Classical Studies PhD Student

Curriculum Vitae

Alicia Matz began her PhD career at Boston University in the fall of 2017. She earned her B.A. in Classics in 2015 from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, and her M.A. in Classics from Rutgers University in 2017. Her research interests include Augustan literature, politics, and material culture, and reception, especially in science fiction and fantasy literature. She is currently working on a dissertation titled “Diana in Augustan Poetry and Culture.” In her free time she runs the @LOTRinLatin twitter, where she is translating Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (slowly) into Latin, as well as @IodulaDicit where she tweets as Baby Yoda in Latin. She also helps admin @CripAntiquity. Her main twitter is @duxfeminafacti9 and her academic website can be found at aliciamatz.com. 

Dissertation-in-Progress:

Diana in Augustan Literature and Culture
First Reader: Kronenberg

Recent Papers:

  1. “Echoes of Ovid’s Diana/Actaeon Myth in Rape Revenge Narratives.” AIMS Annual Meeting, 2022 (Virtual)
  2. “Ipsa sua Dido concidit usa manu: Vergil, Ovid, and Dido’s Agency in Three Modern Retellings.” 2022 Vergilian Society Symposium Cumanum, June 2022, (Cumae, Italy)
  3. “Gender Nonconformity and ‘Trans’ Narrative in Vergil’s Aeneid” at Feminism & Classics 2022 – Wake Forest University, May 2022 (Winston-Salem, NC)
  4. “Political Diana in Vergil’s Aeneid.” Vergilian Society panel ‘Vergil and Authoritarianism’ – SCS 2022 Annual Meeting, January 2022 (San Francisco, CA) 
  5. “Bringing the Canon to the Periphery: Using Fan Fiction to Teach Latin” – AMPRAW 2021, Columbia University, November 2021 (Hybrid)
  6. “Quis enim laesos impune putaret esse deos?: Ents, Sacred Groves, and the Cost of Desecration’ – Oxonmoot 2021, Oxford University (Hybrid)
  7. “Tolkien in Translation” panelist – Oxonmoot 2021, Oxford University, September 2021 (hybrid)
  8. “Rethinking Student Engagement and Assessment in the COVID Classroom” Workshop Presider – CAMWS 2021 Annual Meeting, April 2021 (Virtual)
  9. “Re-Presenting Woman: Pandora in Ovid’s Metamorphoses” – Society of Classical Studies 2021 Annual Meeting, January 5-10, 2021 (Virtual)
  10. “More than Brains in Jars: A Graduate Perspective on the Future of Classics Graduate Studies” in the “COVID-19 and the Future of Classics Graduate Study” – Society of Classical Studies 2021 Annual Meeting, January 5-10, 2021 (Virtual)
  11. “Fixed Points in Time: Doctor Who, the TARDIS, and Roman History”- Film and History Conference, University of Wisconsin—Madison, November 13-17, 2019 (Madison, WI)
  12. “Hestia BU Graduate Pedagogy”- Society of Classical Studies Annual Meeting 2020, January 2-5, 2020 (Washington DC)
  13. “Making Our Voices Heard – Fighting for Change in Classics” keynote panelist- Our Voices: A Conference for Inclusive Classics Pedagogy conference, Columbia University, February 15-16, 2020  (New York, NY)
  14. “From Octavian to Augustus: Numismatics and Augustan Propaganda”- The Classical Association of the Middle West and South Annual Meeting 2020, March 25-28, 2020 (Birmingham, AL)
  15. “Gender Nonconformity and ‘Trans’ Narrative in Vergil’s Aeneid”- Feminist, Queer, Trans… New Directions for Narrative conference, Newcastle University, April 16-18, 2020 (Tyne, England)
  16. “Gender Nonconformity and ‘Trans’ Narrative in Vergil’s Aeneid”- Feminism & Classics 2020, May 21-24, 2020 (Winston-Salem, NC)
  17. “Deus nobis haec otia fecit: Illusions of Otium at the End of the Republic.”- Society for Classical Studies, January 3-6, 2019 (San Diego, CA)
  18. “Pygmalion and Pandora in Ovid’s Metamorphoses”- Classics Association of New England, March 8-9, 2019 (Worcester, MA)
  19. “Re-creating the Female Other: Pygmalion and Pandora in Ovid’s Metamorphoses”- Boston University Classics Graduate Conference, March 23, 2019 (Boston, MA)
  20. “divus dum vivus: Augustus’ Divinity as Seen Through His Coinage.”- Classical Association of the Atlantic States, 2017, October 5-7, 2017 (New York, NY)