Dr. Caitlin M. Mongrain
-
Profile
Cait Mongrain is joining Richmond’s Department of Classical Studies from Princeton University's Classics department, with a dissertation on the Flavian emperors' use of city destructions to legitimize their claims to imperial power. Prior to her time at Princeton, Cait received her BA, then MA in Classics from Texas Tech University, where her research focused on Roman amphitheater spectacles and their depictions in the writings of the Roman historians and satirists. Her research interests include Roman historiography, public spectacles in the Roman world, imperial Roman satire, and ancient food and dining.
Professor Mongrain has taught Classics in a variety of different contexts, beginning in 2013. After completing her MA at Texas Tech, she taught as a full-time instructor in the department for 3 years, and during her time at Princeton, she taught both within the department and for students incarcerated in NJ state prisons through the Prison Teaching Initiative. These courses included undergraduate Latin and Greek, Ancient Sport and Spectacle, Masterpieces of Early World Literature, and Classical Mythology. Most recently, as a One-Year Visitor at Colorado College, she introduced two new courses to the department: Consumption and Conservation in the Roman World, in which students learned about Roman manipulation, exploitation, and preservation of the natural world and how these practices relate to ideas of empire, and Food and Dining in the Roman World, in which students delved into the cultural, social, and economic significance of food to the Romans and put Roman techniques into practice through hands-on projects. She looks forward to exploring similar topics with the students of the University of Richmond over the coming year.
If you're a student interested in the possibility of pursuing a graduate degree in Classics (or just really love gladiators), please feel to drop by Professor Mongrain's office to talk!
To view Cait's CV, please click here.
Expand All-
Presentations
“Cannibalizing Community in Juvenal and Ps.-Quintilian.” AIA/SCS Annual Meeting. January 2025.
“Not the End After All: Cyclical Eschaton as Restoration of Order in the Sibylline Oracles.” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. November 2023.
“Marcellus in Syracuse: Subversive Fictionalizing in the Punica.” Exedra Mediterranean Center, Sicily in the Flavian World, October 2023.
“Frumentum Sine Modo: Guilty Abundances and Artificial Scarcity in Ps.-Quintilian DM 12.” Harvard University graduate conference, Abundance and Scarcity in the Ancient Mediterranean World. April 2023.
“Infant So Tender and Mild: Teknophagia and Biographizing Pathos in Josephus’ Jewish War.” Princeton-Oxford Exchange Conference. January 2021.
“A Pastoral Pathicus? Juv. Sat. 9, Verg. Ecl. 2, and Patronage at Rome.” AIA/SCS Annual Meeting. January 2020.
“Towards the Things in the Text: Tacitus Annals 14.17, A Case Study.” Princeton-Oxford Exchange Conference. January 2019.
“Sequitur clades: The Metonymic Chain of Suggestion in Dio’s Retelling of Nero’s Lakeside Banquet and the Great Fire.” The Cassius Dio Network, Greek and Roman Pasts in the Long Second Century: The Intellectual Climate of Cassius Dio, May 2018.
“The Spectacle of the Page: A Reassessment of Novelty in Roman Arena Narratives.” Texas Tech University, Olympics Ancient and Modern, April 2016.
“Inscribing the Margins: Anyte and Hellenistic Epigrammatic Practice.” Texas Tech University, Recontextualizing Greek Epigram, April 2015.
“The Exotic Arena: Translating Sex Appeal into Political Capital.” UCLA, Bodies in Revolt: Erotics, Metaphor, and Materiality in the Ancient World, February 2015.
“Roman Historians and the Arena of Happenstance: Crafting the Spectacular Narrative.” Harvard University, Twists of Fate: Coincidence, Accident, and Chance in the Ancient World, March 2014.
-
Professional Experience
Colorado College Department of Classics Visiting Assistant Professor (2024-2025)
New Jersey Department of Corrections Prison Teaching Initiative Instructor and Tutor (2021-2024)
Princeton University Department of Classics Assistant in Instruction (2020-2024)
American Journal of Philology Copyediting Assistant (2014-2018)
Texas Tech University Department of Classics Instructor (2015-2018)
-
Presentations