Laura McClure
Credentials: Chicago, PhD'91
Position title: Professor of Classics, Mellon Morgridge Professor in the Humanities
Email: lmcclure@wisc.edu
Phone: 608-263-8269
Address:
916 Van Hise Hall
Research Interests
Athenian drama, ancient gender studies, classical reception
Laura McClure is currently the Halls-Bascom Professor of Classical Literature Studies. She came to Madison after receiving her Ph.D. in classical languages and literature from the University of Chicago. Her diverse research interests include Athenian drama, women and gender in Greco-Roman antiquity, and late nineteenth and early twentieth century classical reception. She has published several scholarly monographs, including Spoken Like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama (Princeton, 1999), Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus (Routledge 2003), Women in Classical Antiquity: From Birth to Death (2019), Phryne of Thespiae: Courtesan, Muse, and Myth (Oxford, 2024), and Modernist Women and the Greek Chorus (forthcoming, Oxford, 2025). She has also edited several collections of essays: Making Silence Speak: Women’s Voices in Greek Literature and Society, with André Lardinois (Princeton, 2001), Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World, with C. A. Faraone (Wisconsin, 2006), Sexuality and Gender in the Classical World (Blackwell, 2008), and A Companion to Euripides (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). Her numerous articles consider the representation of women in Greek tragedy and comedy and its intersection with politics, religion, and social identity. This research has been recognized by a National Endowment for the Humanities, the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, and named professorships, fellowships, and awards at the University of Wisconsin. She has been President of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South and served on the Board of the Directors for the Society of Classical Studies off and on for more than ten years, most recently as Senior Financial Trustee and Vice-President of Resources. Laura is a passionate teacher of both graduate and undergraduate students and regularly offers courses on ancient Greek language literature, including Homer, Greek drama, and choral lyric, women in antiquity, and feminist receptions of Greek literature and myth at the University of Wisconsin.
For further information, please see her CV.