Behind the Book: Q&A with Dr. T.H.M Gellar-Goad

By Erin Marlow, Communications Specialist in the Office of the Dean of the College

Dr. T.H.M. Gellar-Goad, Professor of Classics, recently published Masks with Punctum Books. As the first book-length examination of masks since 2020, Dr. Gellar-Goad’s work offers a new look into the many ways masks have been used across time and cultures. While masks have garnered significant attention in recent years, Dr. Gellar-Goad uncovers their enduring significance as symbols rich in meaning.

Dr. Gellar-Goad recently spoke with the Dean’s Office about the origins of the book and his current research.

What or who inspired you to write this book?

Fellow Wake Forest professor Susan Harlan! She gave a great talk years ago about her book Luggage, a study of the hidden life of an everyday object. After her talk, I thought to myself, “If I were going to do a book on an object, what would I do?” I settled on masks because of the ways masks are used in my area of specialization, ancient Greek and Roman theater and culture. All ancient comedies and tragedies were performed with full-face masks, and the Romans used wax masks to commemorate and reincarnate deceased ancestors.

All of this was pre-COVID. When I got tenure in 2019 and got my first two books published and a third one written, I could finally think about what I wanted to write just to write — and, one day on a walk at Reynolda Trail in August 2020, I remembered the idea for a book about masks. On that walk, I immediately came up with the themes for the first five chapters of the book: masks as tools for make-believe, magic, memory, metamorphosis, and mirroring. It was only on the next day’s walk that I realized, oh yeah, masks are also a big deal right now with the pandemic.

What would you say is your project’s unique contribution to the field?

Masks is the first book-length study of masks to be published since the start of the pandemic. It takes a broad view and identifies six big things masks do across time and across the world. With examples ancient and modern, from over a dozen cultures, including present-day popular culture, it reflects on the ways we interact with masks literally and metaphorically, often without even realizing we are doing so.

What’s next? Can you say a bit more about your most recent projects and your upcoming book?

I’ve just submitted my fifth book, the first-ever monograph on an ancient Roman comedy, Plautus’ Epidicus. I use queer time theory to explain the complex characterization of the play’s main roles, and I use the mathematical concept of fractals as a tool for untangling the play’s storyline, which has been called “the ancient world’s most mind-boggling plot.” I have also just turned in the first volume of what will be a seven-volume series I’m editing of new translations of ancient Greek and Roman comedy. Next up is a book on ancient Roman comedy and the almost-as-ancient sitcom Seinfeld.