Meet Kelly MacFarlane!

Hi Everyone / Salvēte, omnēs! My name is Kelly MacFarlane, and I've been teaching here full-time for seventeen years. I'm a Teaching Professor (that is, non-permanent non-tenure-track academic teaching staff, with a primary focus on teaching) and also an alum (I got my PhD from the University of Alberta in 2002, with a dissertation on the Greek poetic accounts of the Persian Wars). 

I'm currently working on a survey of the field of later Greek epic poetry for Brill. Reading up on all the exciting developments in the field is fascinating, and I'm already planning a new course on the later Greek epics and have found a number of exciting avenues for further exploration. But first, I have to finish my current projects.... 

My other current project is a Latin textbook, which will be free for student use; it has a focus on comprehension and communication, and on understanding Latin as a real language used by real people to discuss real things that were really understood when communicated to other real people. My approach is inspired by the “Living Latin” movement, which seeks to treat Latin as a functional language that students can understand as a means of communication by reading and writing and speaking and hearing it. The end result will be, I hope, a new Latin learning system that will lead current students to fall in love with Latin (and Classics!) and encourage more students to take Latin in the future.

When not immersed in all things Classics, I spend much of my free time volunteering with a local cat rescue (SAFE Team Rescue – home of many adorable adoptable kitties!) and catering to the whims of my own feline crew.