Gia Chen

Graduate Student

gc2931@columbia.edu

Interests

• Latin Literature, especially Neronian and Flavian poetry, and secular poetry in Late Antiquity 

• Book history and history of the Classical canon 

• Rhetoric and the concept of authority 

• Reception

• Manuscripts 

Gia Chen is a first-year PhD student in the Classics program. She is interested in late antique and medieval literary works' negotiation with and development of classical canons, as well as Neo-Latin and contemporary classical reception. She wants to explore how these literary interactions, especially the lesser-known ones, can reveal alternative modes of knowing and co-opting the past.

After graduating from New York University (2021) with a B.A. in Classics and Medieval and Renaissance Studies, she obtained her M.A. in Classics at Columbia (2023). Her undergraduate thesis discussed the organization and illustration of the Morgan Dioscorides manuscript (MS M. 652). At Columbia, her M.A. thesis explored the subversive manipulation of Vergilian fragments in Hosidius Geta's cento on Medea, whose magical speech mirrors the cento’s transformation of Vergil. She looks forward to further pursuing studies in late Latin literature, reception, theory, and manuscripts.

Outside of academia, Gia enjoys reading novels, watching horror movies, bird watching, and working with wool and yarn. Her favorite bird is the Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis).