Professor of Classical Languages
B.A., the University of Tennessee at Knoxville; M.A., Ph.D., University of Virginia
samccart@sewanee.edu
Personal Website: stephaniemccarter.com
Stephanie McCarter has taught at Sewanee since 2008. She received a BA (2000) in Classics and English from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and an MA (2002) and PhD (2007) in Classics from the University of Virginia. At Sewanee she teaches Greek and Latin courses at all levels as well as courses in translation, and she is active in Sewanee’s interdisciplinary Humanities program.
Outside of the classroom, her current major interest is in literary translation. She has recently published a verse translation of Horace’s lyric poetry with the University of Oklahoma Press, and she is presently at work on a translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into iambic pentameter for Penguin Classics. Her academic research centers on the Latin poetry of the late Republic and early Roman Empire, especially its philosophical and historical contexts. She also has research and teaching specializations in women, gender and sexuality in Greco-Roman antiquity.
Professor McCarter additionally finds great value and enjoyment in writing for non-academic audiences and has had essays appear on Classical topics in venues such as Eidolon, Literary Hub, and Electric Literature.
Books
- In Press: Ovid: Metamorphoses. Penguin Classics. (Translation, with Introduction and Notes). October 25, 2022.
- Horace’s Epodes, Odes, and Carmen Saeculare (translation). The University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, 2020)
- Horace between Freedom and Slavery: The First Book of Epistles. The University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, 2015).
peer-reviewed articles
- “Lucretius’ Didactics of Disgust.” Ramus 51.1 (2022) 47-73.
- “Vergil’s Funny Honey: The Function of Humor in the Georgics.” Classical Philology 114 (2019) 47-65.
- “Fecitne Viriliter?: Patronage, Erotics, and Masculinity in Horace, Epistles 1.” American Journal of Philology 139 (2018) 675-709.
- “Horace's Epistles and Ars Poetica.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. Edited by Dee Clayman. New York: Oxford University Press (2017).
- “The Forging of a God: Venus, the Shield of Aeneas, and Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 142 (2012) 353-79.
- “Maior Post Otia Virtus: Public and Private in Statius’ Silvae 3.5 and 4.4.” Classical Journal 107 (2012) 451-82.
classics-related writing
- "Iphis and Ianthe" (translation of Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.669-797, with translator's note). The Sewanee Review. (Summer, 2021).
- "Horace's Lyrics of Friendship Offer Hope to our Troubled World." Psyche (February 3, 2021)
- “Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung Reclaims the Voices of Women from Myth.” Electric Literature (December 18, 2019)
- “The Brutality of Ovid: A Conversation on Sex, Violence, and Power in the Metamorphoses. Lapham’s Quarterly (September 11, 2019). With Jia Tolentino.
- “Stanzas: Ovid.” The Sewanee Conglomerate (blog of The Sewanee Review) (August 23, 2019).
- "How (Not) to Translate the Female Body." The Sewanee Review, Summer 2019.
- "The Original 'Sex Strike' Was a Farce and This One Is Too." Electric Literature, May 17, 2019.
- "Seneca's 'Lost Cause:' The Myth of the Noble Stoic/Southern Slave Owner." Eidolon, February 1, 2019.
- "Archilochus, Fragment 67a." The Brooklyn Rail (InTranslation), November 1, 2018.
- "Rape, Lost in Translation." Electric Literature, May 1, 2018.
- "The Bad Wives: Misogyny's Age-Old Roots in the Home" Eidolon (April 9. 2018)
- “Pygmalion President: Trump and the Ancient Myth of the Perfect Woman.” The Millions (February 6, 2018).
- “Is Homer's Calypso a Feminist Icon or a Rapist?” Electric Lit, January 30, 2018.
- “Reimagining Antigone for the Age of Extremism: A Conversation with Kamila Shamsie.” Eidolon, December 11, 2017.
- “The Flight of Icarus.” Gucci Stories, November 30, 2017.
- “Can A Middle-Aged Woman Seize the Day?” Eidolon, October 23, 2017.
- “From Penelope to Pussyhats, the Ancient Origins of Feminist Craftivism.” Literary Hub, June 7, 2017.
- “Between the Ancient World and Me: Modes of Defiance in Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sophocles, and Plato.” Eidolon, February 23, 2017.
- “Elena Ferrante’s Vergil: Rewriting the Aeneid in the Neapolitan Novels.” Eidolon, November 17, 2016.
- “Aeneas, My Grandfather, and the Memory of War.” The Millions, August 3, 2016.
Reviews
- "The Tender, Loving Side of the Romans." (Review of Hérica Valladares, Painting, Poetry, and the Invention of Tenderness in the Early Roman Empire; Cambridge, 2021). Hyperallergic. (May 10, 2021).
- S. Harrison, ed. Horace: Odes II. (Cambridge, 2017). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.10.31.
- P. Bather and C. Stocks, eds., Horace’s Epodes: Context, Intertexts, and Reception (Oxford, 2016). CJ-Online 2016.12.01. Selected for print in Classical Journal 112 (2017): 504-507.
Media
- Carolyn Juris, “Holiday Gift Guide 2022: Poetry.” Publishers Weekly (Sept. 30, 2022).
- Alyssa Vaughn, “25 Books Boston Booksellers Are Looking Forward to This Fall.” Boston Magazine (Sept. 2, 2022).
- Podcast Appearance: Quintilian: The Latin Teacher Podcast. (Sept. 1, 2022)
- James Kidd, “Summer reads 2022: 8 nonfiction and fiction books about change, from Atomic Habits to the I Ching.” South China Morning Post. (July 15, 2022).
- Matthew Broaddus, “The Language of the Body: PW Talks with Stephanie McCarter.” Publishers Weekly. (June 3, 2022).
- “In Conversation: Cheri Magid and Stephanie McCarter on A Poem and a Mistake.” Australian Centre for Contemporary Art Podcast. (Sept. 2021).
- Casper Lusterhof, “Ontembare lusten.” De Groene Amsterdammer (April 14, 2021).
- Zoe Sotille, “‘You Can’t Cancel Ovid’: Jia Tolentino, Sexual Violence, And The Core Curriculum.” BWOG: Columbia Student News. (April 19, 2019).
- Kate Parrish, “Translation in the Age of #MeToo.” Sewanee Features (November 15, 2018).
- Katherine LeClair, “Professor Spotlight: Stephanie McCarter.” The Sewanee Purple (September 7, 2018).