Grace Funsten

I am a Classical philologist, currently expanding on my interests in Roman epigraphy and social history. While Latin poetry has always been at the heart of my research, my current projects focus on the experiences of marginalized people in both canonical poems and in inscriptions. I take a multidisciplinary approach to my courses as well, incorporating material culture to present the social realities behind the texts we encounter.

Before joining the Pitt Classics faculty, I worked on my monograph as a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and taught advanced Latin at Davidson College. I earned my doctorate from the University of Washington and completed my dissertation, which examines the reception of Augustan elegy in Latin verse epitaphs, the late antique Elegies of Maximianus, and the 16th-century French Élégies of Louise Labé, as a 2022 Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. At the Academy, I was also the Graduate Student Assistant for the Classical Summer School, and I use this experience to weave ancient Rome’s topography into my courses.

My current book project, Hidden Verses: The Poetics of Roman Columbarium Inscriptions, has grown out of the first section of my dissertation and examines verse epitaphs found in columbaria. Because columbaria were closed, collective burial structures that primarily served freed and enslaved people, the poems found within them offer us a glimpse of the values and poetic practices of people whose voices have often been overlooked in the Classical tradition. In my courses, I enjoy presenting these columbarium inscriptions, as well as ancient graffiti and letters, so that we can appreciate the multiplicity of voices that still remain with us from the ancient world.