• Biography

    I have been a Professor of Classical Studies at Trinity since 2001, a former chair of the Department, and am currently the Director of the Collaborative for Learning and Teaching, a center dedicated to the intersection of pedagogy, technology, and professional development. As director, I foster workshops and training in many areas of educational development, including inclusive classrooms, open resources, active-learning, and civility (a.k.a. difficult dialogues). In 2019, I will be facilitating a Faculty Learning Community on Oral and Visual Communication (focusing on students' presentation skills). As a classics professor, I’m especially interested in how the ancient world is reflected in contemporary media, including novels, performance, and even video games! My second book, Antiquity Now (Cambridge 2015), is now in paperback, and I've forthcoming articles about translations of Homer for the stage, and on the Broadway musical Hadestown. A volume on Plautus' comedy Asinaria is also in the works. For a copy of my full c.v. please email me at tjenkins@trinity.edu.

    This coming academic year, I will again team up with my colleague in Theater, Kyle Gillette, to offer a co-taught course entitled Reimagining Tragedy, a class that combines my interests in the creative arts and creative pedagogy. By the end of the term, students will create their own contemporary (and even hip) adaptations of tragedies such as Elektra, Oedipus, Thyestes, and more! This is part of Trinity’s emphasis on “Creative Expression,” an essential component of our Pathways undergraduate curriculum.

    Lastly, I engage in 'public humanism' by publishing reviews of theater, cinema, and opera in the San Antonio Current; my most recent columns can be found here.

    • Ph.D., Harvard University
    • B.A., Yale University
    • "Translations of Homer to the Stage," in The Companion to the Translation of Greek and Latin Epic. Wiley-Blackwell (Forthcoming.) Edd. Armstrong and Lanieri. 8000 words.
    • "Augustan Poetry and the Age of Rust: Music and Metaphor in Mitchell's Hadestown," in Texts, Authors and Readers: A Volume in Honor of Richard Tarrant. Edd. Lauren Curtis and Irene Peirano Garrison, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Supplement, projected publication date 2020.
    • "Homer Since 1900," in The Cambridge Guide to Homer. 2019. 3000 words. General editor: Corinne Pache.
    • “The Reception of Hesiod in the 20th and 21st Centuries,” in The Oxford Handbook to Hesiod. 2018. Chapter 30. Edd. Alexander Loney and Stephen Scully. Oxford University Press. Pp. 479-494.
    •   Antiquity Now: The Classical World in the Contemporary American Imagination. 2015. Cambridge University Press.
    •  “Metaphor and Modernity: American Themes in Herakles and Dionysus in ’69,” in The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas. 2015. Chapter 26. Edd. Bosher, Macintosh, McConnell, and Rankine. Oxford University Press. Pp. 457-473.
    • “Heavy Metal Homer: Countercultural appropriations of the Odyssey in Graphic Novels,” in Classics and Comics. 2011. Edd. George Kovacs and C.W. Marshall. Oxford University Press. Pp. 221-236.
    • "Livia the Princeps: Gender and Ideology in the Consolatio Ad Liviam." Helios, 2010.
    • "X-Rated Sophocles: Alice Tuan's Ajax (por Nobody)." Helios 38.2. Pp. 59-70.
    • "Farcical Philology: Alexander's Shewan's Games at a Ancient St. Andrews" in Metaphilogy. Histories and Languages of Philology. 2009. Ed. Pascale Hummel.
    • "The 'Ultra-modern' Euripides of Verrall, H.D., and MacLeish," in Classical and Modern Literature. 2007.
    • Intercepted Letters: Epistolarity and Narrative in Greek and Roman Literature. 2006. Rowman and Littlefield.
    • "An American "Classic": Hillman and Cullen's Mimes of the Courtesans," Arethusa (2005)

    “Translations of Homer to the Stage,” for The Companion to the Translation of Greek and Latin Epic (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming). Edd. Armstrong and Lanieri. 8000 words.

    • Classical Drama
    • Augustan Literature
    • Reception Theory
    • Gender Studies
    • Ancient and Modern Tragedy
    • HUMA 1600: Great Books of the Ancient World
    • All Levels of Ancient Greek and Latin
    • Classical Mythology 
    • Fellow, American Council on Education, 2015-2016, DePaul University
    • Fellow, Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies, 2006-7 
    • Winner, Lambda Classical Caucus’s Paul Rehak Award for Best Article in LGBT studies (for “Hillman and Cullen’s Mimes of the Courtesans”), 2006.
    • Member, "Trinity Tomorrow" Strategic Planning Committee, 2013-2015
    • Director, HUMA 1600, "Readings in Western Cultures," 2008.
    • Commissioner, Tenure and Promotion Commission, 2009–11.
    • Theater critic, San Antonio Current, 2004–present.