Malcolm Nelson

Bio

Dr. Malcolm Nelson is a historian of ancient Greece whose work examines the emotional norms, civic institutions, and political narratives that structured moral behavior in classical antiquity. As a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Classical Studies at Penn, he is working with Dr. Julia Wilker to revise his dissertation into a monograph on the role of empathy in Athenian legal, military, and royal contexts. His postdoctoral work investigates how normative constraints on emotion shaped political identity, justice, and legitimacy from the archaic through the Hellenistic periods.

Dr. Nelson earned his Ph.D. in Ancient History from Harvard University in 2024. His dissertation, Regulating Empathy in Ancient Greece, co-advised by Drs. Paul Kosmin and Adriaan Lanni, offers a wide-ranging analysis of Greek legal speeches, epic poetry, and philosophical writings. He argues that empathy in ancient Greece was not only a moral value but also a social tool subject to regulation, particularly when it posed a threat to economic systems (such as slavery) or political cohesion. His final chapter explores how monarchs were uniquely depicted as transcending ordinary emotional limits—a form of symbolic authority akin to festival inversion.

Prior to graduate school, Dr. Nelson served in the U.S. Army as a counterintelligence officer in Iraq and Germany. His military experience informs his academic work, especially in relation to themes of power, conflict, and moral justification. He has taught courses in Greek history, warfare, and political thought, and is committed to making the ancient world accessible and analytically rich for contemporary audiences. At Penn, he will continue his research on emotional regimes in classical literature and further explore the political use of compassion in narratives of kingship and military conquest.