Vincent Tomasso received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 2010 and his B.A. from the University of Washington in 2004. His research centers two aspects of the ancient world: ancient Greek poetry and the reception of antiquity by later cultures. He has written on Homer as well as on modern media, including literature, film, and comics. His current research focuses on the motif of ancient Greek gods dying as it appears in both ancient and modern cultures.

Dr. Tomasso's interest in understanding how the past and the present relate to one another has informed his approaches to teaching the languages and cultures of the ancient Mediterranean as both foreign and familiar to us now. Studying them allows us to understand our past as well as our present.

curriculum vitae

 Publications:

• Tomasso, Vincent. 2024. Nostalgias for Homer in Greek Literature of the Roman Empire. Routledge.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2022. “Polychronic Intertextuality in Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica.” In Quintus Smyrna’s Posthomerica. Writing Homer Under Rome, edd. Silvio Bär, Leyla Ozbek, and Emma Greensmith. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 229-44.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2020. "The Immortality Theme in the Odyssey and the Telegony." The Classical Journal 116.2: 129-51.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2020. Review of Quintus Smyrnaeus. Posthomerica, translated by Neil Hopkinson. New England Classical Journal 47 (1): 25-27.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2018. “The Gods Problem in Gene Wolfe’s Soldier of the Mist (1986).” In Once and Future Antiquities in Science Fiction and Fantasy, edd. Brett Rogers and Benjamin Eldon Stevens. Bloomsbury Academic Press. pp. 172-82.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2016. “Rhapsodic Receptions of Homer in Multiform Proems of the Iliad.” American Journal of Philology 137: 377-409.
• Nygard, Travis and Vincent Tomasso. “Andy Warhol’s Alexander the Great: an Ancient Portrait for Alexander Iolas in a Postmodern Frame.” Classical Receptions Journal 8, no. 2 (2016): 253-275.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2018. “Re-(en)gendering Heroism: Reflective Nostalgia for Peplum’s Golden Age of Heroes in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys 2.14.” In Screening the Golden Ages of the Classical Tradition, ed. Meredith E. Safran. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 27-43.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2018. “Ancient (Anti)Heroes on Screen and Classical Antiquity Post-9/11.” In Epic Heroes on Screen, edd. Antony Augoustakis and Stacie Raucci. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 206-221.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2015. “The Twilight of Olympus: Deicide and the End of the Greek Gods.” In Classical Myth on Screen, ed. Monica S. Cyrino and Meredith Safran. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 147-160.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2015. “Classical Antiquity and Western Identity in Battlestar Galactica.” In Classical Traditions in Science Fiction, edd. Brett Rogers and Benjamin Stevens. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 243-262.
• Tomasso, Vincent. “Gorgo at the Limits of Liberation in Zack Snyder’s 300.” In Screening Love and Sex in the Ancient World, ed. Monica S. Cyrino, 113-126. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2012. “The Fast and the Furious: the Reception of Homer in Triphiodorus’ Capture of Troy.” In Brill’s Companion to the Greek and Roman Epyllion, edd. Manuel Baumbach and Silvio Bär. Leiden: Brill, 2012. pp. 371-409.
• Tomasso, Vincent. 2011. “Hard-Boiled Hot Gates: Making the Classical Past Other in Frank Miller’s Sin City: The Big Fat Kill.” In Classics and Comics, edd. C. W. Marshall and George Kovacs. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 145-158.

Presentations (selected):

• 2023. “Witch, Lover, Child, and Mother: Circe from Homer to Miller.” Invited presentation at Eastern Connecticut State University (part of the NEA’s “Big Read” initiative).
• 2019.  “The Homeric Arena: Quintus of Smyrna’s Disruption of Nostalgia in the Posthomerica.” Invited presentation at Skidmore College.
• 2018.  “The Elite and Popular Reception of Classical Antiquity in the Works of Cy Twombly and Roy Lichtenstein.” Presentation at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South.
• 2016. “‘Those Crazy Greeks!': Federico Fellini’s Reception of Greek Culture in Fellini-Satyricon (1969).” Classical Association of the Middle West and South.
• 2014. “Alexander in the ’80s: Interpreting Microreferences to Classical Antiquity in Modern Media.” Presentation on the presidential panel at the Classical Association of the Middle West and South.
• 2013. Organizer and Respondent, “Claiming Troy: The Reception of Homer in Imperial Greek Literature.” Meeting of the American Philological Association. Seattle, WA.