Jarrett Welsh

Jarrett Welsh earned a BA in Classics at Davidson College before completing a PhD at Harvard University. He has been in the department at Toronto since 2009, and is a member of the Centre for Medieval Studies and of University College.

His primary research interests lie in the areas of republican Latin literature and culture, including especially comedy and fragmentary texts of all sorts. The latter has necessitated a good deal of work on the scholarly texts of the imperial period, including lexicographical treatises, grammars, and commentaries, and much of his published work has focused on the methods of ancient scholars and how that information can be pressed into service for the editing of fragmentary texts. He hopes one day to finish a long-standing project of editing and commenting on the remains of the Latin fabulae togatae, if ever Nonius Marcellus allows.

Over the years that interest in ‘indirect’ transmission and a deeply sceptical persuasion have fostered an interest in direct transmission. His interests in this vein are principally, but not exclusively, the texts rediscovered by Italian humanists in the first decades of the fifteenth century. Ongoing projects touch on the textual traditions of Festus, Paulus Diaconus, Asconius, Nonius Marcellus, Rutilius Lupus, Aquila Romanus, and the Physiognomonia Latina.

Professor Welsh regularly teaches courses on Roman comedy, satire, and didactic poetry, and occasionally teaches Aristophanes or Menander in Greek. His graduate reading and research courses normally fall in the areas of Roman comedy and drama, republican literature, and textual transmission, and he is delighted to work with students on any of these subjects.