Modern Languages
Philip Walsh
In November 2008, Dr. Walsh led students on a tour of Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples, an exhibition housed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Lecturer in English, Latin, and History
E-mail: pwalsh2@washcoll.edu
Phone: (800) 422-1782, ext. 8833
Office: Goldstein 104
Education
- Ph.D. Brown University, Comparative Literature, 2008
- A.M. Brown University, Comparative Literature, 2005
- B.A. College of William and Mary, Classical Studies, 1999
Office Hours
M-W, 1:00-2:00pm; TH, 5:30-6:30pm; or by appointment
Research and Teaching Interests
Professor Walsh joined the Washington College faculty in 2008. He taught previously at Brown University, where he completed his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a prize-winning dissertation. He has studied at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), and traveled extensively through Greece, Italy, and Great Britain.
Walsh is a broadly trained comparatist and classicist whose research and teaching interests include drama of all periods, reception studies of the classics, ancient historiography, and the prose fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro. His current project focuses on the comic plays of Aristophanes, and explores their reception in various modern contexts (e.g., in translation and in visual illustration). Old Attic Comedy, he argues, touches upon, and often fractures, the cultural and political fault lines of modern life; the process of identifying and investigating important moments in the modern reception can lead us to a better understanding of the ancient plays that we study.
At Washington College, Walsh teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses for the Departments of English, Modern Languages, and History. He also serves as faculty mentor to the Mirania Club, a student-run organization promoting the study of the classics at Washington College. This fall, he will lead a seminar for the Washington College Academy of Lifelong Learning (WC-ALL). Walsh graduated summa cum laude from the College of William and Mary and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Selected Publications and Presentations
- "A Study in Reception: The British Debates over Aristophanes' Politics and Influence," Classical Receptions Journal, Oxford University Press (November 2009)
- "Aubrey Beardsley: Reader and Critic of the Lysistrata," conference on the Reception of Ancient Greek and Roman Drama, Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London (June 2008)
- "Aristophanes in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Reputation of Individual Plays," Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Western Washington University (November 2007)
- Biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Francis Howes, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Thomas Taylor, Oxford History of Literary Translation in English, Volume 4: 1790-1900, Oxford University Press (2006)