Alumna Susannah Wright journeys from student to professor

By Dia Gupta     4/15/25 10:26pm

When Susannah Wright graduated from Rice in 2018, the prospect of returning as faculty was nothing more than a pipe dream. Much like the tales she studies, Wright’s journey to professorship has taken her across the country and back again, landing her in a faculty role at Rice in Fall 2024.   

“I remember coming out of class one day my senior year, as I was getting ready to head off to grad school, and thinking to myself, ‘What a dream it would be to wind up on the faculty here someday,’” said Wright, an assistant professor of modern and classical literatures and cultures. “I had no idea then, as I paused in the hallway, that I was standing right outside what is now my office.”

With its stories of larger-than-life heroes, menacing monsters and unpredictable gods, the world of ancient Greece and Rome has captivated readers for centuries — including Wright, who began at Rice as an undergraduate student at Brown College in 2014.

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“Brown had a reputation for being very friendly, and that was something that I really appreciated when I showed up at the beginning of O-Week,” Wright said. “I remember getting out of the car in the Brown parking lot and immediately being asked, ‘Susannah, how was the drive from San Antonio?’ The fact that they knew who I was, even though we’d never met, was incredibly comforting.”

Wright said she cherished the friends she made in her time at Brown College, including Adam Cleland '17, with whom she remains close. 

“At Brown, Suz walked, talked and made her decisions intentionally and gracefully,” Cleland said. “I was her O-Week PAA when she moved into Brown's eighth floor, and distinctly remember how many sea-foam green items she had in her dorm room.”

Wright graduated with a double major in classical studies and medieval and early modern studies, and authored two senior theses for her classical studies major. However, she said her passion for antiquity goes back much further than matriculation. In third grade, Wright dressed up as the goddess Athena for a Greek mythology project she cites as the spark that started it all. 

“Although I had always loved stories, that project was my first true encounter with the world of Greek and Roman myth,” Wright said. “I was so enthusiastic that my teacher recommended I attend the middle school mythology club after school on Thursdays.”

She first read “The Odyssey” with her middle school Latin teacher, whose wizard-like beard and enchanting lectures led her to start reading the Fitzgerald translation on her own time.

“I found myself captivated by how the experiences of the characters who inhabited this mythological world could still feel so relevant to me, even thousands of years later,” Wright said. “I'm hugely grateful to my teachers for the parts they played in setting me on the path to my future career, even though none of us could have imagined at the time that it would lead me here.”

Wright completed her graduate work at Harvard University in May 2024, where she received her doctorate in classical philology with a secondary field in medieval Celtic languages. She credits support from multiple mentors throughout her journey for getting her where she is today. 

Classics professor Scott McGill, whose classes she took while at Rice, became her collaborator and co-author on a new verse translation of the “Aeneid.” 

“It has been incredibly special to see that relationship evolve as we have taken on new roles as co-authors and now colleagues,” Wright said. “Our work chipping away at a 10,000-line epic poem together over the past seven years has taught me so much about how to approach ambitious projects with determination and good cheer.”

Wright said the book will be released later this year as the first collaborative translation of the Aeneid to be published in English.

“The translation has lived for so long between our two computers, and I am tremendously excited to see it make its way into the world on August 12,” Wright said. “We hope it can bring Virgil’s poem to life for a new generation.” 

As a faculty affiliate of the history department and the program in ancient Mediterranean civilizations, Wright said she does her best work in the in-betweens. She also sits on the steering committee for the program in medieval and early modern studies. 

“When I was here as a student, being involved in a range of academic programs was something that I really relished,” Wright said. “That openness toward interdisciplinary work in the humanities is something I value even more now as a faculty member.”

Her current book project draws on ancient understandings of propriety and modern theories of bereavement, analyzing representations of grief in Latin epic poetry and how they reflect larger societal ideals about decorum and loss.

“Excessive lamentation, especially by women, was understood as a dangerous force in the ancient world, and in the book I argue that these anxieties play a central role in how Latin epic texts from antiquity to the Middle Ages approached grief,” Wright said. 

In fall 2024, Wright taught CLAS 238: Epic Journeys, a course that covered a range of texts ranging from “The Epic of Gilgamesh” to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and Chigozie Obioma’s “The Road to the Country.” At the end of the semester, students were asked to construct their own epic journey and analyze how it responded to the frameworks they had studied.

“One of my biggest priorities is to make sure that students have an opportunity to engage actively with the course content,” Wright said. “My classes allow students to formulate their own perspectives on what they find interesting and to share their ideas with others.”.

According to Emily Man, Wright’s senior thesis advisee, she is a committed mentor whose dedication to her students goes above and beyond weekly office hours.  

“Her kindness and patience has made [my honors thesis] not just possible but truly enjoyable,” Man, an exchange student at Martel College, said. “As a British exchange student, the tea and biscuits she provides during class are of huge comfort to me. She also put in so much effort with helping me apply to postgraduate study for next year — I will always remember her amazing help and speed of response.”

Longtime collaborator McGill said Wright has been a valuable addition to the MCLC department.

“Susannah has brought new life to our classics program: she has incredible energy, she knows how to connect with students and get them interested in the ancient world,” McGill said. “[Ours is] the kind of relationship that Rice makes possible, because of our small size, which leads to close, direct connections between faculty and students.” 

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