I’m a classicist at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Religions and Cultures. My research interests include ancient models of persuasion, the early modern reception of classical thought, the history of lexicography, and persuasive technology.

My first monograph is Learning to Be Fair: Equity from Classical Philosophy to Contemporary Politics (available at Bookshop.org and Amazon). By excavating texts from antiquity and the modern era, Learning to Be Fair grounds current debates about equity in long-standing, unsettled, and even paradoxical questions about equality before the law and the possibility of teaching people to be good.

During the 2016–2017 academic year, I was the NEH/SCS Postdoctoral Fellow at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in Munich. In 2016, I received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University. I also received the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from the University of Minnesota in 2026.

I graduated from Harvard College as the Latin Salutatorian, and I originally come from Grayling, Michigan.

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You can find my work at PhilPapers and ORCID (0009-0006-4552-3691).

Get in touch by e-mail: cm at charlesmcnamara dot com