Jen hails from the exotic and faraway land of New Zealand, where, at the Victoria University of Wellington, she completed her BA (with First Class Honours, in Classical Studies, Greek and Latin) and MA (with Distinction, in Classics). Since 2011, she has been studying towards a PhD in Classics at the University of Toronto.
Within the field of Classics, she is primarily interested inconstructions of gender and sexuality in ancient literature,especially Latin literature of the first century CE. Her Mastersthesis examined several manifestations of female homoerotic desire inGreek and Latin texts that transcend ancient norms surrounding sexual behaviour (in that, for example, the relationships represented cannot straightforwardly be mapped to a grid of sexual activity andpassivity). In future, she hopes further to explore such non-normativedepictions of gender and sexuality, and to combine traditional philological approaches with the insights of modern theory of variouskinds. In that respect, the interdisciplinarity offered by the collaborative program in Sexual Diversity Studies will provide invaluable research tools.
