Mensura Incognita: Queer Kinship, Camp Aesthetics, and Juvenal's Ninth Satire
Year of Dissertation:
2010
The dissertation addresses four problematic aspects of scholarship on Juvenal 9. The first two are matters of reception history: first, the poem has been understudied; and second, most major extant studies of the poem have been grossly or subtly homophobic. The other two problems are matters of literary criticism: Juvenal's ninth satire has traditionally been read as an attack on homosexuality, when in fact it is neither an attack, nor is it about homosexuality. The current study addresses each of these problems, reassessing the ninth satire in the context of queer theory and camp aesthetics. Chapter One traces the homophobic tendencies in the modern reception of Juvenal 9 across reception modalities including expurgation, biographical criticism, and persona theory. Chapter Two reviews relevant concepts in queer theory and the discourse of camp. Queer theory emphasizes the performative dimensions of sex, gender, and kinship. Camp is a counter-normative discourse in which incongruous situations and juxtapositions are presented in a theatrical manner for humorous effect, expressing the relationship of sex, gender, and kinship deviants to dominant discourses of normativity and embracing the stigmatized identity of the deviant, marginalized other. Chapter Three reviews the debate over Juvenal's moralism among scholars of satire beginning in the 1960s. This debate serves as an unwitting proxy for a debate about camp aesthetics by emphasizing the role of perverse wit in articulating a moral satiric vision. Chapter Four offers a close, detailed reading of Juvenal's ninth satire within the framework of queer theory and camp aesthetics laid out in previous chapters. The reading identifies instances of camp incongruity, theatricality, and humor, the embrace of stigmatized identity, and the expression of solidarity with the deviant. Particular emphases are the parody of social and cultural institutions such as marriage and patronage; literary genres such as epic, elegy, and declamation; and literary motifs such as servitium amoris, militia amoris, and exclusus amator, among others. A Conclusion recaps and extends some of the major contentions of the study and indicates directions for further research. Finally, an Appendix provides an original translation of Juvenal's ninth satire.
Plutarch's Fortune: A Close Reading
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Plutarch's Fortune has been ignored, if not dismissed, as a work of little or no importance. Certainly, there has been no in depth critical treatment of it in the current century or the twentieth century. To be sure, it seems an expression of superficial ideas. A closer reading, however, reveals a dense text which alludes or refers to numerous sources and literary genres, including philosophy, tragedy, lyric, comedy and oratory. Plutarch creates a subtle and complex fabric of association, which does not create a clear enough pattern to suggest his purpose in writing the work.
Ktiseis/Aitia in Various Ancient Greek Prose Authors
Year of Dissertation:
2012
In this dissertation, I focus on "ktiseis," Greek prose narratives about the founding of cities and the city founders. Also, I discuss "aitia," stories about causes, origins, and originators of various cultural customs, religious practices and even verbal expressions. I conclude eventually that these narratives served a purpose in creating unity among people who shared a language and, to use broad terms for now, a culture and history, and geographical territory they claimed as their own. I typically refer to these narratives together as ktiseis/aitia, because my research into the composition technique itself of these Greek prose narratives suggests that the narratives were composed with the assistance of a familiar schema, a regularly used template, uniform in its composition, that assisted researchers who were studying texts in order to compose their own versions of narratives.