Charles McNamara primarily studies the intersection of ancient rhetoric and philosophy, both within classical culture and outside the strict bounds of Greco-Roman antiquity. He researches ancient models of persuasion, the early modern reception of classical thought, the history of lexicography, and persuasive technologies.

 

His first book, Learning to Be Fair: Equity from Classical Philosophy to Contemporary Politics (Fortress, 2024), argues that disagreement about the nature of equity (aequitas, epieikeia) stems from its inconsistent and even paradoxical definitions found in legal and philosophical writings of the Greco-Roman world. His second book, provisionally titled Humanist Certainty, will present an ancient notion of certainty—one rooted in the rhetorical strategies of Quintilian and ancient developments in skepticism—that stands at odds with the modern concept of the same name.  His other academic publications have considered various topics such as Lorenzo Valla, Thomas Hobbes, and ancient antecedents of so-called "deepfake" videos.

 

During the 2016–2017 academic year, he was the NEH/SCS Postdoctoral Fellow at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in Munich. Before joining UGA's faculty, he held departmental appointments at the University of Minnesota and Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia, where he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, and he graduated from Harvard College as the Latin Salutatorian.