Biography
Thomas D. McCreight received his A.B. at Brown University in classics with honors and recognition from Phi Beta Kappa in 1980, an M.A. in classics from the City University of New York in 1985, and a Ph.D. in classical studies from Duke University in 1991. He has received fellowships for extended study in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. At Loyola he has taught Greek and Latin from beginning to advanced levels, Latin prose composition, literature in translation, etymology, and has instructed in the Alpha Program. In 2002-03 he served as associate professor at The Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. In 2007-08 he worked with a select group of undergraduates who produced the first-ever English translation of Stratocles sive Bellum (“Stratocles or War”), a 16th century play on peace and war written by the Jesuit polymath Jacobus Pontanus. The translation, with explanatory notes and accompanying essays, was published in 2009 by Apprentice House, Loyola’s own student press.
Professor McCreight's research is concerned primarily with the Roman philosopher, intellectual and novelist Apuleius. He has published articles on magic, intertextuality, invective technique, and sacrificial imagery in Apuleius' Metamorphoses and Apology. He is co-editor and co-author of Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche (Apuleius Metamorphoses IV.35-VI.26) (Groningen 2005) and served as an editor for Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass II (Groningen 1999). More recently he has published articles on ancient medicine and on ancient attitudes toward poverty. His research interests include Greek and Roman fiction, ancient magic, religion and rhetoric.