Tom Beasley

Tom Beasley is working as a visiting instructor at Connecticut College and finalizing his dissertation, “Thucydides’ Oblique Self-Definitions,” under the direction of Prof. Egbert Bakker. The dissertation argues that portions of Thucydides’ history which are thematically, stylistically or methodologically anomalous owe their idiosyncrasies to their status as loci of self-definition. In these passages Thucydides constructs his history by variously employing, reworking, recontextualizing, and even parodying the methods, themes and styles of his predecessors and contemporaries.

Tom is also working on a Reader’s Guide to accompany the iPad release of Eric Shanower’s Eisner Award-winning Age of Bronze, a graphic novel of the Trojan War. The project finds him writing broadly on Bronze Age archaeology, Hittite art and culture, and literary traditions of the Trojan War from the 8th century BCE to the 21st century CE.

Tom recently partnered with Prof. Christina Kraus in the Spring of 2012 to team-teach a course which they co-designed, Imperialisms Ancient and Modern. The course paired contemporary films with classical texts in translation in order to explore the shifting forms which imperialism has taken throughout the centuries, as well as the evolution of attitudes towards imperialism, and the development of the very concept of imperialism.

Tom’s research interests include Greek historiography, Greek cultural and intellectual history, ancient imperialism, narratology and discourse analysis, Roman ironists (such as Catullus, Lucan and Ovid) and the Classics in popular culture. In his free time he can be found either at the local cinema or at a coffee shop, in the comfortable thrall of a pulpy detective story.

Degrees

  • M.Phil. Yale University, Classics. 2009.
  • M.A. Yale University, Classics, 2008.
  • B.A. Northwestern University, Classics, 2005.

Publications

  • “Note: A Homeric Echo in Catullus 51” (forthcoming in Classical Quarterly)
  • Age of Bronze Seen: Reader’s Guide to Age of Bronze (a graphic novel of the Trojan War) for iPad through Throwaway Horse LLC, beginning October 2011 (work-in-progress)

Recent Teaching Experience

  • Connecticut College
    Primary Course Instructor
  • Elementary Greek (Introductory level), Fall 2012
  • Plato and Attic Prose (Apology), Fall 2012
  • Intermediate Latin Prose (Caesar BG Book 1), Fall 2012
  • Yale University
    Part-Time Acting Instructor
  • Imperialisms Ancient and Modern, Spring 2012
  • Latin Prose: An Introduction 
    (Semester 3: Livy Book 21 & Ovid Metamorphoses Book 3), Fall 2011
  • Greek: Review of Grammar and Selected Readings
    (Herodotus, Plato et al.), Summer 2011
  • The Elements of Latin Grammar (Introductory level), Fall 2010
  • Latin: Review of Grammar and Selected Readings (Aeneas to Augustus), Spring 2009
  • Imperialisms Ancient and Modern, Spring 2012
  • Imperialisms Ancient and Modern, Spring 2012
  • Yale University
    Teaching Assistant — Discussion Section Instructor
  • Classical Mythologies, Spring 2011
Gold head

thomas.beasley@yale.edu