James Chong-Gossard

James Chong-Gossard serves as Associate Professor of Classics in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. He earned his PhD in Classical Philology from the University of Michigan in 1999 and his BA from Oberlin College in 1991. Since approximately 1995, he has taught ancient Greek and Latin languages at all levels at the University of Melbourne, accumulating over 25 years of experience in classical language instruction. He coordinates the Classics (Ancient Greek and Latin) programs, including the Graduate Diploma in Arts (Advanced). In 2022, he was promoted to Associate Professor of Classics. His career includes prior roles such as Senior Lecturer in Classics.

Chong-Gossard's research centers on Greek tragedy, with a focus on themes of mourning, consolation, irony, female agency, and narrative exposition in the works of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus. He edited the volume Private and Public Lies: The Discourse of Despotism and Deceit in the Graeco-Roman World, Impact of Empire vol. 11 (Brill, 2010). He authored Mourning and Consolation in Greek Tragedy: The Rejection of Comfort (2013) and contributed chapters such as 'Female Agency in Euripides’ Hypsipyle' in Female Characters in Fragmentary Greek Tragedy (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and 'The Nurse’s Tale: Other Worlds and Parallel Worlds in the Exposition of Euripides’ Hypsipyle' (Antichthon, 2019). His journal articles include 'The Irony of Consolation in Euripides’ Plays and Fragments' (Ramus, 2016), 'Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and Plato’s Apology: Greek Pairs for VCE Classical Studies' (Classicum, 2024), and pedagogical pieces like 'On Teaching Sophocles’ Ajax: sôphrosunê, hubris, and the Character of Ajax', 'On Teaching the Oedipus Rex', 'On Teaching Euripides’ Medea', and 'On Teaching Aeschylus’ Persians'. He has served as Chief Investigator on Australian Research Council Discovery Projects, including DP110101571 and DP190100218 (ORCID: 0000-0003-0707-1648). His publications appear in leading outlets such as Cambridge University Press and Brill, advancing scholarship on emotional and discursive elements in ancient drama and their pedagogical applications.

Professional Email: koc@unimelb.edu.au