C. Michael Sampson

• CLAS 1270 - Introduction to Ancient Greek Culture
• CLAS 1520 - Greek and Roman Mythology
• CLAS 3710 - The Myth of Oedipus from Antiquity to Modernity
• CLAS 3684 - Greek and Roman Tragedy in Translation
• GRK 2700 - Intermediate Readings in Ancient Greek
• GRK 2732 - Readings in Greek Poetry
• GRK 3770 - Greek Poetry of the Archaic Period
• GRK 7100 - Greek Poetry of the Archaic Period

• PhD (Classical Studies), University of Michigan, 2009
• MA (Classics), Dalhousie University, 2003
• BA (First Class Honours) (Classics and Early Modern Studies), University of King's College, 2001

Research interests

I am a broadly trained philologist who researches Greek and Latin literature - especially poetry. I have published on authors as diverse as Aeschylus, Ovid, Archilochus, Callimachus, Macrobius, Euripides, the younger Seneca, Sappho and Aristotle. I am also a papyrologist, work which involves the transcription, translation and discussion of fragmentary literature and documents in Greek that originate in Egypt.

Research summary

My current project is entitled "the Books of Karanis." It is an examination of Greek literary culture in an Egyptian village that I am leading in collaboration with a trio of American archaeologists, with the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This project’s novelty lies in its interdisciplinarity: we aim not only to publish several new literary fragments but also to bring the analysis of known ones up to date and to contextualize them all via legacy data from historical excavations, most notably those of the University of Michigan (1924–1935). 

Research affiliations/groups

• Editorial Board - Pylon: Editions and Studies of Ancient Texts
• Editor - Digital Corpus of Literary Papyri
• Review Editor - Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists

• With Louise Pratt, eds. 2018. "Engaging Classical Texts in the Contemporary World: From Narratology to Reception." Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 
• With Christopher V. Trinacty, eds. 2017. "Ramus: Critical Studies in Greek and Roman Literature" 46.1–2. Special volume: The Poetics of Senecan Tragedy.
• “The David G. Hogarth Papyri.” Pylon 2 (2022). 
• “New Light on P.Mich. 15 686.” Pylon 2 (2022).
• “P.Hamb.graec. 185: Garden Tax Between the Archives of (Lucius) Iulius Serenus and Gemellus Horion.” Pylon 1 (2022).
• “Papyrology.” In A Companion to Greek Lyric, ed. L. Swift (Malden, Wiley-Blackwell: 2022): 91–118.
• "Deconstructing the Provenances of P.Sapph.Obbink.” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 57 (2020): 143–169. 
• “A Letter from Hierax to Arsinoe: BL Papyrus 2126 (+ 2192?).” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigrafik 213 (2020): 195–202.
• With Matt Gibbs, “A First-Century Receipt from the Receivers of Public Clothing in Tebtunis (P.Tebt. UC 1607c).” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 56 (2019): 65-78.

• 2022 - Visiting Faculty, University of Gdańsk, Erasmus+ Staff Mobility for Teaching Programme.
• 2021-2025 - Insight Grant, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, ‘The Books of Karanis’ , with collaborators N. Hudson, T. Landvatter, and D. Wilburn.
• 2020-2022 - Connections Grant, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, ‘Digital Corpus of Literary Papyri Workshop’, with co-applicant S. Hawkins.
• 2018 - Community Engagement Award, University of Manitoba.

In collaboration with colleagues in Heidelberg and Ottawa, I regularly lead webinars and workshops on the topic of the Papyrological Navigator, work that has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.