Classics

Avi was born in Brooklyn, NY to Israeli parents. He grew up in New York and Providence, Rhode Island. After graduating from the Maimonides School in 2012 he studied Classics at Cornell University. Following the completion of his undergraduate degree (summa cum laude) in 2016, he went on to pursue his Classics PhD at Brown. His dissertation explores the intersection of contradiction, myth, and truth in the plays of Euripides.

Presentations

• “Schrödinger’s Alcestis: A Narratological Reading of the Ending of Euripides’ Alcestis,” Ambiguity and Narratology: Interdisciplinary and Diachronic Workshop, University of Tübingen, 24 April 2021 (virtual) “The Dioscuri between Time and Eternity,” Classical Association of New England 115th Annual Meeting, 20 March 2021 (virtual) “Heracles’ Inheritance and Other Paradoxes: Aristophanes on Euripides and the Anthropomorphism of the Gods,” in Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions Panel on “Laughing with the Gods: Religion in Greek and Roman Satire, Comedy, Epigram, and other Comedic Genres,” Society for Classical Studies 152nd Annual Meeting, 8 January 2021 (virtual)
• “Sailing to Troy: Allusion and the Pluralism of the Past in Homeric Epic,” Exeter Works in Progress Seminar, University of Exeter, 9 October 2020 (virtual)
• “The Solitude of Anna Soror: Intertextuality and National Identity in Silius Italicus’ Punica 8.1–231,” in “Themes of Isolation in, and in the Study of the Ancient World,” Universities in Wales Institute of Classics and Ancient History, 20 November 2020 (virtual)
• “The Palinodes of Euripides: Inconsistency and Self-Contradiction in Greek Tragedy,” Classics Graduate Symposium, Brown University, Providence, 26 September 2019
• “Déjà vu and False Phantoms: Politics and Intertextuality in Ovid’s Myth of Anna Perenna (Fasti 3.543–656),” Classics Graduate Symposium, Brown University, Providence, 8 May 2019

Service

• Mentor, International Graduate Student Mentorship Program, Brown University (2021)
• Facilitator, Center for Language Study Open Hours Program, Brown University (2021)
• Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan Committee, Department of Classics, Brown University (2021)
• Volunteer, Society for Classical Studies 152nd Annual Meeting (2021)
• Proctor, Office of the Vice President of Research, Brown University (2020)