Faculty & Contact - Bishop's University

Below is a list of faculty that are active in the department, and available to students with course specific questions. If you need administrative support, we encourage you to refer your questions to one of the following;

The Chair of the department (see below) can address detailed program questions, including program requirements, planning and selection, research opportunities, graduate studies, and more.
The Academic Advisor, if available, can offer support including course registration and course load, important dates, academic policies and more.
The Academic Deans serve as the academic and administrative anchors to the professors within their Faculties or Schools as well as the students.

Faculty of the Classical Studies Department:

Contact Information is found in the BU Directory

Dr. Jenn Cianca

Full Professor

Jenn Cianca holds a BA (Classics) from Bishop’s University, and an MA and PhD (Religion) from the University of Toronto. She is cross-appointed in the Department of Classics and the Liberal Arts Program. Her current research interests focus on the domestic art and architecture of the ancient Mediterranean, pilgrimage, and theories of space and place in the human experience. She teaches courses on the art and architecture of Greece and Rome, Roman religion, and sacred space.

Dr. Catherine Tracy

Full Professor

Dr. Catherine Tracy completed her BA and MA in Classics at Dalhousie University, and her PhD at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Her current area of research is popular politics in the late Roman Republic. At Bishop’s University she coordinates a series of Classics lectures by visiting scholars, and the Humanities Lecture Series which involves evening talks by members of the Bishop’s faculty. She teaches courses on ancient democracy, Roman history, sex and gender in the Greek and Roman worlds, and the Latin and Greek languages.

My research area is Roman social history, ranging from popular power in the Roman republic to the use of Game Theory in the study of strategies in ancient social and political communities. Most recently I have been working on translations and commentaries of the plays of the mid-republican comic playwright Plautus. He wrote plays that were enjoyed by a very diverse crowd in ancient Rome, including men and women of all classes, enslaved people, non-citizens, as well as the wealthy elite. Many of Plautus’s jokes are still funny today, but the ones that aren’t tell us a lot about his ancient audiences.

Books:

(in progress: Tracy, Catherine. 2024/2025. Casina by Plautus: An Annotated Latin Text, with a Prose Translation. Cambridge, UK : Open book Publishers.)
Tracy, Catherine. 2021. Epidicus by Plautus: An Annotated Latin Text, with a Prose Translation. Cambridge, UK : Open book Publishers. https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0269

Articles (Peer-Reviewed):

“The Host’s Dilemma: Game Theory and Homeric Hospitality” in Illinois Classical Studies 39, 2014, 1-16.
“The People’s Consul: The Significance of Cicero’s Use of the Term Popularis” in Illinois Classical Studies 33-34, 2008/9.
“Cicero’s Constantia in Theory and Practice” in Walter Nicgorski (ed.) Cicero’s Practical Philosophy: Nine Essays in Interpretation(South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press), 2012.

Notes, Articles and Reviews:

Updated version of “Contio” in Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine and Sabine Huebner (Ed.s), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (UK: Wiley-Blackwell), 2019.
“Review of Yelena Baraz: A Written Republic: Cicero’s Philosophical Politics” in Phoenix 67 (2013: 1/2): 191-192.
“Family-formation and the Development of Academic Institutions as ‘Societies’” in Cloelia S. 3 (Fall 2013), 29-33.
“Contio” in Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine and Sabine Huebner (Ed.s), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (UK: Wiley-Blackwell), 2012.
“Review of Stroh (W.) Redner, Staatsmann, Philosoph(Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck, 2008)” in Classical Review 59.2 (2009), pp. 631-2.

Daron Westman

Contract Faculty

A Bishop’s alumnus, Professor Westman has a long history with the Classics Department. After completing his undergraduate degree, he continued his education at McGill where he obtained his Masters Degree in Classics and is currently working on his PhD. Professor Westman’s field of research is Latin poetry with a focus on Virgil and Propertius. He teaches the introductory Classics course, mythology and ancient history. Professor Westman also teaches a variety of Classics, Liberal Arts and Humanities courses at Champlain Regional College.