Tom Keeline’s research and teaching interests extend to all aspects of the ancient world and its reception, with a particular focus on Latin literature and the history of education and scholarship.
In the past, Tom has published articles and reviews in the fields of Latin literature, lexicography, metrics, the history of classical scholarship and the classical tradition, textual criticism, commentary-writing, digital approaches to Classics, and language pedagogy, and he expects to continue working in all of these areas.
His first book, The Reception of Cicero in the Early Roman Empire: The Rhetorical Schoolroom and the Creation of a Cultural Legend, was published in 2018 by Cambridge University Press. In it he shows that Cicero’s early reception is very much conditioned, indeed constructed, by ancient scholarship and the schoolroom, where young Romans first encountered Cicero as they read his speeches and wrote Ciceronian declamations.
He is now preparing a commentary on Cicero’s Pro Milone for the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series (“Green and Yellows”), as well as a digital critical edition of Ovid’s Ibis. He also keeps getting distracted by smaller projects, some of which end up growing into big projects. Right now those include a statistical analysis of the placement of esse in Latin sentences, an exploration of the extent to which the Philippics really were responsible for Cicero’s death, and a discussion of a fascinating cycle of poems on Cicero in the Anthologia Latina. Future plans include articles on the underappreciated but virtuosic Terentianus Maurus and on verse composition in nineteenth-century exams at Cambridge and Oxford.
Tom is a strong proponent of active Latin both in and outside the classroom. He teaches his Latin classes exclusively or in large part in Latin, and he co-founded the Grex Ludouicopolitanus to promote spoken Latin in the St. Louis community. He finds that this activity—to paraphrase somewhat the immortal words of Bishop Gaisford—not only elevates above the common herd, but also leads not infrequently to considerable fun and profit. If you’re in the St. Louis area and interested in speaking Latin, please get in touch!
In 2018 he co-founded the Latin podcast Philologia Perennis (on iTunes) with Patrick Owens; the podcast embraces things Latin, in Latin, from antiquity to the present.
Once upon a time he had hobbies, but now he has children, Tommy (born 2014), James (born 2016), and Claire (born 2017). He still enjoys lifting weights, running, crossword puzzles, and reading novels. He finds that this last activity, if you argue the case with yourself with sufficient subtlety, can be construed as productive work too. He also delights in meeting new people and receiving unexpected e-mails, so please don’t hesitate to write!
Professor Keeline will be on leave from teaching in Academic Year 2019-2020 and in Fall 2020.
