Benjamin Haller, the Batten Associate Professor of Classics at Virginia Wesleyan College, will present a lecture on Thursday, Feb. 5, at 4:10 p.m., in the Kennedy Auditorium. Haller’s talk will deal with reflections of the figure of Iphigeneia, the poet Simonides, and classical models of architecture as mind in Chris Nolan’s film Inception (2010). The lecture is sponsored by the Classics department and is free and open to the public.
Haller received his bachelor’s degree in classics, with a concentration in ancient Greek, from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. in classics from the University of Pittsburgh. His dissertation focused on Homer’s Odyssey and he has since published related topics in highly competitive journals such as TAPA and CP. In 2014, Haller was the co-editor of “Popular Culture as a Pedagogical Lens on Greco-Roman Antiquity” a special issue of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy.
Haller is area chair for the Classical Representations in Popular Culture panel of the Southwest /American Culture Association. He also serves on the film committee for the Tidewater area LGBT “Reel it Out” film series.
