Faculty Profiles

Continuing Faculty

Professor Michael Arnush 

Prof. Michael Arnush completed his 20th year at the College this spring and rejoined the department after a four-year stint as the inaugural director of the First-Year Experience. He has developed new courses in ancient history and is working on a book detailing the origins and development of Athenian democracy through the lens of laws and decrees inscribed on stone.

Professor Dan Curley

Prof. Dan Curley has served as Chair of Classics since Fall 2007, after receiving tenure and being promoted to Associate Professor in Spring 2006. His revised book on Ovid and Greek tragedy is under review by a major university press, and his latest project is a study of hands in Sophocles' Women of Trachis.

Professor Leslie Mechem

Prof. Leslie Mechem celebrated her 19th year in the Department and became Co-Director of the Women's Studies Program. She teaches  ancient Greek, mythology, and ancient women, and specializes in ancient Mediterranean material culture, especially Roman ceramics. She plans to develop a course on Egyptian art & archaeology to complement her Greek and Roman art & archaeology courses.

New Faculty

Professor Jackie Murray

Prof. Jackie Murray came to the Department in the fall of 2008 from the University of Washington by way of Temple University. She specializes in Hellenistic literature, especially the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Her other scholarly interests include race, urbanism, and travel in antiquity.

Professor David Porter

This spring we welcomed back Prof. David Porter. President of the College from 1987-1998, he joins us as the Tisch Family Distinguished Professor. Prof. Porter has taught Classics and Music at Carleton College and has written on Horace, Greek tragedy, Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, and (most recently) Willa Cather.