Erin Lam

Erin investigates how intersectional queer methodologies can be applied to ancient Classical texts in order to reexamine concepts such as gender, reproduction, identity, and subjectivity. Their current projects include their dissertation on Ovid’s Heroides, which explores queer orientations to futurity and community building, celebrating non-reproductive futurities and radical acts of care. A second project interprets Ovidian exile poetry through the recent turn to wildness in queer theory to consider how the Other is constructed via depictions of animality and nature. They will teach a course in the spring entitled “(Re)Productions from Antiquity to Modernity,” which will investigate ancient and modern cultural attitudes towards labor and reproduction (biological, textual, and artistic) in texts such as Euripides’ Medea, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts.  

They are committed to supporting learners from varied backgrounds through pedagogy, mentorship, and community building. They are currently a member of the Sportula Collective, which provides microgrants to students in Classics with the aim of increasing economic diversity in the field. In the past, they have taught in San Quentin prison and the Mellon Mays program. They were the Co-Chair and Organizer for the national Queer and Asian Conference, and an organizer for Women in Classics.