Penn State Penn State: College of the Liberal Arts
Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies

Erin M. Hanses

Erin M. Hanses

Erin M. Hanses

Assistant Teaching Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
310A Weaver Building University Park, PA 16802
Pronouns: She/Her
Biography:

Erin M. Hanses specializes in Latin poetry of the late Republic and early Empire. Her main research focuses on responses to Lucretius in Roman love elegy, as well as elegiac engagement with the Epicureanism of both Lucretius and his Greek language contemporary, Philodemus. Other research areas include gender and identity in ancient Greece and Rome, and the intersection between medical and literary descriptions of pleasure in classical literature. She has presented her work in Italy, Mexico, Serbia, Canada, and across the United States.

Education Details:
Ph.D. in Classics, Fordham University (2018)
A.B. in Classics, Harvard University (2009)
Publications:
“Embodying Nature: Vergil’s Defeminization of Lucretian natura in the Georgics.” Vergilius 67 (2021): 207-24.
“Criticizing Love’s Critic: Epicurean parrhesia as an Instructional Mode in Ovidian Love Elegy.” In Katharina Volk and Gareth Williams, eds. Philosophy in Ovid, Ovid as Philosopher. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 84-103.