Classics

Mark F. McClay

Assistant Professor of Classics

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“The nature of classical scholarship ... is defined by its subject matter: Graeco-Roman civilisation in its essence and in every facet of its existence. This civilisation is a unity, though we are unable to state precisely when it began and ended; and the task of scholarship is to bring that dead world to life … to recreate the poet’s song, the thought of the philosopher and the lawgiver, the sanctity of the temple and the feelings of believers and unbelievers, the bustling life of market and port, the physical appearance of land and sea, mankind at work and play. In this as in every department of knowledge — or to put it in the Greek way, in all philosophy — a feeling of wonder in the presence of something we do not understand is the starting-point, the goal was pure, beatific contemplation of something we have come to understand in all its truth and beauty. Because the life we strive to fathom is a single whole, our science too is a single whole…”
— U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Geschichte der Philologie (1921)

Faculty Information

Additional Faculty Information for Mark F. McClay

Research Areas

Greek poetry and religion, Dionysos, Orpheus/Orphism, mystery cults, epigraphy, performance culture, intellectual history.

Education

Ph.D. in Classics, University of California, Berkeley, 2018

M.A. in Classics, University of California, Berkeley, 2013

Post-Baccalaureate in Classical Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 2009-10

B.A. in Liberal Arts, St. John’s College, Maryland, 2009

Previous Teaching Positions

University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL), Dept. of Classics, Visiting Assistant Professor, 2019-21

Memberships

(selected)

American School of Classical Studies in Athens (ASCSA; Summer Session 2015)

American Society for Greek and Latin Epigraphy (ASGLE)

Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS)

Society of Ancient Mediterranean Religions (SAMR)

Society for Classical Studies (SCS; formerly the American Philological Association)

Courses Taught

(selected)

Beginning Greek & Latin

Homer (Iliad)

Hesiod (Theogony, Works and Days)

Sophocles (Antigone)

Euripides (Bacchae)

Vergil (Aeneid)

Horace (Odes)

Greek Lyric Poetry

Vergil and the Pastoral

History of the Soul

Lectures and Papers

(selected)

“Persephone’s Visitors: Hiketeia of Bodies and Souls.” Eighth Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Hellenic Heritage of Sicily and Southern Italy: “Soma Kai Psyche: Mind and Body.” Siracusa, Sicily (2 June 2023)

“Milk of Immortality: Dionysiac Mysteries and Poetic Tradition.” Dept. of Classics, Hillsdale College (8 April 2021)

“Choose Your Relatives: Human-Divine Kinship in Orphic Tradition.” Conference: “Orphic Writings, Ideas and Rituals: New Perspectives in Old Questions.” Dept. of Philology, Univ. of Ioannina, Greece (3 April 2021; remote)

“‘Lovely Ephesian Letters’: Late Classical Amulets and the Aesthetics of Little Things.” SCS/AIA Annual Meeting; SAMR Panel: “The Religion of Little Things: Small Finds and Big Ideas” (7 January 2021; remote)

“The Dirt on Hector: Homicide Pollution in the Iliad.” CAMWS Annual Meeting (26 May 2020; remote)

“Who is Mnêmosynê in the Orphic Lamellae?” Crete/Patras Ancient Emotions Conference III: “Memory and Emotions in Antiquity.” Rethymno, Greece (8 December 2019)

“Orphic ‘Bookishness’ and Material Religion in Classical Greece.” SBL/AAR Annual Meeting, Denver; SAMR Panel: “Ritual Matters: Materiality in Ancient Religion” (19 November 2018)

Books

The Bacchic Gold Tablets and Poetic Tradition: Memory and Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Articles and Chapters

(selected)

“Gold Leaves.” In H. Bowden and A.-I. Rassia, eds., Oxford Handbook of Ancient Mystery Cults (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

“Religious Modes and Mnemonic Discourses: The Gold Leaves of Memory.” In D. Spatharas and G. Kazantzidis, eds., Memory and Emotions in Antiquity: Ancient Emotions IV (De Gruyter, in press)

“‘You Fell into Milk’: Symbols and Narratives of Kinship in Bacchic Mysteries.” Classical Antiquity (2023) 42.1: 121-58

“Becoming κλεινός in Crete and Magna Graecia: Dionysiac Mysteries and Maturation Rituals Revisited.” The Classical Quarterly (2021) 71.1: 108-18

“Rethinking Orphic ‘Bookishness’: Text and Performance in Classical Mystery Religion.” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte (2020) 22: 203-19

Book Reviews

(selected)

Review of E. Gee, Mapping the Afterlife: From Homer to Dante (Oxford University Press, 2020). Antigüedad: Religiones y Sociedades (2022) 20: 475-80.

Review of W. Wians, ed. Logoi and Muthoi: Further Essays in Greek Philosophy and Literature (SUNY Press, 2019). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2020.09.04.

Review of J. Harrisson, ed., Imagining the Afterlife in the Ancient World (Routledge, 2018). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2019.08.36.

Public Scholarship

“Melodies Unheard.” The New Criterion (December. 2022) 41.4: 72-5. Review essay of S. Klavan, Music in Ancient Greece: Melody, Rhythm and Life (Bloomsbury, 2021).

 

I am a Classical scholar with broad interests in Greek literature, especially in its religious aspects. My work focuses especially on ancient notions of salvation, though I have also explored such sundry topics as coming-of-age rituals, theories of memory, milk symbolism, and ancient Orpheus impersonators. My first book, The Bacchic Gold Tablets and Poetic Tradition (Cambridge, 2023), examines a curious collection of inscribed gold tablets from Bacchic mystery cults that promise an extraordinary afterlife to initiates of Dionysos. In my developing research, I use these and similar fragmentary materials as lenses to gain better insight into ancient literature and culture.

In the classroom, I enjoy teaching across the full range of Graeco-Roman subject matter, from the Greek and Latin languages to specialized topics such as pastoral poetry and the concept of the soul. Having joined the Hillsdale faculty in 2021, I count myself privileged to serve at an institution of high purpose, where study of the Classical world thrives and the spirit of the liberal arts finds lively expression.