; Director, Summer Institute
Heracles and Heroic Disaster (Director: Ruth Scodel)
Jonathan Rowland
Footnotes to Sappho: An Examination of the Female Poets of Greece (Director: Ruth Scodel)
Rebecca Sears
Professor, Tulane University
The Practical Muse: Reconstructing the Contexts of a Greek Musical Papyrus (Director: Arthur Verhoogt)
2011
Cassandra Borges
Whole Foods Cooperative, Duluth
The Geography of the Iliad in Ancient Scholarship (Director: Richard Janko)
Dina S. Guth
University of Winnipeg
Character and Rhetorical Strategy. Philip II of Macedon in Fourth-Century Athens (Director: Sara Forsdyke)
Julia P. Shapiro
Politics and the Body: Political uses of physiognomic stereotypes in Classical Athens from the Archaic Period through the 4th Century B.C. (Directors: Sara Forsdyke & Ruth Scodel)
Rajesh Mittal
Fata viam invenient: Virgil, Augustus, and the Philosophy of History (Directors: David S. Potter & Joseph Reed)
Shonda Tohm
Latin Teacher, Mayo High School
Contesting Masculinity: Locating the Male Body in Roman Elegy (Directors: Ruth Caston & Joseph Reed)
2000-2010
2010
Britta Ager
Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics, Kalamazoo College
Roman Agricultural Magic (Director: Derek Collins & David S. Potter)
Evangeline Lyons
Hellenic Philosophers as Ambassadors to the Roman Empire: performance, parrhesia, and power (Director: Sara Ahbel-Rappe)
2009
Ricardo Apostol
Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University
Rome’s Bucolic Landscapes: Place, Prophecy, and Power in Aeneid VIII (Director: Joseph Reed)
J. Matthew Harrington
Visiting Lecturer, Tufts University
Mens Sana: Authorized Emotions and the Construction of Identity and Deviance in the Saturae of Juvenal (Director: David S. Potter)
Geoff Maturen
Hellenism and the Cultural Capital: Lucian's Critique of Imperial Greek Culture (Director: Sara Ahbel-Rappe)
Jason Parnell
Employed in the private sector
Neoplatonist Theurgy and Christian Mystagogy (Directors: Sara Ahbel-Rappe & David S. Potter)
Richard Persky
Kairos: A Cultural History of Time in the Greek Polis (Director: Sara Forsdyke)
Amanda Regan
Professor, Trinity College
The Geography of Narrative in Apollonius of Rhodes (Director: Benjamin Acosta-Hughes)
C. Michael Sampson
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba
Themis in Sophocles (Director: Ruth Scodel)
2008
Brian Calabrese
Fear in Democracy: A Study of Thucydides’ Political Thought (Director: Sara Forsdyke)
Kathryn L. Seidl Steed
Assistant Professor, Carleton College
Memory and Leadership in the Late Roman Republic (Director: David S. Potter)
Sanjaya Thakur
Associate Professor, Colorado College
Ovid and the Language of Succession (Director: David S. Potter)
2007
Jake MacPhail
The Fragments of Porphyry's Homeric Questions [A New Critical Edition] (Directors: Richard Janko & Ruth Scodel)
Chad Schroeder
Editor, Brill Publishing
Hesiod in the Hellenistic Imagination (Directors: Benjamin Acosta-Hughes & Ruth Scodel)
2006
Kate Bosher
Theater of the Periphery: The Social and Political History of Early Theater in Sicily (Director: Ruth Scodel)
Adam Kemezis
Associate Professor, University of Alberta
The Roman Past under the Severans: Cassius Dio, Philostrartus and Herodian (Director: David S. Potter)
2005
Kris Fletcher
Associate Professor, Louisiana State University
Ovid, Mythography, and the Translation of Myth (Director: Joseph Reed)
Patrick Hogan
Translator, Brill Publishing
A Terrible Passion and a Marvelous Love: Greco-Roman Education and Elite Self-Presentation in the High Empire (Director: David S. Potter)
Bernd Steinbock
Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario
Social Memory in 4th Century Athenian Public Discourse (Directors: David S. Potter & Ruth Scodel)
2004
Lauren E. Caldwell
Assistant Professor, Wesleyan University
The Female Transition to Adulthood in the Early Roman Empire (Director: David S. Potter)
Kendra Eshleman
Assistant Professor, Boston College
Neither Outside nor Inside: Becoming Heretical in Second-Century Christianity (Director: David S. Potter)
John A. Lobur
Associate Professor, University of Mississippi
Consensus and Concordia in the Formation of the Roman Principate and Their Resonance in Early Imperial Prose (Director: David S. Potter)
2003
Timothy B. Allison
Principal Artificial Intelligence Engineer, Mitre Corporation (non-profit)
Aeschylean Stylistics: A Study of Linguistic Variation (Director: Ruth Scodel)
2002
Rosemary L. Moore
Lecturer of Classics and History, University of Iowa
The Art of Command: The Roman Army General and His Troops, 135 BC-138 AD (Director: David S. Potter)
2001
John P. Given III
Assistant Professor, Director of Classical Studies, East Carolina University
Intellectual Poets in Theory and On Stage: Euripides, Aristophanes, Protagoras
Robert C. Caldwell III
Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics, Trinity College
Between State and Steppe: New Evidence for Society in Sixth-Century Southern Transjordan
2000
Jeremy G. Taylor
Framing the Past: The Roots of Greek Chronography
Darren B. Keefe
Teacher, Greek and Latin, University School, Cleveland
Defining Ambiguity: A Study of Lucan's Poetics
David D. Phillips
Associate Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Homicide, Wounding, and Battery in the Fourth-Century Attic Orators
1990-1999
1999
David E. Kutzko
(Associate Professor, Western Michigan University)
Herodas, Mime, and Comedy: Tradition and Reception in Mimiamboi 6 and 7
J.H. Kim On Chong-Gossard
(Senior Lecturer, University of Melbourne, Australia)
Between Song and Silence: Gender and Communication in the Plays of Euripides
Joseph L. Rife
(Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University)
Death, Ritual and Memory in Greek Society during the Early and Middle Roman Empire
David A. Guinee
(Professor of Classics, DePauw University)
The Roman Argonautica: Valerius Flaccus and the Epic Tradition
Christopher L. H. Barnes
Tarentum Victum: Processes of Evolution
Stephen Rex Stem
(Assistant Professor, University of California, Davis)
Cicero and the Legacy of Cato Uticensis
Patrick J. E. McFadden
(Teacher of Latin, St. Mary's Episcopal School, Memphis, TN)
The Discourse Function of Discontinous Noun Phrases in Latin: A Discourse-Pragmatic Approach to a Word-Order Pattern
1998
John D. Muccigrosso
(Associate Professor, Dept of Classics; Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts, Drew University)
Factional Competition and Monumental Construction in Mid-Republican Rome
Molly Pasco-Pranger
(Associate Professor, University of Mississippi)
Conditor Anni: Ovid's Fasti and the Poetics of the Julio-Claudian Calendar
Kristina L. Milnor
(Tow Associate Professor of Classics, Barnard College)
Suis Omnia Tuta Locis: Women, Place, and Public Life in the Age of Augustus
Brian K. Harvey
(Associate Professor, Kent State University)
The Nature of the Roman Monarchy in the Late First/Early Second Centuries A.D.: The Reigns of Nerva and Trajan to the Acquisition of Arabia
1997
Donka D. Markus
(Lecturer II, University of Michigan)
The Politics of Entertainment: Tradition and Romanization in Statius: Thebaid
Susan H. Prince
(Assistant Professor, University of Cincinnati)
Antisthenes on Language, Thought and Culture
1996
Mark Buchan
Self as Cipher: Language and Identity in Homer
Daniel B. McGlathery
Petronius and Neronian Literary Ideology
Robert J. Sklenar
(Associate Professor, University of Tennessee)
Virtus in Lucan
Clifford C. Ando
(Professor of Classics and the College, Professor of History, University of Chicago)
Communis patria
Matthew A. Kraus
(Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Cincinnati)
Jerome's Translation of the Book of Exodus Iuxta Hebraeos in Relation to Classical, Christian, and Jewish Traditions of Interpretation
1995
Anne B. Nelson
The Classroom of Didymus the Blind
1994
Michael L. Meckler
Caracalla and His Late-Antique Biographer: A Historical Commentary on the Vita Caracalli in the Historia Augusta
Netta R. Berlin
(Lecturer II, University of Michigan)
Dreams in Roman Epic: The Hermeneutics of a Narrative Technique
Jennifer B. Clarke-Kosak
(Associate Professor of Classics, Bowdoin College)
The Pain of the Living: Suffering and Healing in Euripidean Tragedy
Brad E. McNellen
(Latin teacher, Detroit Country Day School)
Persian Nomos and Paranomia in Herodotus
Ira Mark Milne
Nepos' Biographies as Encomia: A Philological and Linguistic Analysis
David D. Leitao
(Professor and Chair, Classics Department, San Francisco State University)
The "Measure of Youth": Body and Gender in Boys' Transitions in Ancient Greece
Gina M. Soter
(Lecturer II, University of Michigan)
The Curse of Oedipus: Action and Utterance in Three Tragedians
Geoffrey S. Sumi
(Professor of Classics and Dean of Students, Mt. Holyoke College)
Public Performances and Political Symbols: The Rise of Octavianus in 44 B.C.
1992
Jeri B. DeBrohun
(Associate Professor of Classics, Brown University)
Hercules Belabored: Propertius 4.9 and the Discourses of Elegy
Ariel Loftus
(Associate Professor, Wichita State University)
Ritual in Greek Politics: Athens at the End of the Fifth Century
Deborah R. Davies
(Chair of Classical and World Languages, Brooks School)
Genealogy and Catalogue: Thematic Relevance and Narrative Elaboration in Homer and Hesiod
1991
Cynthia J. Bannon
(Associate Professor, Indiana University)
Consors Mecum Temporum Illorum: Brothers in Republican Rome
James T. Kearney
Ammianus Marcellinus and his Roman Audience
Roger T. Macfarlane
(Professor, Departments of Classics and Comparative Literature, Brigham Young University)
The Narrative of Politics: Julius Caesar and the Bellum Civile
1990
Ellen A. Bauerle
(Manager, Acquisitions Department; Senior Acquiring Editor for Classics and Archaeology, German Studies, Music, Fiction, and Early Modern History, University of Michigan Press)
Procuring an Election: Ambitus in the Roman Republic, 432-49 B.C.
Gregg Schwendner
(Lecturer, Wichita State University)
Literary and Non-Literary Papyri from the University of Michigan Collection
Kristin O. Lord
(Wilfrid Laurier University)
Pindar in the Second and Third Hymns of Callimachus
1980-1989
1989
Alexander D. Kurke
Theme and Adversarial Presentation in Cicero's Pro Flacco
John D. Dillery
(University of Virginia)
Xenophon's Historical Perspectives
1988
Benjamin A. Victor
(University of Montréal)
A New Critical Edition of Terence's Andria
James V. Morrison
(Centre College)
Homeric Misdirection: False Predictions in the Iliad
Louise H. Pratt
(Emory College)
Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar
Diane M. Juffras
(University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill [law])
Friendship and Faction in Sophocles: Greek Political Thinking and the Ajax, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus
Alison M. Keith
(University of Toronto)
The Play of Fictions: Studies in Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. 531-835
1987
Mark J. Petrini
(Columbia University [medicine])
Children and Heroes: A Study of Catullus and Vergil
James A. Tucker
Ritual Insults for Gluttony and Laziness in Greek Poetic Initiations: Theogony 26 and its Echos
John N. Rauk
(Michigan State University)
The Lover's Farewell: A Study of the Propemptikon in Greek and Latin Literature
Philip L. Andreini
(Fresno City College)
Speech, Context, and Narrative Point Aspects of Speech in Tacitus' Annals
1986
Carl A. Anderson
(Michigan State University)
The Epithets of Athena in Aristophanes
James J. O'Hara
(University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in the Aeneid
Thomas A. J. McGinn
(Vanderbilt University)
Prostitution and Julio-Claudian Legislation: The Formation of Social Policy in Early Imperial Rome
Thomas Keith Dix
(University of Georgia)
Private and Public Libraries at Rome in the First Century B.C.: A Preliminary Study in the Historyof Roman Libraries
1985
John F. Petrucione
(Catholic University of America)
Prudentius' Use of Martyrological Topoi in Peristephanon
David G. Martinez
(University of Chicago)
P. Mich. 6925: A New Magical Love Charm
1984
Maryline G. Parca
(University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
A Late Greek Tragedy on the Theft of the Palladion: P. Colon. Inv. Nr. 5932
Hermann S. Schibli
(Universität Passau)
The Narrative of Politics: Julius Caesar and the Bellum Civile
John P. Bodel
(Brown University)
Freedmen in the Satyricon of Petronius
Marie T. Gingras
(University of Colorado, Denver)
Character and Literary Choice: The Minor Individuals in Tacitus' Annals I-VI
1983
Martha A. W. Baldwin (now Bowsky)
(College of the Pacific)
Fasti Cretae Et Cyrenarum: Imperial Magistrates of Crete and Cyrenaica During the Julio-Claudian Period
1982
Anne H. Groton
(St. Olaf College)
A Commentary on Menander's Aspis 1-163
Dennis P. Kehoe
(Tulane University)
The Economics of Food Production on Roman Imperial Estates in North Africa
1981
Robert W. Daniel
(Universität zu Köln)
Greek Papyri From the Collections of Freiburg, Vienna and Michigan
Robert C. Ketterer
(University of Iowa)
The Dramatic Function of Stage Properties in Nine Plays of Plautus
Susan D. Martin
(University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Building Contracts in Classical Roman Law
Susan C. Shelmerdine
(University of North Carolina, Greensboro)
The Homeric Hymn to Hermes: A Commentary (1-114) with Introduction
Michael B. Poliakoff
(President, National Council on Teacher Quality)
Studies in the Terminology of the Greek Combat Sports
Peter M. Bing
(Professor of Classics, Emory University)
Callimachus' Hymn to Delos 1-99: Introduction and Commentary
1980
Mary Taliaferro Boatwright
(Duke University)
Tacitus and the Wealth, Enrichment and Impoverishment of the Roman Upper Classes
Leah Rissman
Homeric Allusion in the Poetry of Sappho
Barbara M. Weiden (now Weiden Boyd)
(Bowdoin College)
Cynthia and Rome in the Development of Propertius' Literary Identity
1970-1979
1977
Richard F. Thomas
(currently at Harvard University)
Ethnography and the Landscapes of Augustan Poetry
Harold Y. McCulloch, Jr
(currently at Wagner College)
Remedia Tardiora: Patterns of Devolution in the Annals of Tacitus
Shelley P. Haley
(currently at Hamilton College)
The Role of Amicitia in the Life of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus
1976
Meredith C. Hoppin
(currently at Williams College)
The Theme of Mutability and Dramatic Unity in Four Plays of Sophocles
John Clayton Fant
(currently at University of Akron)
The Curatores Rei Publicae in Italy from Their Inception to the Death of Commudus
Helena R. Dettmer
(currently at University of Iowa)
The Structural Pattern of Horace's Odes
1975
Robert J. Rabel
(currently at University of Kentucky)
Theories of the Emotions in the Old Stoa
Nancy E. Priest
Homeric Papyri in the Michigan Collection
Rick M. Newton
(currently at Kent State University)
Oedipus and the Ways of Knowing
John D. McLaughlin†
The Relevancy of the Mythological Episodes to Ovid's Ars Amatoria
Stephen D. Laruccia
The Concept of Peace in the Works of Tacitus
1974
James V. Romano
The Literary Art of Archilochos: The Elegiac Poems
Robert H. Brophy III
(currently at Syracuse University)
Mancupium and Mancipatio in Plutus: One Specimen of Plautine Legal Humore and Metaphor
Joel B. Itzkowitz
(currently at Wayne State University)
A Critical Edition of Lucian's Vitarum Auction and Piscator
Daniel V. McCaffrey
(currently at Randolph-Macon College)
The Thematic Arrangement of Ovid's Amores
Robert J. Edgeworth
(currently at Louisiana State University)
The Uses of Color Terms in the Aeneid
1973
William E. Metcalf
(currently at Yale University)
The Cistophori of Hadrian
Peter G. Ansorge
(currently at Texas Lutheran University)
Objective and Subjective Tradition in the Ajax of Sophocles
1972
Robert W. Sawyer
(currently at Hiram College)
An Analysis of the Political, Economic and Social Influence of Select Families of Colonial Pompeii
Sylvia G. Brown (now Brown Hamano)
(currently at Ryukoku University [law])
Metrical Studies in the Lyrics of Euripides' Late Plays
Charles I. Terbille
(currently at Brigham Young University)
William of Aragon's Commentary on Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophia
1971
Theodore A. Tarkow
(currently at University of Missouri, Columbia)
Three Aeschylean Exodoi: A Study of the Concluding Scenes of the Persians, the Seven, and the Suppliants
Julius Redling
(currently at Pädagogische Hochschule Weingarten)
The Dramatic Function of Philia in the Later Plays of Sophocles
William S. Moran
(currently at Dartmouth College [library])
Mimnhskomai in Homer
Richard Hamilton
(currently at Bryn Mawr College)
General Form in the Odes of Pindar
1970
Carl W. Querbach
(retired from University of Windsor)
A Formulaic Analysis of Books Ten and Sixteen of the Iliad
Thomas G. McCarty
Cornelius Nepos: Studies in his Technique of Biography
1960-1969
1969
Michael G. Moore
(currently at University of Houston)
Galen: Introduction to the Bones. A Critical Edition with Translation and Indices
1968
Olin J. Storvick
(currently at Concordia College)
Atticism in the Theophrastus of Aeneas of Gaza
Mae J. Smethurst
(currently at University of Pittsburgh)
The Balance of Justice: Aischylos' Oresteia
Gerald M. Brown
Documentary Papyri From the Michigan Collection
David L. Sigsbee†
The Ridicule of the Stoic Paradoxes in Ancient Satirical Literature
Jeremiah Reedy
(currently at Macalester College)
Galen, De Tumoribus Praeter Naturam, A Critical Edition with Translation and Indices
James J. Helm
(currently at Oberlin College)
Demetrius Triclinius and the Textual Tradition of the Oresteia
1967
John T. Davis†
Fides and the Construction of Propertius' Books I and II
1966
Edward M. Michael
A Critical Edition of Select Michigan Papyri/p> 1963
Sister Margaret Michaella Folliard, O. P.
Some Aspects of the Diction of Aeschylus
Wilfred C. Johannes (Rev.)
The People of Menander: A Study of Nouns Designating Family, Occupation, Social and Servile Class
1962
Johannes Helms
(retired from Valparaiso University)
Character Portrayal in the Romance of Chariton
1961
William G. Thomson†
An Evaluation of a Technique for Improving Reading Comprehension in Latin
Hans A. Pohlsander
Metrical Studies in the Lyrics of Sophocles
1940-1959
1956
Robert T. Otten
(retired from Calvin College)
Metron, Mesos, and Kairos: A Semasiological Study
1954
Robert N. Mooney
Character Portrayal and Distortion in Ammianus Marcellinus
1953
Myrtle Soles
Studies in Colloquial Language in the Poems of Catullus
Walter A. Markowicz
The Text Tradition of St. John Chrysostom's Homilies on Genesis and MSS Michiganenses 139, 78, and Holkhamicus 61
1952
George F. Osmun
Dialogue Technique in Menander
1951
Finley A. Hooper
(retired from Wayne State University)
Funerary Stelae From Kom Abou Billou
1950
Arthur F. Carlson
The Orthography and Phonology of the Latin Papyri
1949
Edith M. A. Kovach†
A Study of the Manuscripts of the Florilegium of the Letters of Symmachus
1944
Peter Ruthven
Islamic Textiles: A Catalogue of the H. A. Elsberg Collection of Egypto-Arab Textiles