
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