Mark William Padilla
Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures - Honors Program
Distinguished Professor
McMurran Hall 159B
(757) 594-7051
mark.padilla@cnu.edu
cnu.academia.edu/MarkPadilla
Education
- Ph D in Comparative Literature, Princeton University
- MA in Comparative Literature, Princeton University
- BA in Classical Studies and English, University of California, Santa Cruz
Teaching
Greek and Latin languages; Greek literature and myth; Greek society; classical reception in film; Honors courses on Alfred Hitchcock and Richard Wagner; undergraduate research.
Research
Ancient Greece and its later receptions
Biography
Dr. Mark W. Padilla was awarded CNU's 2019 Faculty Excellence Award for Scholarship.
His early career publications focused on representations of the heroic figure of Heracles (Hercules) and on Greek authors of the fifth and fourth century BCE, including Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato, and Sophocles. Currently, he is exploring the presences of myth in 20th-century film, especially the movies of Alfred Hitchcock, in the field of classical reception.
Padilla has recently presented scholarly lectures in the USA, Canada, England, Ireland, and Scotland (Edinburgh, Glasgow). His most recent talk was presented in February 2021.
In fall 2019, he is residing in Glasgow, UK, in conjunction with the CNU in Scotland program. He regularly co-organizes CNU study abroad trips to Greece.
Most recent publications:
(Forthcoming essay) “The Presence of the Myth of Io and Argus in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.” In Haunted by Hitchcock: Vertigo Then and Now. Edited by Sidney Gottlieb. (Bloomington, IN: John Libbey Publishing & Indiana University Press, 2022).
Book: Classical Myth in Alfred Hitchcock's Wrong Man and Grace Kelly Films (Lexington Books, 2019).
Essay: "Hitchcock's Textured Characters in The Skin Game," Hitchcock Annual 21 (2017): 1-39.
Book: Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock (Lexington Books, 2016).
Essay: “Trilogy Wars: A New Honors Seminar Features Wagner’s Ring Cycle.” Journal of Performing Arts Leadership in Higher Education. Vol. 5 (Fall, 2014), pp. 57-64.
Essay: “The Pressure on Faculty Prestige and its Multiphrenic Implications.”In Branches: Leading America’s Coordinate Campuses. Ed. Samuel Schuman. Lanham, MD, et al: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2009. American Council of Education Series on Higher Education. Pp. 73-96.
Dr. Padilla, while raising a family, served in important administrative roles, both as a dean (five years) and a provost (eleven years), at three liberal arts colleges in the USA east coast.