CANES Ph.D. graduate Rebecca Moorman has accepted a new position as Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Boston University, which she will begin next year.
Currently, Moorman is an Assistant Professor of Classics at Providence College in Rhode Island.
She specializes in Republican and Imperial Latin literature and her research examines the aesthetics of disgust and multisensory experience in ancient literature, especially Latin poetry. She is particularly interested in the ways that negative feelings like disgust can create new pathways for knowledge in Roman culture. Her book project, The Allure of Disgust in Ancient Rome: Knowledge, Poetics, and the Senses, explores the paradoxical appeal of disgust in Roman philosophy and Latin literature. The Allure of Disgust develops an overlooked aesthetic of disgust in Lucretius, Seneca, Persius, and Apuleius, arguing that Roman authors were so committed to sensory-based intellectual engagement that they even developed avenues for pleasure and instruction in the negative affective experience of disgust.
In her teaching, Dr. Moorman emphasizes Greek and Roman culture’s enduring ability to grant students new perspectives for understanding and articulating difference. Her teaching interests include Greek and Latin at all levels, Roman culture and philosophy, satire, the ancient novel, and ancient horror. In the DWC program at PC, she focuses on marginalized texts and underrepresented voices, encouraging students to interrogate the authority of the Western classical tradition. Off campus, you can find Dr. Moorman snuggling with her two cats, puzzling through a crossword, or enjoying some of Rhode Island’s delicious oysters with a G&T in her hand.
Her first article, “The Aesthetics of Disgust in Lucretius’ De rerum natura,” was recently published in Classical Philology. She is also the author of several additional publications and papers, all listed in her detailed CV.