William J. McCarthy, Ph.D.
Dr. McCarthy is a specialist in Greek and Latin literature, with an emphasis on the relationship of late antique and patristic literature to its classical models. His articles on Propertius and Prudentius have been published in Hermes, Vigiliae Christianae, and Classica et Mediaevalia; other publications include an essay, in a collection on madness and insanity in the Patristic period, which examines certain concerns of Galen and the pneumatic school of medicine (including pharmacology, diet, and language theory) in conjunction with the evolution of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. He also contributed to the Festschriften for his former CUA professors R. Meyer (Diakonia, Washington, D.C.,1986) and T. Halton (Nova et Vetera, Washington, D.C. 1998), and was the author of an early hypertextual computer program, Rhizoterion (Duke University Press, 1992).
Dr. McCarthy’s current research projects focus centrally upon rhetoric, broadly defined: in addition to his ongoing work on the transformations of Hellenistic culture in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, he is also engaged in the study of the visual rhetoric of early and modern cinema and its indebtedness to the literary rhetorical patterns established in classical antiquity, and regularly presents at interdisciplinary conferences focused on both literature and film. He also bears a long-term interest in the application of new technologies (now to include, of course, AI) to the study of literature. Most recently he has been working with ICEL to help in the translation of Latin liturgical material into English.
Dr. McCarthy held a university fellowship at Ohio State and a Hochwald endowment fellowship at CUA during his graduate studies before being named adjunct assistant professor in 1984, assistant professor in 1985, and associate professor in 1991. Within the Department of Ancient and Medieval Languages and Cultures, he teaches upper-level reading courses in both Greek and Latin, as well as regularly offering highly popular undergraduate courses entitled “The Ancient World in Cinema” and “Early Christianity in Cinema.”
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