Jessica Blum-Sorensen

Jessica Blum-Sorensen is Assistant Professor of Classics in the Department of History & Classics at Providence College, where she researches imperial Latin poetry with a concentration on Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica and the intersection of genre, gender, and political commentary within the mythic tradition.

Education:

• Ph.D. Classical Philology, Yale University (2015)
• B.A. Classics, Trinity College Dublin (2005)

Her research interrogates how Flavian epic encodes Julio-Claudian ideology and gendered power structures. By combining close philological analysis with theoretical perspectives on genre and gender, she illuminates the political resonances of mythic narrative and the ways Roman poets manipulate exemplary figures such as Hercules and Circe.

Across her recent articles and her 2023 monograph Epic Ambition, Blum-Sorensen tracks a consistent scholarly trajectory: re-evaluating the Argonautica as a text that simultaneously critiques and participates in imperial discourse, especially through female figures and the re-framing of epic heroism.

She maintains an active international collaboration network and her work is indexed in Scopus, reflecting steady citation activity in the field of classical studies.