Jose Romero Lotero

Graduate Student

jmr2337@columbia.edu

Spring 2025 Office hours: Fridays 10:30a-11:30a and by appointment

611 Hamilton Hall

Interests

• Sound Studies

• Musicology and Classics

• Augustan Poetry

• Latin Paleography & Manuscript Studies

• Classical Traditions in Latin America
  

José Miguel is a second-year PhD student in the Classics Department. Born in Cali, Colombia, José trained as a concert violinist at the Boston Conservatory of Music (B.M.), with further studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London. After a short but lively performing career as a solo violinist and member of Macondo Chamber Players, José decided to pursue his passion for classical literature, earning a B.A. in Classical Philology at the University of Vienna and a Master’s at the University of Chicago. His Master’s thesis developed a close reading on the role of nurses, servants, and other minor characters in Euripides’ tragedies.

In his time at Columbia University, José has been interested in questions of sound and the role of music in ancient literature and cultures. This has taken him to write on a variety of subjects and authors, from a study of noise in Lucan’s Pharsalia and an examination of aural genesis in Greco-Roman creational myths, to a study on the expressive power of silence in epic poetry, and a consideration of the aural properties of diminutives in Catullus’ language.

Currently, José is working on the concept of dangerous soundscapes and forbidden music in the Roman imagination. He also likes to explore the performative force of texts by setting poems to music and is eager to collaborate with musicologists and performers in the study of ancient poetry.

José is also passionate about ancient lexicography and Latin paleography. Recent work in these areas has included a summer workshop at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, where José worked on the word ruricola and training in digital Paleography at the University of Göttingen.

In his spare time, José enjoys brewing Colombian coffee and dancing salsa. He also continues to perform and is an amateur critic of concerts, operas, and records.