RJ Palmer earned a Bachelor of Art, with a Classics Major and Indigenous Studies Minor, magna cum laude from UNC Asheville in 2021. In his bachelors, he pursued an independent research project in experimental archaeology, which investigated the household economics of 4-6th Century BCE Greek textiles. RJ then earned a Master of Art degree and a graduate certificate from the University of Kentucky in 2023, where he taught Latin. His master’s thesis, Ovid’s Caeneus as a Queer Hero: Understanding Gender and Gender Variance in the Ancient Mediterranean, discusses the transgender mythological character Caeneus and Ovid’s treatment of the character in relation to the Ancient Mediterranean. RJ’s broader interests include Latin and Greek poetry, textile archaeology and experimental archaeology, gender in the ancient Mediterranean, the identity of the other in literature, and Greco-Roman mythology.