Dr. Alex Purves

Alex Purves joined the UCLA faculty in 2002 after completing her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and her BA and MA degrees at the University of Nottingham (UK). Her research focuses on Greek literature, primarily from the archaic and classical periods. She is currently working on two projects. The first, Blue Homer: Reading the Sea in and beyond the Odyssey begins by examining the sea in early Greek poetry from the position of depths, surface, and shore, and then moves on to consider the colour of the sea in Joyce’s Ulysses and immersion underwater in Walcott’s Omeros as a means of reframing Homeric reception. Her second project, entitled Micro-Sappho, investigates the ontological status of tiny, minute or immaterial words and things in Sappho’s poetry. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in ancient Greek language, literature, and thought, and is one of the instructors of the department’s GE course on Classical Mythology. She has served as Undergraduate Advisor, Graduate Advisor, and Chair in the Department of Classics at UCLA.