Dustin Dixon

Dustin Dixon teaches courses on the literature and culture of ancient Greece as well as Greek and Latin courses from the elementary to the advanced levels. He regularly teaches first-year Greek, and his past courses include ancient drama, Athenian political culture, classical mythology, Greek religion, and Homeric epic.

Professor Dixon researches and writes about Greek drama, especially in its literary and performative contexts. He has written articles on the fragments of Athenian tragedy and comedy, and he is working on a monograph tentatively entitled “Myth and the Craft of Comedy in Ancient Greece and Rome.” This book recovers the vibrancy of mythological comedy from its fragmented state. Comedians, he argues, reinvigorated traditional tales by crafting mythic plots that emphasized the originality of their literary endeavors, thus positioning comedy as the genre whose innovative verve could keep pace with the frenetic charge of the present.

He is also completing the manuscript for another project, “Performing Gods in Classical Antiquity and the Age of Shakespeare” (under contract with Bloomsbury Academic Press). This book, co-authored with John S. Garrison, explores the dynamics of early theatrical performance by focusing on those moments that pushed dramatists, actors, and audiences to their limits: the epiphany of gods onstage.

Before coming to Grinnell, Professor Dixon taught at Emory University and Loyola University Maryland. He earned his Ph.D. from Boston University and his B.A. from Northwestern University.