Oliensis delivering a lecture at Princeton University

Research Bio

Ellen Oliensis is a professor in the Departments of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies and Comparative Literature. She is a literary critic whose work centers on Latin poetry. Her scholarship is especially influenced by psychoanalysis, which she takes up chiefly as a mode of reading attentive to strains and defects in the textual surface. For the past decade her scholarship has revolved around Ovid. Her latest book, a study of Ovid’s Amores, focuses on the intertwining of the poet’s erotic and writerly impulses. She is currently working on a commentary on Book 6 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and on a set of essays on the comedies of Plautus.

Research Expertise and Interest

latin literature, psychoanalysis, literary form

Teaching

Courses taught during the three most recent semesters
2026 Fall 2026 Spring 2025 Fall