McVane, Curriculum Vitae 1

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1 McVane, Curriculum Vitae 1 Samuel David McVane 708 Philosophy Hall 1150 Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY sdm2155@columbia.edu sammcvane.wordpress.com Education (2011-present) M.A., Classical Studies, Spring 2013 Thesis: Mindfulness in the Meditations M.Phil, Classical Studies, Fall 2014 Examiners: Katja Vogt, Wolfgang Mann, and Gareth Williams PhD, Classical Studies, in progress Dissertation: Paradox and the Fool in Seneca Advisors: Katja Vogt and Gareth Williams The College of William and Mary ( ) B.A.: Major in Classical Studies with a focus in Greek, Minor in Philosophy Summa cum laude with high honors Thesis: The Bare Necessities: Indian Ascetics in Greek Literature Advisor: William Hutton Research Interests Ancient philosophy, especially Hellenistic and Roman philosophy Latin and Greek Imperial Literature Pre-philosophical ancient ethics Ancient philosophy and modern psychology Publications Forthcoming Joy, Flow, and the Sage s Experience in Seneca, in William Harris (ed.), Pain and Pleasure in Classical Antiquity. Submitted Supposition, Conviction, and Progress in Epictetus, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. Under review Introduction, in Erin Casey (ed.), Lucian s Sale of Lives, Dickinson College Commentaries.

2 McVane, Curriculum Vitae 2 Works in Preparation The Two Solons in Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics This paper argues that Aristotle responds to and engages with two intertwined traditions of Solon s wisdom. It aims to deepens our understanding both of Aristotle s famous proposal that eudaimonia is the only complete good, yet grievous misfortune can, as it were, revoke it, and also of Aristotle s engagement with the earlier wisdom tradition. Philosophical Parody in Lucian s Sale of Lives This paper extends a greater philosophical subtlety to Lucian than is typically recognized and shows how this reveals multiple levels of parody directed at audience members with different levels of acquaintance with philosophical theories. Talks and Presented Papers 1/8/2017 They are ignorant that they are wise : Confidence and Virtue in Seneca, 148 th SCS Annual Meeting, Toronto, ON 4/15/2016 Commentator at Classical Dialogues (author-meets-critics) event on Ricardo Salles, Two Classical Problems in the Stoic Theory of Time,, New York, NY 3/17/2016 Both True and False: Senecan Paradox, 112 th CAMWS Annual Meeting, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 1/9/2016 The Fool s World in Seneca s Epistle 58, 147 th SCS Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA 10/24/2015 We re All Mad Here : Insanity In Seneca, conference on Madness: Sacred and Profane, Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, National Taiwan University, Taipei, TWN 4/18/2015 Gaudium and the Wise Man s Experience in Seneca, conference on Pain and Pleasure in the Ancient World, Center for the Ancient Mediterranean, Columbia University, New York, NY 3/29/2015 Philosophical Parody in Lucian s Sale of Lives, 111 th CAMWS Annual Meeting, University of Boulder, Boulder, CO 11/7/2014 The Paradoxical World of the Fool in Ep. 58 of Seneca, Columbia Classical Studies Graduate Research Seminar,, New York, NY 10/25/2014 Hupolēpsis in Epictetus, 32 nd SAGP Annual Meeting, Fordham University, New York, NY 4/3/2014 The Two Solons in Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics, 110 th CAMWS Meeting, Baylor University, Baylor, TX

3 McVane, Curriculum Vitae 3 9/13/2012 Mindfulness in the Meditations, Columbia Classical Studies Research Group,, New York, NY Fellowships, Grants, and Awards Preceptorship in Literature Humanities in The Department of the Core, 2015 Lead Teaching Fellowship, 2015 Classical Studies Essay Award for best graduate student paper 2014 Teaching Scholar, Award to develop and implement a new course, Ancient Philosophy in Latin and Greek: The Stoics Classical Studies Additional Summer Funding, (x4) Ruth R. Hettleman Young Scholars Fund Fellowship, 2013 Grant for academic travel to Sicily, Center for the Ancient Mediterranean, Faculty Fellowship, 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Teaching 2016 Masterpieces of Western Literature and Philosophy (Literature Humanities) Two-semester class in Columbia s Core Curriculum on the history of Western literature, from Homer to Toni Morrison Spring 2015 Fall 2014 Ancient Philosophy in Latin and Greek: The Stoics Introduction to Ancient Greek II Summer 2014 Intensive Elementary Latin Spring 2014 Fall 2013 Spring 2013 Fall 2012 Introduction to Ancient Greek I (TA) Ancient Greek History, under Richard Billows Responsible for leading weekly discussion group (TA) The Ancient Novel, under Elizabeth Scharffenberger (TA) Introduction to Philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to Augustine, under Wolfgang Mann Responsible for leading 3 weekly discussion groups

4 McVane, Curriculum Vitae 4 Professional Activities 2016 Organizer and leader of a Classical Studies graduate student reading group on Plato s Philebus Co-chair of the Columbia Classics & Classical Studies Team Teaching Pedagogy Colloquium Coordinate and lead monthly pedagogy presentations and workshops for Classics and Classical Studies graduate students Lead Teaching Fellow Lead workshops on teaching and act as a graduate student liaison between the Classical Studies program and Columbia s Teaching Center 2015 Research Assistant for Katja Vogt on her Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry Seneca Research and Editorial Assistant contributing to all stages of translation, commentary, and editing for Katja Vogt and Elizabeth Scharffenberger, for: Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius (Greek-English) with Commentary and Essays, edited with a philosophical introduction by Katja Maria Vogt, SAPERE Vol. XXV, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, Translation and Commentary: Elisabeth Scharffenberger and Katja Maria Vogt. Contributors: Richard Bett, Lorenzo Corti, Tiziano Dorandi, Christiana Olfert, David Sedley, Katja Maria Vogt, James Warren. Service to the Profession 2015 Manuscript proposal review for Bloomsbury Press Languages English: Latin: Ancient Greek: Italian: German: native research language research language advanced reading advanced reading Dissertation Summary Paradox and the Fool in Seneca My dissertation explores the oft-noted but underexplored prevalence of paradox in Seneca s writings. I argue that paradox stands as an essential feature both of the fool s condition his cognitive state, affective responses, and mode of life and also of Seneca s artistic approach to describe, reflect, and remedy this condition in his text. I suggest that for Seneca, strongly

5 McVane, Curriculum Vitae 5 informed by early Stoic and Socratic thinking, ignorance alone involves and produces paradox. As an intuitive tool, I employ the notion of a worldview to encapsulate how ignorance is a holistic state of incoherency that has epistemic, ethical, and affective facets and that shapes the very world fools take themselves to inhabit. In light of this, focusing on the Letters on Ethics, I show how Seneca explores the paradoxicality of the fool s worldview in an original way as he leverages Latin s unique potential for linguistic paradox to project it onto the imaginative world of the text. This allows Seneca to represent the writer and reader as foolish and mired in paradox, which serves, in the first place, as a distinctive, non-dialectic adaptation of Socratic elenchus. Moreover, finding routes towards the elimination of paradoxicality is thus a project shared by author and reader, and foolishness, otherwise merely a foil in texts concerned with wisdom, is clarified from within, as an acute condition we share. In linking philosophical message with literary method, my dissertation takes seriously the inseparability of Seneca s philosophy and artistry. References Katja Vogt Professor of Philosophy kv2101@columbia.edu Elizabeth Scharffenberger Lecturer in the Classics Department es136@columbia.edu Francesco de Angelis Associate Professor of Art History Chair of Classical Studies fda2101@columbia.edu Gareth Williams Violin Family Professor of Classics gdw5@columbia.edu Ricardo Salles Afonso de Almeida Researcher Institute of Philosophical Research Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 01(55) rsalles@unam.mx