Alexander Petkas *19

My research is currently focused on Greek rhetoric and letter writing in the imperial and late antique periods.  My dissertation, The Philosopher in Letters: Ethos, Place, and Paideia in Synesius' Epistles focuses on questions of self-fashioning, classicism, and the cultural history of philosophy, in the letter collection of a late antique (370-415 AD) intellectual from Cyrene, Libya.  I am co-editing a volume on Hypatia of Alexandria (Synesius' teacher) with Dawn LaValle, and have a forthcoming publication on late antique epideictic.  I like animals and also study ancient writers who, like me, found them good to think with.  Inspired by my research on Greek rhetoric and late antique Atticism, I also teach in a spoken Ancient Greek program in the summers with the Paideia Institute (Living Greek in Greece).

My undergraduate degree was in classical languages, from Trinity University (magna cum laude - 2008), and I spent a year at the University of Pennsylvania post-bac program before coming to Princeton.