— Socrates, Cratylus 384a–bThere's an old saying that knowledge of the beautiful comes at great cost.
Faculty Information
Additional Faculty Information for Dalton Sala
Education:
B.A., Hillsdale College, 2020
M.A., Bryn Mawr College, 2022
Ph.D., Bryn Mawr College, 2026
Research Interests:
Augustine; Cicero; ancient philosophy, especially as received in the broader Western tradition; late antiquity; philosophical dialogue; Augustan poetry and Greco-Roman pastoral; ancient rhetoric and grammar; the Vulgate Bible
Articles:
“Do Stage and Actors Matter in Ciceronian Dialogue? The Case for Drama in De finibus.” Under review for Illinois Classical Studies (2027)
“Memory and Menalcas Lost: Textuality in Eclogue IX.44–50.” Philomathes 4, no. 1: 5–21 (2020)
Reviews:
Review of Agnès Vareille, Saint Augustin et l’écriture polyphonique : citations classiques et genèse de la pensée dans la Cité de Dieu. Journal of Early Christian Studies 32, no. 4: 651–653. With Catherine Conybeare (2024)
Papers Presented:
“Do Stage and Actors Matter in Ciceronian Dialogue? The Case for Drama in De finibus.” Second Biennial North American Cicero Awayday, Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, North Carolina; April 12, 2025)
“Ovid’s Grattian Knot. Unraveling Ars Amatoria 1.253–74.” CAMWS-SS, University of Texas at San Antonio (San Antonio, Texas; October 25, 2024)
“Me, Myself, and I: Understanding Der soziative Plural in the Preface to De Officiis III Through Cicero’s Letters.” Virtual CAMWS (May 29, 2020)
Biography
I am a classicist with a broad love for the humanities and liberal arts. I am especially passionate about the history of ideas—the intellectual throughlines that connect us with antiquity. In my dissertation, I examined Augustine’s rehabilitation of Academic skepticism as a Christian hermeneutic, which reverberates in early modern and modern debates about epistemology. I have also written or given talks on Augustan poetry and the philosophical dialogues of Cicero.
I love being in the classroom. I have had the pleasure of instructing a wide variety of students, ranging from middle-schoolers to graduate-level seminarians. Before starting my Ph.D., I taught Latin and music theory at a classical charter school in my home state of Colorado. I have also taught Greek and Latin at Bryn Mawr College as well as rhetoric and ecclesiastical Latin at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary.
Outside academia, I enjoy playing guitar, rock climbing, and watching art-house films. I also delight in the novels of E.M. Forster and Vladimir Nabokov. On sunny afternoons I can often be found walking around Hillsdale with my wife and daughter.