While growing up in Sydney, Australia, James Uden rarely missed an episode of "The Movie Show," a film review show hosted by academics. He once wrote a letter to one of the hosts expressing his disagreement with her opinion about a particular movie. Much to his delight, she wrote back.
"I still have the letter," Uden said. "That was the first inkling that I was really interested in arts and literature."
A high school Latin teacher encouraged that interest, and inspired Uden to become an avid reader of Latin. Still, he went on to pursue what he thought was a more practical field of study: law. He continued, though, to read Latin poetry in his spare time - and, within a month of finishing his law degree, he moved to America and began pursuing a Ph.D. in classics at Columbia University.
Now a specialist in Latin literature, Uden was recently named a professor in Yale's classics department. He previously spent 14 years teaching at Boston University. While there, he received a New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation to study medical anthropology, a course of study that inspired his current book project, "Heroic Vulnerability," examining imagery of wounding and physical vulnerability in Roman poetry. This spring, he will team-teach a course on ancient medicine in Greece and Rome with colleagues Jessica Lamont and Malina Buturović, both assistant professors of classics.
His most recent book, "Spectres of Antiquity: Classical Literature and the Gothic, 1740-1830" (Oxford, 2020), won the Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit from the Society of Classical Studies, and was a finalist for the Allan Lloyd Smith Memorial Prize.
In the latest edition of Office Hours, a Q&A series that introduces new Yale faculty members to the broader community, Uden sat down with Yale News to talk about the allure of ancient Rome, the dearth of Latin poetry about the Roman baths, and his favorite New Haven sake bar.
| Title | Professor of classics |
|---|---|
| Research interest | Latin literature, especially poetry; cultural history of the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity; medicine and the humanities |
| Prior Institution | Boston University |
| Started at Yale | July 1, 2025 |
I've heard that you enjoy giving talks about ancient Rome and sharing various aspects of life at that time. Why does it fascinate you so?
James Uden: It's true - I love talking about ancient Rome. What drew me to it wasn't that it was the so-called origin of Western civilization. It was just so different. You're immersing yourself in a completely different world. When I teach literature, I try to teach works that immerse you in the everyday life of Romans, so that you can imagine yourself in that place. I love giving talks on gladiators and chariots and all this kind of stuff because it sparks people's imagination. I often say that the reason to study the ancient world is to gain a sense of empathy with people who lived long ago, to connect with those people across time. And I think you can transfer that skill of empathy to other aspects of your life.
What's an example of how different their approach to life was compared to ours?
Uden: Well, consider that the median life expectancy was about 28. I was talking about death and funerals in class today and how it was expected that you would watch the cremation of your family members. And it would take hours. Just imagine how your perspective on life and death would be different if that was a regular part of your world. The central message of Roman culture was carpe diem, to embrace life. They had an intense joy of life that came from a constant awareness of the proximity of death. Famously, there's a description of an ancient dinner party in which a silver skeleton is brought out and put on the table. People thought that their food would taste better if they were reminded of the fact that this could be their last meal. Our perspective on death is so different.
You recently gave a lecture at the University of California-Santa Barbara titled "Unwritten Literature of the Baths." That sounds intriguing!
Uden: The baths were a center of Roman life. Every day, as far as we know, Romans would go to these grand architectural establishments for hours for a sequence of hot, tepid, and cold-water baths. My observation was that, compared to other cultures in which public bathing was central, like Japan, there's comparatively little literature about the pleasures of the baths in ancient Rome. Where are the grand poems about the baths? That was the problem I posed in that lecture. I would love to bring in more comparative evidence, look at Turkey, Finland, Japan, Korea, and other cultures with baths and baths literatures, and compare them to Rome. That's sort of a future dream.
What are your interests outside of work?
Uden: I worship at the altar of David Bowie. I love '70s rock of all kinds. Glam rock, prog rock, hard rock. Also, my minor at university was Japanese, and now every Tuesday morning I have an hour-long Japanese conversation class where we read a newspaper article and talk about it. I also like to run - I'm still trying to find a good place to run in New Haven. And I've really been enjoying getting to know the restaurants in New Haven. My favorite so far is Hachiroku Shokudo and Sake Bar on Orange Street. They have like 80 different kinds of sake and really knowledgeable waiters and great food.
