Mathura Umachandran

Mathura Umachandran is a fifth year graduate student in the Classics department at Princeton University. She holds a BA in Classics from Wadham College, Oxford and an MA in Reception of the Ancient World from University College London. Her doctoral work focuses on the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity in the thought of two German-Jewish refugee scholars, Theodor Adorno and Erich Auerbach. This project is motivated by the wider desire to examine how and why 20^th century German and English cultures turn back to antiquity to formulate their dreams and nightmares of modernity. In her time at Princeton, Mathura has been affiliated with the global Postclassicisms network, the Centre for Hellenic Studies as well as the Warburg Institute, London. Pursuing her interests in contemporary poetry alongside ancient literature, she co-organized a graduate and early career conference on the work of classicist and poet Anne Carson. In taking seriously the ethical relationship of the academy to wider society, Mathura has taught Latin in a youth correctional facility in New Jersey. When not doing academic work, Mathura is concocting spice combinations, making kimonos, and enjoying karaoke a little too much.