Robin Mitchell-Boyask

Robin Mitchell-Boyask

  • College of Liberal Arts

    Greek and Roman Classics

    Professor and Department Chair

Office Location

Mazur Hall, 327

Expertise

Greek, Latin, Mythology, Theater, Epic, Vergil, Tragedy

Biography

Robin Mitchell-Boyask, Professor, received his B.A. In Classics from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Brown University.  He teaches courses in the Greek and Latin languages, classical mythology and Greek theater and ancient sports (Gen Ed). He has won the Ketels Award for teaching in Intellectual Heritage and the Eleanore Hofkin Award for Excellence in Teaching from CLA. In 2014 he was named to the Provost’s Teaching Academy. Robin’s research interests include Greek drama, Homer, Vergil and Comparative Literature, and he has published a number of articles on Euripides, Sophocles, the Aeneid, and comparative approaches to Greek tragedy. His first book, Approaches to Teaching the Dramas of Euripides was published by the MLA in 2002, and Focus issued his translation and commentary on Euripides’ Hecuba in 2006. His monograph Plague and the Athenian Imagination: Drama, History, and the Cult of Asclepius, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008, and his study of the Eumenides of Aeschylus also appeared in 2009 with Duckworth. Future plans include books on the function of the horse in ancient epic and the problem of Ajax. He has been a Junior Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, and, during 2005, he was a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. He serves as Editor of the journal Classical World, which now resides officially in TU Classics.

Selected Publications

  • Plague and the Athenian Imagination: Drama, History, and the Cult of Asclepius (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
  • Aeschylus: Eumenides (Duckworth Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy, 2009)
  • Euripides’ Hecuba. “Introduction, commentary and translation” (Focus Classical Library, 2005)
  • Introduction and commentary to a volume of Diane Svarlien’s translations of Euripides’ Medea, Hippolytus, Alcestis (Hackett, 2007)
  • Approaches to Teaching the Dramas of Euripides (Modern Language Association, 2002)
  • “The Athenian Asklepieion and the End of the Philoctetes,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 137 (2007) 83-112
  • “The Marriage of Cassandra and the Oresteia: Text, Image, Performance,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 136 (2006) 269-297

Courses Taught

  • Greek 1001-1002: First-year Greek
  • Greek 1003: Intensive Greek
  • GRC 811/911: (Gen Ed) Greek Theater and Society
  • GRC 3001: Classical Mythology
  • Latin 2002: Vergil
  • Forthcoming: (Gen Ed) Ancient War Games: Sport and Spectacle in Classical Antiquity