EMILY WILSON (B. A. in Lit. Hum., Classical Literature and Philosophy, Balliol College Oxford, 1992; M. Phil. in English Renaissance Literature, Corpus Christi College Oxford, 1994; Ph. D. in Classics and Comparative Literature, Yale University, 2001) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies. She is particularly interested in tragedy, poetics and literary theory, death and closure, the relationship of literature to philosophy, the reception of classical literature (especially in the Renaissance), and (increasingly) gender. In 2006-2007, she was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Her first book, Mocked with Death (Johns Hopkins UP 2004), is about tragic representations of living too long, from Sophocles, Euripides and Seneca to Shakespeare and Milton. Her second book is The Death of Socrates (Profile UK/ Harvard UP, 2007), which traces the scene of hemlock-drinking from Plato to the present day. Ongoing projects include a verse translation of Seneca's tragedies for Oxford World's Classics. At Penn, she teaches Greek language courses, Classical Studies courses (on topics including Tragedy, Pastoral, the Ancient Novel, and Love Poetry), and Greek and Latin literature seminars (mostly poetry) for graduates and undergraduates. She is the faculty advisor for the Classical Studies Post Bac. program in 2007-8.

Phone: 215-898-6939
Fax: 215-898-6568
Email: emilyw@sas.upenn.edu