Faculty Profiles

Alexander Loney Headshot

Alexander Loney, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Classical Languages; Classical Languages Section Coordinator

On Faculty since 2015
630.752.5631
McAlister 208


Dr. Loney is a literary critic and scholar of ancient Greek literature and thought. His work focuses on archaic and classical Greek poetry, with particular attention to questions of ethics, temporality, and narrative. He also studies how early Christians received and responded to Greek myth and literature. He teaches widely across the canon of classical Greek and Latin prose and poetry.

Duke University
Ph.D., Classical Studies, 2010

American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Summer Session I, 2008

University of Michigan
B.A., Classical Language and Literature, 2004

  • Classical Greek Literature
  • Greek Myth
  • Ethical Theory

eklesis and the Importance of the Last Scene of the Odyssey (Refereed)
CAMWS - Southern Section Biennial Meeting Fredericksburg, VA

The Ironies of Petrification and Homer’s Phaeacians (Refereed)
CAAS Annual Meeting Washington, D.C.

Blood Vengeance from Hesiod to Dante (Invited)
Medieval Lunch, Yale University

Revenge Without End? Tisis and the Meaning of the Odyssey (Invited)
Brigham Young University

The Greek Aetiology of Negative Reciprocity (Invited)
Workshop in Ancient Societies, Yale University

'There Will Be Vengeance’: Tisis in the Odyssey (Invited)
Department of Classics, University of California-Santa Barbara

The Revenge Paradigm in the Odyssey (Invited)
0th meeting of MACTe, Harvard University

Respondent to Paul Kosmin (Invited)
9th meeting of MACTe Boston College

The Staged Indeterminacy of Zachery Mason’s Lost Books of the Odyssey (Invited)
Paper Event School of Classics, University of St Andrews

Hesiod’s Incorporative Poetics in the Mecone Episode (Invited)
Paper Given School of Classics, University of St. Andrews

The Contexts of the Contest of Prometheus and Zeus in the Theogony (Invited)
8th meeting of MACTe College of the Holy Cross

The Contest of Hesiod’s Zeus and Prometheus in its Panhellenic Context (Invited)
Greco-Roman Lunch Yale University

Vengeance, Narrative, and the Program of the Odyssey (Invited)
Paper Given Department of Classical Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison

A Narratology of Revenge in the Odyssey (Refereed)
APA Annual Meeting Philadelphia, PA

Areas of Interest

Early/classical Greek literature (esp. epic & lyric); Ethical theory & criticism; Greek religion/myth; Historical/general linguistics; Homeric reception; New Testament

Books

The Oxford Handbook of Hesiod, A. Loney, S. Scully (eds.), 2018, Oxford University Press

The Ethics of Revenge and the Meanings of the Odyssey, A. Loney, 2018, Oxford University Press

Pompē in the Odyssey, Yale Classical Studies A. Loney, Forthcoming May 2019.

Hesiod’s Temporalities, The Oxford Handbook of Hesiod A. Loney, 2018.

Eurykleia’s Silence and Odysseus’ Enormity: The Multiple Meanings of Odysseus’ Triumphs, Ramus 44 (2015): 52-74.

Hesiod’s Incorporative Poetics in the Theogony and the Contradictions of Prometheus, The American Journal of Philology 135 (2014): 503-531

Grammatical and Ethical Ambiguities in Alcman 1.34-39Classical Philology 106 (2011): 343-349.

Narrative Structure and Verbal Aspect Choice in Luke, Filologia Neotestamentaria 18 (2007): 3-31.