Sarah E. Olsen

Associate Professor of Classics

[email protected]

413-597-4710

Hollander Hall Rm 153

At Williams since 2018

Education

B.A. Wellesley College (2008)
M.A. University of California, Berkeley, Classics (2010)
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, Classics (2016)

Areas of Expertise

Ancient Greek literature, art, and culture

Courses

CLAS 101 / COMP 101 / DANC 101 / THEA 104(F) LEC

Greek Literature: Performance, Conflict, Desire

CLGR 101(F) LEC

Introduction to Greek

CLAS 105 / COMP 104 TUT

Telling Tales in Ancient Greece (not offered 2024/25)

CLAS 211 / THEA 211 / COMP 248 SEM

Performing Greece (not offered 2024/25)

CLAS 214 / COMP 284 SEM

Athletics and Literature in Ancient Greece (not offered 2024/25)

CLAS 226 / COMP 226 SEM

The Ancient Novel (not offered 2024/25)

CLGR 401(S) SEM

CLGR 403(F) LEC

Poetry and Revolution in Archaic Greece

CLGR 404 SEM

Tragedy (not offered 2024/25)

CLGR 422 SEM

Crete in the Ancient Greek Imagination (not offered 2024/25)

Scholarship/Creative Work

Books

2022. ed., with Mario Telò. Queer Euripides: Re-readings in Greek Tragedy. Bloomsbury. || Podcast on Queer Euripides: Part 1 | Part 2
2021. Solo Dance in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature: Representing the Unruly Body. Cambridge University Press.

Articles and Book Chapters

2024. “Electra, Again.” Radical Formalisms: Reading, Theory, and the Boundaries of the Classical. Sarah Nooter and Mario Telò, eds. Bloomsbury. 153-164.
2023. “Fertile Pasts and Sterile Futures in Euripides’ Andromache.” Making Time for Greek and Roman Literature, Kate Gilhuly and Jeffrey Ulrich, eds. Routledge. 47-61.
2023. “Politics: Musical Symbols and Civic Rhythms.” A Cultural History of Western Music, vol. 1 (Antiquity), Sean Gurd and Pauline LeVen, eds. Bloomsbury. 79-98.
2022. “Thisbe’s Novel: Writing Romance in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica.” Ramus 51: 105-130.
2022. “Embracing Thetis in Euripides’ Andromache.” Classical Antiquity 41: 67-90.
2021. “Musical Memory on Delos: Theseus in the Archive and the Repertoire.” Music and Memory in the Ancient Mediterranean, eds. Lauren Curtis and Naomi Weiss. Cambridge University Press. 65-80.
2021. “Narrating Neoptolemus: Dance and Death in Euripides’ Andromache 1085-1165.” Choreonarratives: Dancing Stories in Greek and Roman Antiquity and Beyond, eds. Laura Gianvittorio and Karin Schlapbach. Brill. 156-179.
2019. “Sappho’s Kinesthetic Turn: Agency and Embodiment in Archaic Greek Poetry.” The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory, eds. Peter Meineck, William Short, and Jennifer Deveraux. Routledge. 281-295.
2019. “Pindar, Paian 6: Genre as Embodied Cultural Knowledge.” Genre in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry: Theories and Models, eds. Leslie Kurke, Margaret Foster, and Naomi Weiss. Brill. 325-346.
2017. “Les danseuses en Grèce antique. Performance, capacité d’agir, et divertissement.” Clio: Femmes, Genre, et Histoire 46: 19-43.
2017. “The Fantastic Phaeacians: Dance and Disruption in the Odyssey.” Classical Antiquity 36: 1-32.
2017. “Kinesthetic Choreia: Empathy, Memory, and Dance in Ancient Greece.” Classical Philology 112: 153-174.
2015.“Conceptualizing Choreia on the François Vase: Theseus and the Athenian Youths.” Mètis: Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens N.S. 13: 107-121.
2012. “Maculate Conception: Sexual Ideology and Creative Authority in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica.” American Journal of Philology 133: 301-322.

Book Review

Review of The Anatomy of Dance Discourse: Literary and Philosophical Approaches to Dance in the later Graeco-Roman World, by Karin Schlapbach (Oxford University Press). Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

Current Committees

Committee on Educational Affairs
Standing Grievance Panel