Department of Classics

Jack Orcés is a Ph.D. student, and a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Classics at the University of Florida. Jack holds a B.A. in Classics and Early Christian Literature from Ave Maria University, and an M.A. in Classics from Villanova University.

At Villanova, Jack ran the Classics Club and worked as a Graduate Assistant Teaching Scholar. At Ave Maria, he was awarded an Honors Scholarship, ran the household “Esto Vir”, and took a summer course in Rome with the Classics Department.

Jack has studied classics for 5 years, and has spent a majority of that time working with classical poetry, particularly the epics of Homer and Hesiod. His research interests, aside from classical studies, include philology, Indo-European studies, and comparative mythology.

He took an interest in classics due to a longstanding desire to understand the past. As a child, he enjoyed archaeology and the study of prehistoric animals. As a teenager, that desire grew into a want to explore ancient and prehistoric cultures. He began to study classics thanks to an interest in the Romance languages, stemming from his own personal upbringing. Wanting to know the history behind the Romance languages, he found Latin, the classical sphere of studies, and the broader realm of Indo-European studies.