Julianna K. Will

Position:  Lecturer, English and Theatre
Office: BAC 434
Email:  julianna.will@acadiau.ca

 

Research Interests: Victorian literature, Aestheticism, Decadence, Hellenism, sexualities, and pornography; ancient Greek and Latin poetry; Athenian drama; historiography; reception theory 

I am a multidisciplinary researcher in the fields of Classics (philology and literature) and Victorian studies. As a Victorianist, my research explores the intersections of Victorian classical presences, sexualities, Aestheticism, and Decadence through the reception, translation, and appropriation of classical texts. As I classicist, I have a particular interest in Greek poetry, specifically fifth-century Athenian drama, and the figure of Dionysus. 

Current Projects:

My current research projects include (1) the reception/appropriate/translation of Euripidean tragedy in the long nineteenth century; (2) the “creative” editorial and translation practices of Walter Pater; and (3) an exploration of the intersections of Victorian consumerism and pornography through the motif of the hymen. 

Teaching Awards: CUPE 3908-1 Award for Excellence in Teaching, shortlisted (Trent University, 2021) 

Teaching: I encourage students to connect the literature of the past to the ways we understand the present. In beginner level courses I emphasize critical concepts and vocabulary as a “way in” to thinking and writing critically about literature, which we practice applying to course texts through in-class discussion and activation activities. The readings and topics in my courses invite students to question and re-evaluate the traditional ways we view classical and Victorian literatures, through the inclusion of authors, texts, topics, and points-of-view not always considered canonical. 

Recent Publications:

“‘Quelled or Quenched in Leaves’: The Poplar Experiments of Pater, Monet, and Hopkins.” The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, vol. 29, Fall 2020, pp. 27–45. (co-authored with Lesley Higgins) 

Review of Oscar Wilde’s Aesthetic Imagination: The Oxford Classical Curriculum, by Leanne Grech. 2019. Palgrave Macmillan. The Journal of Pre- Raphaelite Studies, vol. 29, Fall 2020, pp. 107–110. 

Review of Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity, edited by Kathleen Riley et al. 2018. Oxford UP. Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 12.37. https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2018/2018.12.37/

“Justice for Patches.” Outside In Takes a Stab, edited by Robert Smith? ATB Publishing, 2018, pp. 89–91. 

Work Forthcoming:

“The Maenad ‘Swarm’”: Three Victorian Perceptions of the Maenad in Euripides’s Bacchae.” Pheonix, TBA. 

Collaborative Research Projects

The Collected Works of Walter Pater, 10 vols. Oxford UP. General Editors: Dr. Lesley Higgins and Dr. David Latham. (Ongoing). 

The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 8 vols. Oxford UP. General Editor: Dr. Lesley Higgins. (Ongoing) 

Modern Languages and Culture Research Centre (MLC), Toronto Metropolitan University.

Director: Prof. Irene Gammel.
Digital Humanities Projects: The Journals of Florine Stettheimer and Canadian World War Two Diaries (transcription, translation, digitization, and annotation). 2019 – 2020. 

Irini Northern Sector Archaeological Project, Kea, Greece

Project Leaders: Prof. R. Fitzsimons, Prof. E. Gorogianni (2010)