Overview
Ben is currently a fifth-year PhD candidate in Classical studies. They arrived at Duke after doing their undergraduate work at Kenyon college, earning a degree in Classics and philosophy. Their interests coalesce around the literature of the later Roman empire and early Medieval period, particularly looking at how high imperial and Late Antique authors adopted and adapted earlier literary forms and ideas to fit their aesthetic and philosophical tastes. Their current dissertation project is on the long reception of the emperor Julian in Latin historical literature between late antiquity and the Ottonian period.