Christopher Trinacty was admitted to our M.A. program only provisionally in 1998, as, although he had majored in Greek and English Literature at Pitzer College, he had not studied Latin. Before matriculating into our graduate program that fall, he completed our Summer Intensive Latin Program. By the time he received his M.A. in 2000, he was an accomplished Latinist, had taught elementary Latin in the department with great success, and won a COH Graduate Teaching Assistant Award of Excellence. His master's thesis, "A Poetics of Desire: A Comparative Study of the Hylas Myth," still serves as a model of an M.A. thesis in philology. Well-rounded as he is, Christopher also spent a summer (1998) excavating with Dr. Soren at Chianciano Terme, Italy. After graduation, he received several fellowship offers from prestigious doctoral programs in Classics, and entered the Ph.D. program at Brown University. He quickly distinguished himself at Brown, winning various fellowships, including a Martin Ostwald Fellowship to study at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens in 2003-2004. He was awarded his Ph.D. from Brown in 2007 for his dissertation, "Character is Destiny: Senecan Tragedy and Ovid."
In addition to serving as a Teaching Fellow at Brown, Christopher taught at the University of Rhode Island, Hofstra University, and our own Istituto Internationale di Studi Classici di Orvieto. We were extremely fortunate to be able to hire him as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2006-2007. Despite the pressures of finishing up his dissertation that year, Christopher wholeheartedly devoted himself to his classes and students, and established a film society and weekend Latin reading group. Both students and faculty found Christopher's enthusiasm, intellectual curiosity, and positive attitude to be delightfully infectious.
Since receiving his Ph.D., Christopher has distinguished himself as a most promising scholar of Latin intertextual poetics. The APA Monograph Series/Oxford University Press has provisionally accepted his Senecan Tragedy and the Reception of Augustan Poets, and it is slated for publication in 2012. His article, "Seneca's Heroides: Elegy in Senecan Tragedy," appeared in the Classical Journal. "Like Father Like Son: Intertextuality in Seneca the Elder and Younger," was published in Phoenix, as was his "A note on Propertius 1.1.24" in Mnemosyne. He has also published several book reviews, delivered various conference papers, and has additional articles forthcoming in Arethusa, Classical and Modern Literature, and Classical Philology. In Boston in 2005 he accomplished a rare disciplinary double by delivering papers at both the APA and AIA meetings, i.e., "Hostius Quadra's Revolt: Ethics and Physics in Seneca's N.Q.," and "What's the Buzz?: The Case for Portable Beehives in Antiquity." In April of 2008, Christopher returned to Tucson for CAMWS, where he organized a well-received panel entitled "The Influence of Republican Drama" that included alumna and Brown University Ph.D. student Sarah Jacobson (M.A. 2007) as a presenter and Dr. Christenson as a panel respondent.
From 2007 to 2010, Christopher held the prestigious Keiter Postdoctoral Fellowship at Amherst College. He served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College in 2010-11, and started a tenure-track position at the University of Missouri at Columbia in the fall of 2011. We interviewed him by email:
What are your fondest memories of your time in the department?
My fondest memories revolve around classes that I took. To read Plautus with Prof. Christenson or Virgil with Dr. Skinner was a real pleasure. Professors are very willing to give individual attention to projects and nurture one's personal interests and creativity. I also enjoyed my time teaching and the pedagogical help afforded by the head of the Basic Latin program (at that time it was Prof. White). I think my teaching improved very much through brainstorming every week with the other TAs and Prof. White.
What about your graduate program at UA has benefited you most in your subsequent career?
The comprehensive exams and thesis were very important for my future career. The exams allowed me to explore some topics and authors that subsequently became subjects of projects and essays, while the thesis taught me how to approach ancient authors from a theoretical perspective. My thesis readers (Van Steen, Christenson, and Romer) gave me both support and constructive criticism that helped me to grow as a philologist. I believe that my time at the UA helped me become a much better and more informed reader of Greek and Roman literature, and motivated me to continue with my studies.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on a book detailing the intertextual relationship between Senecan tragedy and Augustan poetry (in particular, Virgil, Horace, Ovid).
Christopher and his wife Emily, who is Director of the Information Center of Catalyst, a non-profit firm dealing with women in the workplace based in New York City, currently live in Oberlin, Ohio with their daughter Ada Zelda Trinacty (born in December 2008) and their cats Sappho and Pierre.
