Jasmine Akiyama-Kim
Originally from Oregon, I received my B.A. from University of Oregon’s Robert D. Clark Honors College (2015). I received my post-baccalaureate certificate and M.A. from UCLA (2016 and 2019), and I expect to receive my Ph.D. from UCLA in 2024.
My research focuses on historical texts of the Roman principate as well as issues of succession, mimesis, genealogy, and time. My dissertation, entitled The Imperial Double: Imposture, Succession, and the Case of the False Neros in Imperial Literature comments on how imitation and repetition both sustained the principate and contributed to its dysfunction. In particular, I focus on the theorization of imposture and succession as two sides of the same coin: imposters and successors both imitate their predecessors to the point of “passing.” The uneasy distinction between these two concepts crystalizes around the figure of Nero, who was thought legitimate, even popular, during his lifetime, but became a negative exemplum and imposter-figure after his death.
I have taught numerous classes at UCLA, both as a TA and the instructor of record, including classical civilization courses, the first-year Latin sequence, and our teaching assistant training seminar (co-taught with a faculty member).
Other interests include photographic theory (what makes photography inherently different from other forms of art), structuralism and deconstruction.
Education
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- M.A. Classics, University of California, Los Angeles, 2019. (M.A. Paper: “Convergent Gazes: Indexical Representation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses”)
- B.A. Classics, Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon, 2015. magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. (Undergraduate Thesis: “Arethusa: Representations of the Syracusan Nymph in Colonization Narrative, Consolatio, and Epic”)
Research
- Ovid
- Tacitus
- Latin biography
- Latin historiography
- Imperial representation
Awards & Conference Papers
Awards
- Dissertation Year Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles: 2023-2024
- Classics Department Citation for Teaching Excellence, University of California, Los Angeles: 2023
- Presidential Service Award, Graduate Student Association, University of California, Los Angeles: 2021
- Mellon Foundation Pre-Dissertation Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles: 2020
- Graduate Research Mentorship, University of California, Los Angeles: 2018-2019
- Pascal Prize for Excellence in Latin, University of Oregon: 2015
- Lowenstam Award for Best Essay on Classical Antiquity, University of Oregon: 2015
- APA Outstanding Student Award: 2014
- Centurion Award, University of Oregon: 2012
Conference Papers
- “Legitimate Successor or Successful Imposter?: (False) Neros in Tacitus’s Histories and Annals.” SCS Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL. January 2024.
- “Odysseus’s Two Bodies: Recognition as Construction in Odyssey 19.” SCS Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (virtual conference due to Covid-19). January 8, 2022.
- “Ring Composition and Narrative Consequence in the Story of Rhampsinitus and the Thief (Hdt. 2.121).” SCS Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL (virtual conference due to Covid-19). January 10, 2021.
- “Seeing Double: The Temporality of Theseus’s Shield in Statius’s Thebaid.” SCS Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. January 4, 2020.
- “The Magic of Representation in Nero’s Tradition.” CAMWS Annual Meeting, Lincoln, NE. April 6, 2019.
- “Arethusa: Three Perspectives on the Syracusan Fountain.” Northwest Undergraduate Conference on the Ancient World, Salem, OR. April 25, 2015.