Recent News
Prof. Deb Kamen’s five-year term chairing the department has come to an end. As of July 1, 2025, Prof. Alex Hollmann will be serving as chair.
A word from Deb:
I am delighted to be handing over the reins to Alex, who brings with him many years of experience as a stellar teacher and scholar in our department and as Chair of Hellenic Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies. I am confident that he will lead the department with foresight and care in the five years to come!
A… Read more
Congratulations to the students of the Classics community at the University of Washington for their accomplishments over the past academic year, 2024-2025! We wish you the best in the next chapter of your lives. Well done!
Degrees Conferred and Expected
Master of Arts
Classics
Liam Dulany
MA Paper: “Localizing Classical Athenian Queerness: Alcibiades in Assassin’s Creed”
A. M. Davis
MA Paper: “Greek and Roman Statues: Red,… Read more
Omeed Yazdani, a UW Classics minor and 2025 Husky 100 recipient who earned his bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and Bioengineering ('24) and his master's degree in Bioengineering ('25), has paved a path that weds his interests in medicine and the Classics. Read more about Omeed and his work here.
The Department of Classics is delighted to announce the establishment of the Lawrence Bliquez Endowed Student Support Fund for Classics, a gift of Laura Matz and Trevor Peterson. This fund is designed to provide broad-based support for undergraduate students in the Department of Classics, helping to cover educational expenses, research, travel costs, and study abroad.
An alumna of UW, Laura Matz wanted to honor her former first-year Greek teacher with a fund that would support future students… Read more
A Companion to Apollonius of Rhodes, edited by Ruth Scodel, was recently published by the University of Michigan Press (2025). The companion contains 20 essays by well-known scholars of Greek and Latin literature, including two UW Classics faculty -- Jim Clauss ("'With No Direction Home': Medea and Jason") and Alex Hollmann ("Magic in Apollonius' Argonautica") -- and a 2002 graduate of our PhD program, and currently Professor and Chair in the Department of Classics at Pomona… Read more
by James J. Clauss
Stephen Thielke grew up in Shoreline and graduated from Reed College in Portland in Classics in 1992. He had taken summer classes at the UW, including intensive Greek in 1990. After Reed, he received the Lionel Pearson Fellowship from the APA, and studied as a visiting scholar at King’s College, Cambridge. In 1993, he joined the graduate program and recalls with great fondness classmates Alex Bram and Chris Chinn (both Reedies), Owen Ewald, Brady Mechley,… Read more
In the newest episode of Betwixt the Sheets, a podcast that tackles the history of sex, sexuality, and sex work, historian Dr. Kate Lister interviews Prof. Sarah Levin-Richardson about sex workers in ancient Roman culture. Prof. Levin-Richardson has become a go-to expert on Roman prostitution following the publication of The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex… Read more
Geoffrey Sumi graduated from UW with a degree in Classics (with College Honors) in 1986. Prof. Bliquez's Honors seminar in Classics shifted Geoff's focus from Engineering, his intended major, to Classics and things snowballed from there. He recalls (fondly) studying Plautus and Terence with Prof. Dunn; Livy and Tacitus with Prof. Clauss; the Greek tragedians with Prof. Halleran; Lucretius with Prof. Blondell; Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid with Prof. Harmon; Herodotus and Aristotle with… Read more
A great friend of the UW Department of Classics, Thomas Morgan, MD, MA in Classics (’89), passed away on December 9, 2024. Here is his obituary in the Seattle Times, and below are a few UW Classics faculty members’ reflections on Tom.
Larry Bliquez:
In the fall of 1978, I was informed by Dan Harmon, who was chair then, that Thomas Morgan, a retired doctor, had enrolled in my Elementary… Read more
by James J. Clauss
Joel Kalvesmaki, after graduating from UW with a major in Classics in 1999, went to Washington, DC and received his MA and PhD at Catholic University of America in 2006. Thereafter he served as editor of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks until he left in 2019 to pursue a second career as a programmer with the Government Publishing Office. He is currently editor for the Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative, the series editor for … Read more