I work on poetry, with an emphasis on myth, affect, and ideology in premodern literature. My primary emphases revolve around ancient poetry from Greece, the Near East, and India–as well as the reception of ancient works in modern political contexts.
I am working on a book, Poetics of Unease, in which I explore the “infrastructures of feeling” that are activated by ancient poetic descriptions of labor (building on work on affect and ideology by Lauren Berlant and Raymond Williams). Other ongoing projects include work on classical receptions, ancient forgeries, and Indo-European comparative poetics. See my publications page for more info on forthcoming and in-progress articles.
I also use this website to host resources I have created for use in Memrise (flashcards) and GoldenDict and equivalent programs (dictionaries).
Quick Links: CV | Publications | Teaching | Scholia Absurda (Blog) | Electronic Resources (Dictionaries, Flashcards)
In 2013 I founded the Trinity Journal of Literary Translation (T-JOLT). Take a look!
Latest from the Blog
New Publication: Buddhism and Vedic Mythology!
I am pleased to announce a new article, “Vedic Antecedents to Buddhist Mythology: Tvaṣṭṛ’s Cup, the Ṛbhus, and the Third Pressing in Comparison to the Several Myths of the Buddha’s Bowls,” published in the Taiwan Journal of Buddhist Studies. Click here to download a free PDF!
New Publication: Urbanism in Sumerian Poetry
In the Spring I co-edited a special edition of Interface, and my own paper on the Sumerian poem Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is included in the edition, as is my editorial cowritten with the brilliant Charlène Clonts. http://interface.org.tw/index.php/if/issue/view/37
New Publication: Blank Space/Akkadian Metapoetics
In The Shape of Stories: Narrative Structure in Cuneiform Literature, ed. Sophus Helle and Gina Konstantopoulos. Brill. 258-281. Preview Below (feel free to email me for an offprint) https://brill.com/edcollchap/book/9789004539761/BP000011.xml
New Publication: N.H. Pritchard’s Poetics of the ostrakon
See my new essay in Jacket2 https://jacket2.org/article/poetics-ostrakon
New Publication: Pasolini’s Greeks and the Irrational
Open Access: https://journals.uni-lj.si/clotho/article/view/11518 Abstract: This article traces Pasolini’s engagement with Aeschylus Oresteia and the concept of the “irrational,” through which he sought to excavate patterns of ideological resistance in the classical past. I argue that Pasolini’s translations and adaptations of Aeschylus ultimately failed to achieve his desired ambition to forward an Aeschylus fit for the proletariat, and…
Claudio Sansone 