Ava Shirazi

Ava Shirazi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at Haverford College, where she has been a faculty member since 2020. She earned her BA in Classics and English from the University of Toronto and her PhD in Classics from Stanford University. Prior to joining Haverford, she was a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow at the Princeton Society of Fellows.

Her research examines ancient Greek literature and material culture through interdisciplinary frameworks of sensory studies, visual culture, and aesthetics. She investigates how Greek drama, philosophy, and oratory engage with sensory experiences and material objects, with particular focus on mirror symbolism, embodied gestures, and eros. Her work bridges classical studies with modern aesthetic theory and media studies.

Shirazi's publications demonstrate consistent exploration of sensory dimensions in ancient texts, with articles analyzing Plato's metaphysics of vision, Euripides' use of gesture in tragedy, and the aesthetics of love in pseudo-Demosthenes. Her scholarship reveals how ancient artifacts like bronze mirrors functioned as complex sensory and conceptual devices.

Awards:

• Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellowship, Princeton Society of Fellows

In teaching, she combines seminar discussions with creative workshops, covering topics like poetics, craftsmanship, drama, and sports. She incorporates her professional theater experience (directing, producing, and stage management) and screenwriting practice into pedagogy.

Current Projects:

• The Mirror and the Senses: Book project examining bronze mirrors as cultural artifacts through literary, visual, and sensory evidence
• the::sense::archive: Creative research collective co-founded with Monica Huerta focusing on artist-practitioners and sensory theorizing