Kyle Cornman

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

James Rignall Wheeler Fellow

Research Topic: κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν ξύγκειται: Reconsidering Thucydides' Central Dichotomy in the Context of Classical Greek Literature

Kyle is a PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill pursuing a degree in Classical Philology with a Historical Emphasis. Kyle graduated Pennsylvania State University in 2019 with bachelor's degrees in Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies and International Politics and received a master’s degree in Greek & Latin from the University of Vermont in 2022. In 2024 he received a master’s degree in Classical Philology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, defending master’s thesis on Vergil’s Aeneid: “vitam pro laude pacisci: Youth and Age in the Funeral Games of Anchises and Their Implications.” His dissertation, “Possession, Profit, and Performance: Thucydides, His Contemporaries, and the Sociology of Literature,” interrogates parallel lexical patterns across Classical Greek literature, one that problematizes competitive spectacle, another that assigns value to nonmaterial entities through the language of elite estate management. Tracking these conversations through authors such as Herodotus, Xenophon, Sophocles, and Pindar, the project demonstrates how Thucydides instrumentalizes both dialectical frameworks to communicate ethical messages through his historiographical prose. Kyle has participated in archaeological fieldwork in the Mirabello region on Crete, and studied Greek epigraphy on the island of Paros, as well as modern Greek language in Thessaloniki. He is excited to further explore the ancient and modern worlds alive in Greece as the ASCSA’s James Rignall Wheeler Fellow.