BRETT L. STINE

Lecturer in the Discipline of Classics

604 Hamilton Hall

bls2187@columbia.edu

Fall 2026 Office hours: TBD

CV

Interests

• Archaic Greek Poetry

• Critical Theory, Affectivity, and Embodiment

• The Poetics of Bodies

• Ancient Literary Criticism

• Papyrology, Manuscript Studies, and Book History

Brett has a PhD in Classics from Columbia University (2026) and an MA in Classics from Texas Tech University (2019), as well as degrees from the University of Dallas (Master of Humanities, 2015) and Dallas Christian College (BA in Biblical Studies, 2012).

Brett’s research focuses on many topics related to archaic and early classical Greek poetry, with a particular interest in the poetics of the body, including recent work on Hesiod, Homer, and the Theognidea Elegy collection. Articles in progress include bodily surfaces and material metaphors in the Theognidea and a chronotopic reading of Homer’s Iliad, as well as articles focused on Hesiod, Sappho, Ibycus, Stesichorus, and Bacchylides. Brett also has a secondary research interest in book history and text objects, as well as ancient reading practices, productions, and communities.

Brett’s first book project carries forward his enduring interest in archaic Greek poetry and the poetics of bodies, but focuses specifically on the representational and discursive roles of human bodily surfaces in the Greek poetic imagination across archaic Epic, Lyric, Elegy, and Iambos. It is tentatively titled Skin Deep: Bodily Representations and Surface Poetics in Archaic Greek Poetry. In Skin Deep, Brett employs close reading while drawing from critical scholarship on genre, cultural poetics, affectivity, and embodiment to explain how bodily surfaces interact with their social, political, and material environments. Mutable bodily surfaces, he argues, are situated as meaningful touchstones across Greek poetic traditions and serve as shifting indices of archaic sociality. Moreover, the bodies (and their surfaces) operate as physical and cultural sites for the negotiation, reification, and performance of archaic Greek identities and their politics.

Brett has taught a variety of ancient languages, literature, and culture courses at Texas Tech University, Vassar College, and Columbia University. Most recently, Brett developed a course for as a Columbia Teaching Scholars Fellow on fable as genre in the Mediterranean and Ancient Near East from the Bronze Age to the early Christian period ( Fall 2025). He also developed and taught an intermediate- to advanced-level Greek course on Herodotus at Vassar College (Spring 2026). In Fall 2026, he will teach LATN 1101, LATN 1102, and GRK 2101 (Longus and Plato).

Brett has served in various departmental and university roles while at Columbia University. He was co-organizer for the Columbia Classics Colloquium from 2020–22. He was the Lead Teaching Fellow and co-organizer of the Team Teaching Pedagogy Colloquium from 2023–24. In a broader university capacity, Brett also served as department representative to the Arts and Sciences Graduate Council (ASGC, 2022-24), as well as ASGC representative and Vice-Chair of Operations for the PhD Council (2022-24).

Brett currently serves as a copyeditor for the journal Helios (2024-Present). In the past, he served as the editorial assistant for the American Journal of Philology (2018–19) as well as the editorial assistant for the journal Intertexts (2018–19).

Please feel free to reach out to Brett about his research or teaching at BLS2187@columbia.edu.

Selected Presentations

*‘The Skin Turned’: Male Bodies and Surface Discourses in Iliad 13 and Odyssey 8.” Department of Classics, Texas Tech University. October 28, 2024 (Lubbock, TX).

“A Slip of the Tongue: An Exploration of Enslaved Visibility in Roman Book Work.” Annual Meeting of the Society of Classical Studies, January 5-8, 2022 (San Francisco, CA).

'A Second Triple-Bodied Geryon': Gendered Bodies and the Rhetoric of Vengeance in Agamemnon 863-74." 2018 Annual Meeting of The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, April 3-6, 2019 (Lincoln, NE).

“Monsters Must Bear Monsters: Genealogical Continuity and Poetic Awareness in Theogony 287-94 and 979-83.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, January 4-7, 2018 (Boston, MA).

Selected Publications

Stine, Brett L. 2017. Review of Bryan Doerries, 2015, Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today. New York: Vintage. NACADA Journal.

Stine, Brett L. and Louis, Sarah L. (2016). Review of Claudia Rankine, 2014, Citizen: An American Lyric. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press. NACADA Journal.