Resume

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Education

• University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Classics – current PhD student
• University of Oxford, Faculty of Classics
  • MPhil in Greek and/or Latin Languages & Literature
  • Master’s Dissertation of 25,000 Words: “Necropolitics in Ovid.” Supervisors: Matthew Robinson, Balliol College & Marchella Ward, Worcester College
• Brown University
  • A.B. Magna Cum Laude, Classics: Latin (with Honors)
  • Senior Honors Thesis: “Mater, Cyrene Mater: Rethinking Narrative in Virgil’s Georgics 4.325-558.” Director: Jeri Debrohun, Reader: Joseph Pucci
• Languages
  • Ancient Greek, Attic (reading proficiency)
  • Latin (reading proficiency)
  • Italian (conversational & reading proficiency)

Publications

• Lena Barsky. “‘The Idea of Transformation’: Fanfiction, Abductive Reasoning, and Embodied Logic as a Means for Studying Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World.” Forthcoming in Umachandran, M. & Ward, M., eds., Forgetting Classics: The Case for Critical Ancient World Studies.
• Steven G. Calabresi and Lena Barsky. “An Originalist Defense of Plyler v. Doe.” 2017 BYU L. Rev. 227 (2017). https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol2017/iss2/4/
• Lena Barsky. “On the Hidden Meanings of the Laudes Italiae of Virgil’s Georgics Book 2.” Brown Classical Journal 26 (Apr. 2014): 83-92. https://tinyurl.com/BCJ26Barsky
• Lena Barsky. “Alcuin in the Bible.” Brown Classical Journal 25 (Apr. 2013): 143-152. https://tinyurl.com/BCJ25Barsky

Papers Presented – Conferences

• “‘They Were Not Two, but a Double Form’: Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, Imperial Roman Social Control, and Transgender Bodies as Biopolitical Possibility.” Thinking Gender 2022: Transgender Studies at the Intersections Conference, digital via UCLA Center for the Study of Women, April 8, 2022.
• “I WOULD KNOW HIM IN DEATH // HELLO, STRANGER: Achilles, Patroclus, and Fanfiction Refracted.” Queer and The Classical: Critical Futures, Critical Feelings Conference, digital via Oxford University, February 20-21, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHk0QtYuVdg
• “‘Plato: They were gay af and Achilles bottomed’: Classics, Popular Culture, and the Internet.” Oxford Classics – Language & Literature Graduate Work in Progress Seminar, November 13, 2020.
• “If There’s a Fire You’re Trying to Douse: Un-Making Hegemonic Approaches to Gender & Sexuality in Roman Scholarship.” The Case for Critical Ancient World Studies Conference, digital via Oxford University, September 7, 2020.

Papers Presented – Graduate Fora/Seminars

• “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Caeneus?: On Dido, Gender, and Virgil’s Accidental Trans Narrative.” UCLA Classics – Graduate Forum, January 20, 2022.
• “‘Plato: They were gay af and Achilles bottomed’: Classics, Popular Culture, and the Internet.” Oxford Classics – Language & Literature Graduate Work in Progress Seminar, November 13, 2020.
• “Ladies, Leave Your Man at Home: The Women of Virgil’s Epyllion, Georgics 315-558.” Oxford Classics – Language & Literature Graduate Work in Progress Seminar, February 14, 2020.

Teaching

• UCLA Classics Department
  • Teaching Assistant, “Classics 20: Discovering the Romans,” April 2023-present
  • Teaching Assistant, “Classics 30: Classical Mythology,” January 2023-March 2023
  • Teaching Assistant, “Classics 10: Discovering the Greeks,” September 2022-December 2022
• Oxford Faculty of Classics
  • Co-Lead “Hellenistic (and later) poetry: reflections on sexuality, gender and the self” with Dr. Sarah Cullinan Herring, Wadham College, January 2021-March 2021 (the Graduate Weekly Language Seminar for Trinity 2021)
• Brown University Department of Classics
  • Teaching Assistant for “The American Presidency & the Western Tradition,” September 2013-December 2013
  • Teaching Assistant for “The Idea of Self,” September 2012-December 2012

Academic Employment

• Political Theory Project, Brown University Department of Political Science
  • Research Assistant to Professor Steven G. Calabresi, June 2012-December 2013
• Ascanius: The Youth Classics Institute
  • Faculty, “Activities” Class, LatinSummer 2009, January 2009-August 2009

Service

• UCLA Classics Department
  • EDI Committee Graduate Student Representative, March 2021-present
• Oxford Faculty of Classics
  • “Language and Literature Taught Program” Graduate Representative, December 2019-December 2020
• St Anne’s College Middle Common Room Committee
  • LGBTQ+ Representative, January 2020-January 2021
• Brown University Department of Classics
  • Member of the Editorial Board for the Brown Classical Journal, September 2012-May 2014
• Meiklejohn Advising Program, Brown University Dean of the College
  • Meiklejohn Peer Advisor, September 2011-May 2014
• Brown-RISD Hillel
  • Member, Student Search Committee for a New University and Hillel Rabbi, February 2013-May 2013