Caitlin Gillespie
Degrees
University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D.University of Pennsylvania, M.A.
Oxford University, M.S.T.
Harvard University, A.B.
Expertise
Professor Gillespie teaches courses in Latin Language and Literature from the earliest fragments through the High Empire, as well as courses on Ancient Drama, Gender and Sexuality, and Race and Ethnicity in the Ancient World. Her scholarship centers on women and memory in Roman historiography.Profile
Caitlin Gillespie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies. Previously, she taught at Columbia University in New York and Temple University in Philadelphia. She received her BA in Classics from Harvard University (2005), her Master of Studies in Greek and Latin Languages and Literatures from the University of Oxford (2006), and her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania (2012) with a dissertation on female exemplarity in Tacitus’ Annals.Professor Gillespie’s research focuses on women of the Roman Empire, with a particular interest in the relationship between gender, power, and politics among women of the ruling family. She has published articles on Boudica, Agrippina the Younger, Epicharis, Livia, Messalina, Agrippina the Elder, and class and gender in the opposition to Nero, among others. Her first book, Boudica: Warrior Woman of Roman Britain (Oxford, 2018) explored representations of Boudica in Roman history and the material culture of first century Britain. She currently contributes to several collaborative projects, including articles on women, gender, and motherhood in Tacitus for a forthcoming Tacitus Encyclopedia and intermediate-level Latin commentaries available through the online “Companion to the Worlds of Roman Women.” Her current work includes articles on domestic disruption in Lucan’s Bellum Civile, women in Cassius Dio, and gender in Sallust. Her new book project examines women's movements in the early Roman empire.
Courses Taught
| CLAS | 160a | Race and Ethnicity in the Ancient World |
| CLAS | 200a | Proseminar |
| CLAS/ENG | 153b | Race Before Race: Premodern Critical Race Studies |
| LAT | 10a | Beginning Latin |
| LAT | 20b | Continuing Latin |
| LAT | 116b | Roman Satire |
| LAT | 121b | Roman Historians |
| LAT | 130b | Roman Letters |
Awards and Honors
Helaine and Alvin Allen Chair in Literature (2020)
Norman Award (2019 - 2020)
Teaching Innovation Grant (2019 - 2020)
Visiting Scholar at American Academy in Rome (2019)
Teaching and Learning Fellow, Brandeis University (2018)
Research Scholarship for young researchers, Fondation Hardt, Vandœuvres, Switzerland (2017)
Loeb Classical Library Foundation grant (2016)
Scholarship
Gillespie, Caitlin. "Daring to Die: Female Suicide in the Age of Nero." Polygraphia (2021). (forthcoming)
Gillespie, Caitlin. "Review of Cassius Dio: Roman History Books 57 and 58 (The Reign of Tiberius)." Rev. of Cassius Dio: Roman History Books 57 and 58 (The Reign of Tiberius), by CT Mallan. Classical Review 2021 (forthcoming)
Gillespie, Caitlin. "The Mind, Once Manly, Now Effeminate: Gender in Sallust." Cambridge Companion to Sallust. Ed. C. Krebs. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2021 (forthcoming)
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Voiceless Grief: Domestic Disruption and the Failure of Fecundity in Lucan’s Bellum Civile." Blackwell Companion to Latin Epic, 14-96 CE. Ed. L. Fratantuono and C. Stark. Wiley-Blackwell, 2018 (forthcoming)
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Women in Cassius Dio." Brill's Companion to Cassius Dio. Ed. J. M. Madsen and A. Scott. Brill, 2018 (forthcoming)
Gillespie, Caitlin. "Messalina's Moveable Domus: Landscape and Memory in Annals 11." New England Classical Journal 47. 2 (2021): 15-50.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Agrippina the Elder and the Memory of Augustus in Tacitus' Annals." Classical World 114. 1 (2020): 59-84.
Gillespie, Caitlin. "Review." Rev. of The Ruler's House: Contesting Power and Privacy in Julio-Claudian Rome, by Harriet Fertik. Classical World vol. 114 2020: 1.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Class and Gender in the Opposition to Nero." Helios 45. 2 (2019): 141-161.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Livia and Concordia in Tacitus’ Annals." Latomus 78. 3 (2019): 621-652.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Boudica the warrior queen." Aeon (2018): <https://aeon.co/essays/boudica-how-a-widowed-queen-became-a-rebellious-woman-warrior>.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. Boudica: Warrior Woman of Roman Britain. First ed. New York: Oxford, 2018.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "The Wolf and the Hare: Boudica’s Political Bodies in Tacitus and Dio." Classical World 108. 3 (2015): 403-429.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Agrippina the Younger: Tacitus’ Unicum Exemplum." Valuing the Past in the Greco-Roman World. Proceedings from the Penn-Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values VII. Ed. J. Ker and C. Pieper. Leiden: Brill, 2014. 269-293.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Girlhood, Interrupted: Unstable Transitions in Euripides’ Medea." Mädchen im Altertum/Girls in Antiquity. Ed. S. Moraw and A. Kieburg. Berlin: Waxmann, 2014. 205-219.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Poppaea Venus and the Ptolemaic Queens: An Alternative Biography." Histos 8. (2014): 122-145.
Gillespie, Caitlin C. "Creating Chloe: Education in Eros through Aesthetics in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe." Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity. Ed. R. Rosen and I. Sluiter. Leiden: Brill, 2012. 421-446.