kathy(dot)L(dot)gaca@vanderbilt(dot)edu

(615) 322-2516 (office) 

323 Furman Hall, P.O. Box 1740-B

Vanderbilt Uniiversity

Nashville, Tennessee 37235

   Major research interests in Greek and Roman philosophy, mainly Platonic, Stoic, and Pythagorean ethics; Greek, Roman, and biblical history and social values; socially normative ideas in the Greek biblical traditions (Septuagint and New Testament); Philonic and patristic ethics; all of which are related to my main driving interest in historically grounded ethics, that is, concerns of social injustice rooted in antiquity that remain problematic in the present day and need a clearer historical understanding.  This includes my current book research on the sexual trajectory of warfare against women and girls, which is rooted in antiquiity and remains a modern-day problem.  

   Teaching interests in all of the above, as well as teaching and secondary research interests in Greek tragedy; Greek and Roman myth, epic, and lyric; women in antiquity; and material culture. 

Women, war, and emergent humanitarian concerns in antiquity and the modern day

Vanderbilt University, Associate Professor of Classics

Princeton University, Hannah Seeger Davis Post-doctoral Fellow in Hellenic Studies, 1996-97

University of Toronto:  Ph.D. in Classics; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:  M.A. in Classics; B.A. in Classics; B.A. in Comparative Literature

book

The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity.  Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univeristy of California Press, Hellenistic Culture and Society Series. For further information click here, and see The Times Literary Supplement review by Kate Cooper, 5 November 2004, page 14.

edited essay collection

Early Patristic Readings of Romans, edited by Kathy L. Gaca and L. L. Welborn.  Romans through History and Cultures Series.  New York: T & T Clark International, 2006

 refereed journal articles

'The Andrapodizing of War Captives in Greek Historical Memory,' Transactions of the American Philological Society 2010

'The Little Girl and Her Mother: Iliad 16.7-11 and Ancient Greek Warfare,' American Journal of Philology, March 2008 

‘Driving Aphrodite from the World:  Tatian’s Encratite Principles of Sexual Renunciation,’ Journal of Theological Studies 53 (2002), 1-25

‘Early Stoic Eros:  The Sexual Ethics of Zeno and Chrysippus and their Evaluation of the Popular Greek Erotic Tradition,’ Apeiron 33 (September 2000), 207-238

‘Procreationism:  The Reproductive Technology of the Pythagoreans,’ Classical Philology 95 (April 2000), 113-132

 ‘Paul’s Uncommon Declaration in Romans 1:18-32 and its Problematic Legacy for Pagan and Christian Relations,’ Harvard Theological Review 92 (April 1999), 165-198

‘Philo’s Principles of Sexual Conduct and their Influence on Christian Platonist Sexual Principles,’ Studia Philonica Annual (1996), 21-39

select book chapters

'Girls, Women, and the Significance of Sexual Violence in Ancient Warfare,' forthcoming 2009 in Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, edited by Elizabeth Heineman, University of Pennsylvania Press

‘Early Christian Antipathy toward the Greek ‘Women Gods’,’ forthcoming in Finding Persephone: Women’s Rituals in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by Angeliki Tzanetou and Maryline Parca, 2007, Indiana University Press

‘The Sexual and Social Dangers of Pornai in the Septuagint Greek Stratum of Patristic Greek Thought,’ Desire and Denial in Byzantium, ed. Elizabeth James, (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. (1999), 35-40

CAMWS Outstanding Publication Award, 2006 for The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity (2003) 

NEH Summer Seminar Grant Recipient and Participant in ‘The Law, State, and Individual in

  Ancient Greece, Rome, and China,’ at the University of California, Berkeley, summer 2003

  Center for Hellenic Studies Summer Fellowship, Washington DC, July 2002

Robert Penn Warren Fellowship, 1999-2000 

Princeton Hannah Seeger Davis Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 1996-97

NEH Summer Institute Grant Recipient and Participant, in ‘New Perspectives on Classical

  Antiquity’

University of Toronto Connaught Fellowships

University of Illinois Excellence in Teaching Award