James (“Jamie”) joined Yale in 2025 on the Classical Philology track.
His research interests circle around the traditions of early Latin drama and the exuberant world of Plautine comedy. He is particularly interested in the question of generic identity and comedy’s rivalrous relationship with its sister genre, tragedy. His work seeks to fully situate the genre-bending art of Plautine theatre within the fluid and often messy traditions of dramatic performance in Italy (and beyond). Other interests include everything Horace wrote, Greek tragedy and the influence of classical thought on world cinema.
Before Yale, James completed the Classical Tripos at Downing College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA in 2023, and was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal. His undergraduate thesis, “Wives Behaving Badly: the Matrona and Her Discontents in the Comedies of Plautus” (supervised by Professor Emily Gowers), explored the energetic enlargement of the role of the stock wife in Plautine comedy. He remained at Cambridge (Jesus College) to pursue his MPhil (distinction), continuing his work on early Latin drama, alongside a healthy dose of later writers—including Catullus, Statius, Martial, and Tacitus.
Please feel free to contact him at james.steel@yale.edu