from: A Companion to Sophocles, ed. K. Ormand (Wiley-Blackwell 2012) 440–461

This paper explores how gender can operate as a disguise for class in an examination of the self-sacrifice of the Maiden in Euripides’ Children of Herakles. In Part I, I discuss the role of human sacrifice in terms of its radical potential to transform society and the role of class struggle in Athens. In Part II, I argue that the representation o…[Read more]

Preliminary analysis of the representation of laborers in Greek tragedy and satyr drama.

Discussion of class structure in fifth-century Athens, historical constitution of theater audiences, and the changes in the comic representation of class antagonism from Aristophanes to Menander.

Discussion of the relationship between historical conditions and aesthetic form in Euripidean tragedy.

A brief report on my dissertation research.

Explores the connections between imperialism, language about the courts, and geographic references within Aeschylus Eumenides, the third play of the Oresteia trilogy.

A Ph.D. dissertation considering nearly 200 sarcophagi from the late ancient necropoleis of Jewish communities at Beth She’arim and Rome. This corpus captures a wide range of the possibilities open to Jewish patrons as they went about acquiring or commissioning a sarcophagus and sculptural program. The variety reflects not only the different…[Read more]

A paper delivered at in the 2017 Colloquia of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Considers how a group of sarcophagi from the Jewish catacombs of Rome reflect on the subject of Jewish art and Jewish patrons in Late Antiquity.

What did it mean to ‘be Jewish’ in the Greco-Roman world? Jews, Greeks and Romans will explore the myriad ways that Jewish communities across the Mediterranean engaged with Greco-Roman culture and constructed their own ways of being Jewish. Using texts, artifacts and images–from rabbinic commentaries to Roman catacombs–we will investigate…[Read more]

Front-matter and conclusions to my Ph.D. Dissertation (2017). The project considers nearly 200 sarcophagi from the late ancient necropoleis of Jewish communities at Beth She’arim and Rome. This corpus captures a wide range of the possibilities open to Jewish patrons as they went about acquiring or commissioning a sarcophagus and sculptural…[Read more]

A re-assessment of what we know about women known as hetairai in Classical Greece within the context of the elite women from the 6th and early 5th centuries BCE.

A re-assessment of what we know about women known as hetairai in Classical Greece within the context of the elite women from the 6th and early 5th centuries BCE.

This article looks at how Achilleus physically expresses his mourning following the death of Patroklos, in Homer’s Iliad.

Many scholars have used two verses from an epistle appended to the main body of 2 Maccabees to suggest a canon, proto-canon, or body of scripture is present already during the Hasmonean era and even before. We question such conclusions by investigating the background and contents of the epistle, using both historical-critical and rhetorical…[Read more]

This brief study investigates the desire for a fixed textual form as it pertains to scripture in the Judean tradition. It particularly delves into this phenomenon in three early versions of the Septuagint origin myth. is paper argues that this myth is invaluable for the study of transmission and reception of scripture, as it is one of the…[Read more]

Both 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees portray the Sabbath law as a central point of con- tention during the struggle over Judean law and tradition in the second century BCE (e.g., 1 Macc 1:41-50; 2 Macc 6:4-6). The Hasmonean family in particular is at times high- lighted as holding the Sabbath in high regard (2 Macc 5:27). In every available source,…[Read more]

Many scholars recognize the importance of authority in the process of scripturalization. The presence of words like “authority” and “au- thoritative” in definitions of the term “scripture” is ubiquitous. Many also identify authoritative status for a text as an important step on the way toward it becoming scripture. However, “authority”…[Read more]

This article investigates the prefatory material in 2 Maccabees (2:19-32; 15:38-39) in order to reveal the motivation and attitude of the epitomator of 2 Maccabees toward the text he is adapting. The article argues that the concept of auxiliary texts, recog- nized in Graeco-Roman and Hellenistic texts by classicist Markus Dubischar, is the lens…[Read more]