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