Joshua Billings studied Classics, German, and Comparative Literature at Harvard and Oxford. He joined Princeton in 2015 after holding a research fellowship at Cambridge and having taught at Yale. His research centers on ancient Greek literature and philosophy, with a particular focus on intellectual history and tragedy. He has published two notable books: 'Genealogy Tragic: Greek Tragedy and German Philosophy' (Princeton 2014), which examines the emergence of modern conceptions of tragedy in the 18th and 19th centuries, and 'Philosophical Stage: Drama and Dialectic in Classical Athens' (Princeton 2021), which explores Greek drama as a form of philosophical thought. Moreover, he co-edited 'The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists' (2023), highlighting fifth-century BCE intellectual history. Billings is currently focused on philology and practice theory, preparing a commentary on Euripides' 'Hippolytus' for Cambridge University Press and exploring new modes of reading in modern philology. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the research journal Transactions of the American Philological Association and participates actively in mentoring graduates and younger scholars in the field of Classics.
Princeton University • Princeton, NJ, US
Acting Chair of the Department of Classics at Princeton University, engaged in teaching and research in Classics and Comparative Literature.