Marissa Swan (she/her)

Graduate Student

mkh2161@columbia.edu
606 Hamilton Hall

Interests

• History of medicine

• Late antiquity

• The body

• The intersection of philosophy, religion, and medicine

• Literary theory

• Lactantius

Marissa is a first-generation student from the rural, Midwestern town of Twelve Mile, Indiana. She received her BA in Classics from Purdue University (2017) and her MA in Greek and Latin from the University of Maryland—College Park (2019).

Marissa arrived at Columbia University with the full intention of writing a dissertation on Greek tragedy, but she has found herself in the world of late antiquity. Specifically, the intersection between philosophy, medicine, and early Christianity from the 2nd to the 4th centuries C.E. She also thinks a lot about the body, the true nature of this physical form, and its relationship with its external environment.

For the 2020–2021 AY, Marissa served as a Lead Teaching Fellow for the Department of Classics, and for the 2022–2023 AY, she was a Teaching Assessment Fellow through Columbia’s Center for Teaching and Learning.Additionally, Marissa is also a co-organizer for the department’s Graduate Research Colloquium talk series.

Outside of academia, she enjoys exploring the city of New York and traveling with her husband, taking care of their dog Olive, and taking photos.