Personal Statement:

Prof. Garcia Jr.’s research interests include Greek Epic and Lyric Poetry, Early Greek Poetics, Mythology, Cognitive and Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Phenomenology & Psychology.

Previous work focused on the representation of time and temporality in Homeric epic. His first book, Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad (Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies/Harvard University Press, 2013), focuses on time and temporality in Homer's Iliad and reconsiders the concept of the “durability” of Homeric poetics and its self-conscious claim to preserve the “fame unwithered” (kleos aphthiton, Iliad IX 413) of its hero Achilles. It treats the theme and semantics of decay in the epic as a means to measure the durability of objects against the forces of time, including the rotting ships of the Greeks, the fear of rotting bodies of the dead, the destruction of non-organic structures (defensive walls and tombs), and the temporally conditioned nature of the gods themselves. The implication that all bodies in Homeric epic are non-permanent suggests a new approach for reading temporality into the epic's function as self-conscious memorial and, indeed, into the very linguistic structure of alpha-privative compound Greek verbal adjectives. He argues that the alpha-privative of a-phthiton "not-decaying" implies a temporally bound "not yet" such that the epic presents itself as a temporally conditioned memorial of the fame of Achilles: his fame has “not yet decayed.”

Garcia Jr.’s recent work examines the poetics of soliloquies in Homeric epic, metaphors for human cognition and intentional action in the Iliad, and an early version of the concept of psychic interiority in early Greek poetry as revealed in descriptions of deception and the problem of false friends in Greek sympotic poetry. Garcia Jr. has also published articles on the construction of gender in Greek epic (Hesiod) and comedy (Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazousai) through the lens of Classical reception (G. W. Pabst’s Die Büchse der Pandora (1929) and John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)).

Garcia Jr.’s next book project focuses on the concept of the ancient person and the self in early Greek thought. The study investigates themes of intention and responsibility in Greek epic, and considers how characters make use of a “Theory of Mind” to understand the intentions of another character’s actions. Constructs of the ancient person appear in the poetics of characterization and description in early Greek literature, as well as in the cultural practices of ancient communities, such as burial rites, grave goods, and the lament of the dead. Responsibility and intent are a prominent features of the person, visible not only in Agamemnon’s need to offer Achilles an apology in Iliad 19, but in the very customs and laws of ancient city states, such as the ancient Athenian laws on homicide that consider intent and premeditation as key factors in legal decisions. The study also explores how a person is revealed in her involvement in networks of exchange, especially those in which ambition drives one person to take advantage of another. In sum, a very recognizable “person” and “self” can be recovered from ancient Greek texts—constructions different in some important ways from our own modern concepts of a person and self, but ones which are nonetheless legible.

Educational History:

2007 Ph.D., Classics, University of California, Los Angeles. Dissertation: "Homeric Temporalities: Simultaneity, Sequence, and Duration in the Iliad," directed by Dr. Ann L. T. Bergren.

2002 M.A., C. Phil. Classics, University of California, Los Angeles.

2000 M.A., Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

1997 Certificate of Completion, Ancient Greek Summer Intensive Course, University of Texas, Austin.

1996 B.A., Liberal Arts, St. John's College, Santa Fe, NM.

Selected Publications:

Books:

2013 Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad. Washington D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies/Harvard University Press.

Available: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674073234

Reviews: [1] Jonathan Ready, Classical Journal-Online 2014.04.05; [2] Jonas Grethlein, American Journal of Philology 135 (2014) 481-485; [3] Tine Scheijnen, L'Antiquité Classique 83 (2014) 232-234; [4] Martin Steinrück, Museum Helveticum 71 (2014) 213; [5] Tony Earl Camplin, KronoScope 15 (2015) 119-124; [6] Flavia Cecchi, Rivista di Filologia e Istruzione Classica 143 (2015) 510.

Articles:

forthcoming "Hector, the Marginal Hero: Performance Theory and the Homeric Monologue," in J. L. Ready and C. Tasgalis, eds. Homer in Performance: Rhapsodes, Characters, and Narrators. Austin: University of Texas Press.

2016 Review of Konstantinos I. Arvanitakis, Psychoanalytic Scholia on the Homeric Epics. Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies 20 (Leiden and Boston: Brill Rodophi, 2015). Classical Review 66.2: 1-3.

2015 "John Cameron Mitchell's Aristophanic Cinema: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)," in M. Cyrino and M. Safran, eds., Classical Myth on Screen. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 173-182. 

2013 "G. W. Pabst's Hesiodic Myth of Sex in Die Büchse der Pandora (1929)," in M. Cyrino, ed., Screening Love and Sex in the Ancient World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11-24.

Selected Conference Presentations:

2017 "Blind to the Future: Homeric and the Tragic Plot of the Iliad." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Kitchener, Ontario (April 2017).

2016 "Hector the Marginal Hero: Performance Theory and the Homeric Monologue." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Williamsburg, VA (March 2016).

2014 "The Abuse of Corpses and the Passion of Tyrants: The Madness of Cambyses and Achilles." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Waco, TX (April 2014).

2013 "A Crisis of Values in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916)." The 2013 Film and History Conference: Old Money: The Economics of the Ancient World on Film. Madison, WI (November 2013).

2013 "Death from Behind: Achilles and the Orientation of the Future." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Iowa City, IA (April 2013).

2012 "The Aristophanic Tragicomedy of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)." The 2012 Film and History Conference: MYTHOS: Screening Classical Mythology on Film and Television. Milwaukee, WI (September 2012).

2012 "Human and Divine Temporalities in the Iliad." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Baton Rouge, LA (April 2012).

2011 "Homer and the Monuments Revisited." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Grand Rapids, MI (April 2011).

2010 "G. W. Pabst's Hesiodic Myth of Sex in Die Büchse der Pandora (1929)." The 2010 Film and History Conference: Representations of Love in Film and Television, Milwaukee, WI (November 2010).

2010 "Trimalchio as Cultural Theorist: The Semiotics of Ambition in the Cena Trimalchionis." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Oklahoma City, OK (March 2010).

2009 "Reading a Text Like a Film: Tracing Cinematic Conventions within Ancient Literature." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Minneapolis, MN (April 2009).

2008 "Violated Economies: Iliadic Exchange in Robert D. Webb's White Feather (1955)." Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Tucson, AZ (April 2008).

2008 "Telling Time in the Iliad: The Decay of Ships and the Semantics of 'Rotting.'" American Philological Association, Chicago, IL (January 2008).

2007 "Mise en scène, Frame, Shot: Homer's 'Focalization.'" Homer and His Worlds, Graduate Student Conference, New York University (March 2007).

2007 "Homeric Montage: Cinematic Simultaneity in the Iliad." American Philological Association, San Diego, CA (January 2007).

Teaching:

Graduate Courses Taught:

2017 Theory and Methodology of Classical Studies (UNM)

2016 Helen of Troy: Beauty, Danger, and Rhetoric in Greek Thought (UNM)

2015 Seneca's Philosophy and Tragedy: Stoicism in the Age of Nero (UNM)

2014 The Epic of Achilles: Homer Iliad I, IX, XXIV (UNM)

2013 Ovid, Heroides (UNM)

2012 Gorgias, Socrates, and the Status of Rhetoric (UNM)

2012 Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, Catalogue of Women (UNM)

2011 Plato's Symposium: Eros   Beauty   Philosophy (UNM)

2010 Apuleius' Metamorphoses: Magic, Religion & Philosophy in the Roman World (UNM)

2010 Petronii Arbitri Saturarum Excerpta: Poetry & Politics in the Age of Nero (UNM)

2009 (De)Facing the Cyclops: The Monstrous & the Comic in Homer, Euripides, Theocritus, and Lucian (UNM)

2008 Rhetoric, Gender, Sexuality: Texts about Helen of Troy (UNM)

2008 Ovid's Ars Amatoria: Love, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Augustus (UNM)

2007 Plato's Critique of Poetry: Ion, Republic II, III, X (UNM)

Authors and texts Taught in Greek and Latin:

Homer, Iliad, Odyssey; Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, Catalogue of Women; Gorgias, Encomium to Helen; Herodotus, Histories Book I; Euripides, Cyclops, Helen, Trojan Women; Isocrates, Encomium to Helen; Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Ion, Gorgias, Phaedrus, Republic, Symposium, Theaetetus; Xenophon, Anabasis, Hieron; Theocritus, Idylls; Lucian, Dialogues; Cicero, Pro Caelio; Catullus, Carmina; Pliny the Younger, Epistles; Ovid, Ars Amatoria, Heroides, Metamorphoses; Petronius, Satyrica; Seneca Moral Epistles, Phaedra; Apuleius, Metamorphoses.

Courses in Greek and Roman Culture & Literature Taught in Translation:

Greek Civilization; Classical Mythology; Death and the Afterlife in Early Greek and Roman Thought; Homer, Hesiod, and the Near East; Homeric Cinematography; The Trojan War: Tradition and Reception; Tyranny in Ancient Greek Thought; Greek Lyric Poetry; Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns; Euripides: Staging Intellectualism in 5^th Century Athens; Aristophanes: Comedy and the Common Man; Roman Literature under Nero.

Beginning Language Instruction:

Beginning Ancient Greek; Beginning and Intermediate Latin; Summer Intensive Greek; Summer Intensive Latin.

HONORS AND AWARDS

2015 Outstanding Regional Vice President (2014-2015), Classical Association of the Middle-West and South.

2006 University of California Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award (2005-2006), University of California, Los Angeles, California.

2006 Dissertation Year Fellowship (2005-2006), University of California, Los Angeles, California.

2004 Year-Long Research Mentorship Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles, California.

2001 Summer-Long Research Mentorship Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles, California.

2000-2004 Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles, California.

2000 University of California Regents Stipend, University of California, Los Angeles, California.

SERVICE

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES, UNM:

2015-present Director of Graduate Studies.

2008-present Graduate Student Advisor, Classics.

2008-present Member, Graduate Admissions and Affairs Committee.

2015-2016 Graduate Student Advisor, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies.

2013-2014 Chair's Advisory Committee.

2012-2014 Director of Undergraduate Studies.

2012-2014 Undergraduate Student Advisor, Languages major/minor.

2012-2014 Member, Undergraduate Affairs Committee.

2014 Chair, Search Committee: Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian.

2013 Chair, Search Committee:  Lecturer II of Arabic.

2012 Member, Search Committee: Visiting Assistant Professor in Russian.

2011 Member, Search Committee: Assistant Professor in Classics.

2008-2013 Coordinator, Undergraduate Greek and Latin Instruction.

2007-2008 Undergraduate Student Advisor, Classics.

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES, UNM:

2015-present Co-Chair (with Dr. Suzanne Schadl), Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Foundation Dissertation Award Committee.

2014 Provost's Committee on Writing.

2010-2011 Susan Deece Roberts Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award Committee.

OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:

2016-present. Chair, Subcommittee on the Manson A. Stewart Teacher Training and Travel Awards, Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS)/Committee for the Promotion of Latin (CPL).

2015-present. Membership Committee, CAMWS/CPL.

2013-2016 Subcommittee on the Manson A. Stewart Teacher Training and Travel Awards, CAMWS/CPL.

2012-2015 Regional Vice President (Rocky Mountain Region), CAMWS/CPL.

2009-present. Manuscript referee: Bloomsbury Academic; Edinburgh University Press; Routledge; Yale University Press; The Classical Journal; Transactions of the American Philological Association.

2007-2012 Vice President for the State of New Mexico, CAMWS/CPL.