Thomas E. Jenkins’ Professional Page
Education and experience
I received my B.A. in Classical Languages and Literatures from Yale University in 1993, and my Ph. D. in Classical Philology from Harvard University in 1999. I spent 1999-2000 as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Washington and Lee University before moving to Rice University as the first Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Cultures. I joined Trinity University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the fall of 2001 and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in the spring of 2007. Starting June of 2008, I am the Chair of the department.
In the spring of 2005, I was thrilled to receive Trinity's Junior Faculty Award for Distinguished Teaching and Research. I was also honored to spend the 2006-2007 year as a fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, with a project focusing on American receptions of the classical world. (“Antiquity Now! The Classics in America After Vietnam.”)
My current c.v. is here (Microsoft Word .doc format).
Current research
My research includes both classical philology--the study of classical literature in its social and political contexts--as well as reception theory, the ways in which the classical world has been re-envisioned and re-interpreted through time.
My recent book, Intercepted Letters: Epistolarity and Narrative in Greek and Roman Literature (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006) focuses on the intersection of epistolarity, myth, and narrative, or the ways in which writing was constructed in ancient literature as a medium of miscommunication. Topics included forgery, blackmail, cryptography, and epistolary personae; authors included Euripides, Aeneas Tacticus, Ovid, and the authors of the Historia Augusta. Articles in a philological vein include “At Play with Writing: Letters and Readers in Plautus” (TAPA, 2005; those with access to Project Muse can click here) as well as “Livia the Princeps: Gender and Ideology in the Consolatio Ad Liviam” (Helios, 2009, forthcoming).
My res
earch on reception theory includes articles on Archibald Macleish, H.D., and the classics in the Harlem Renaissance; my article “An American ‘Classic’: Hillman and Cullen’s Mimes of the Courtesans” won the inaugural Paul Rehak award from the Lambda Classical Caucus (for best article on gender/sexuality). (Scandalous illustration therefrom, at right.) Forthcoming articles include “Heavy Metal Homer: Underground Appropriations of the Odyssey In Graphic Novels” for Classics and Comics (ed. George Kovacs and Toph Marshall, 2009/10) and “Farcical Philology: Alexander’s Shewan’s ‘Games at a Ancient St. Andrews’” for Metaphilogy. Histories and Languages of Philology. ed. Pascale Hummel, 2009.
Teaching
I’ve taught from soup to nuts, including all levels of Greek and Latin 
(seminars in Cicero, Greek Lyric, Plato, Ovid, and the Roman Novel), as well as four culture courses: Classical Mythology; The Age of Augustus; Greek and Roman Drama; and a culture course in classical reception entitled Antiquity and Modernity. For fall 2008, I’m also director of Humanities 1600, Trinity’s freshmen ‘Great Books’ course: a romp through Homer, Aeschylus, Vergil, and Dante.
Since my drama course is cross-listed in the theater department, scene work is a crucial (and fun!) component of the syllabus. At right, Miranda McGee and Sara Metz tackle a Mardi Gras version of Plautus’ Menaechmi. Inverted social hierarchies, eat your heart out!