Professor of Classics.  She is the author of Ovid's Causes: Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses (Michigan, 1994) a commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses 14 (Cambridge, 2009), and articles on Ovid, Roman Elegy, Roman gardens, and Statius. Her current research interests include ancient garden literature, gender, and the poetics of commencement.

Research Interests

My research interests center on Latin literature and its contexts. I am currently working on representations of gardens in Latin literature and on poetics of epic commencement. I have ongoing interests in Ovid, Imperial Latin epic, and in representations of women in ancient literature.

Selected Publications

Books

• Ovid's Causes: Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses, The University of Michigan Press, 1994.
• Vertis in usum: Studies in honor of E. Courtney, ed. J. Miller, C. Damon, K. S. Myers, Munich 2002.
• Ovid Metamorphoses 14. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge. 2009.

Articles

• "Catullus: Gender and Sexuality," chapter forthcoming in The Cambridge Companion to Catullus, ed. I. M. Le M. Du Quesnay, A. J. Woodman.
• "Pulpy fiction: Vergilian Reception and Genre in Columella De Re Rustica 10" (chapter forthcoming in collected volume New Perspectives on Vergil's Georgics, Bloomsbury Press).
• 'Representations of Gardens in Roman Literature,' in Gardens of the Roman Empire, Cambridge, 2018.
• Gardens of Pliny, Statius, Martial, Ovid, Varro, Cicero entries forthcoming in Gardens of the Roman Empire, eds. W. F. Jashemski, M. Gleason, K. Hartswick, A. Malek, 258-77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• "ambiguus vultus: Horatian echoes in Statius' Achilleid," Materiali e Discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 75 (2015) 179-88.
• "Statius on Poetic Invocation and Inspiration," in Brill's Companion to Statius, edited by W. J. Dominik, C. E. Newlands, K. Gervais, 31-53. 2015.
• "Ovid, Epistulae Ex Ponto 4.8, Germanicus, and the Fasti", Classical Quarterly 64 (2014) 725-34.
• "Ovid's Reception of Ovid in the Exile Poetry," A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid, eds. C. Newlands and J. Miller, 8-21. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.
• "Catullan Contexts in Ovid's Metamorphoses," in Catullus: Poems, Books, Readers. edited by I. Du Quesnay and A. J. Woodman, 239-54. Cambridge, 2012.
• "Ovid Bibliography" Oxford Bibliographies Online. 2010.
• "Introduction." Ovid, The Metamorphoses. Translated by Horace Gregory. Signet Classics. 2009.
• Entries on Tibullus, Elegiac, and Iambic Poetry for the Oxford Encyclopedia of  Ancient Greece and Rome.  Oxford, 2009.
• "Imperial Poetry" in The Blackwell Companion to the Roman Empire, ed. D. Potter., 439-52.  Blackwell, 2006.
• "Italian Myth in Metamorphoses 14: themes and patterns," Hermathena 177-78 (2004-2005) 91-112.
• "Docta otia: Garden ownership and configurations of leisure in Statius and Pliny the Younger," Arethusa 38 (2005) 103-29.
• "Psittacus Redux: Imitation and Literary Polemic in Statius Silvae 2.4," in Vertis in usum: Studies in honor of E. Courtney, ed. J. Miller, C. Damon, K. S. Myers (Munich 2002) 189-199.
• "Miranda fides: Poet and Patrons in Paradoxographical Landscapes in Statius' Silvae" Materiali e Discussioni  44 (2000) 103-38.
• "The Metamorphosis of a Poet: Recent Work on Ovid," JRS 89 (1999) 190-204.
• "The Poet and the Procuress: The Lena in Latin Love Elegy," JRS 86 (1996): 1-21.
• "Ultimus Ardor: Pomona and Vertumnus in Ovid's Met. 14.623-771."  Classical Journal 89 (1994) 225-50.

Personal

I received my AB from Oberlin College and my PhD from Stanford University. I taught at Princeton for one year, and at the University of Michigan for six years before coming to UVA in 1997.  I have two sons, one of whom graduated from UVA.