GitHub github.com/pletcher
Charles Pletcher, PhD
Research Software Engineer
Lausanne, VD, Switzerland
ancient tragedy, materiality, messenger speeches, reception studies, digital humanities, marxism
Education
2016 - 2023
Columbia University
Classics/Comparative Literature
PhD
Dissertation: Props and Power: Objects and economies of knowledge in four plays of Sophocles
September 2012 - June 2013
Dartmouth College
Comparative Literature
AM
January 2010 - May 2012
Brown University
Classics (honors) and Comparative Literature
AB
July 2007 - June 2009
Deep Springs College
Current projects
- Ajax Multi-Commentary link
- Deception in Sophocles
- The history and form of commentaries
- Credibility in tragic messengers' speeches
Publications
- Under review: “Repetition (Antígona's Version): Anastrophē and sonata form in Griselda Gambaro's Antígona furiosa”
- Near submission: “Theasthe pantes! Visual limitations and narrative distortions in Sophocles' Trachiniae”
- In progress: “Sophoclean Similarities: Towards a computational methodology for comparing dialogue in tragedy” data
- In progress: “Speaking like a spectator: Points of view in tragic messengers' speeches from Aeschylus' Persians to Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus”
Select talks
- SCS 2024: Write what you know: Enabling open, collaborative publications with commercial tools
- Columbia University Classics Colloquium, 2022:* The Power of the God: Owning the Bow in Sophocles' Philoctetes
- AMPRAW 2021: Hippolytus Three Ways: the limits of sight and sound in a fatal crash
- SCS 2021: How to Read with Hypertext: Building and Using New Alexandria
Academic Employment
University of Lausanne
September 2023 – present: Research Software Engineer, Institute of Archaeology and Classical Studies
Columbia University
September 2021 - May 2023: Preceptor, Literature Humanities
September 2018 - May 2020: Instructor, Elementary Latin II, Intermediate Latin I, Elementary Greek I & II
September 2017 - May 2018: Teaching assistant, Classical Myth, Intermediate Greek (Plato's Symposium)
Other Employment
Archimedes Digital
September 2018 - July 2021
Senior Software Engineer (contract)
- Built reading environment for New Alexandria Foundation
- Built annotation tool for CTS-compliant texts
The Flatiron School
February 2016 - August 2016
Technical Curriculum Lead
- Led project for algorithmically triaging GitHub issues (using TF-IDF and the Python NLTK) — cut issue response rate in half and eliminated orphaned issues
- Wrote introductory JavaScript curriculum
- Oversaw technical development of Flatiron's curricula, including courses on Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Introductory Computer Science (with Java), and iOS development
Assembly
June 2014 - December 2016
Engineer
https://github.com/assemblymade
Assembly created a platform for crowd-building software, enabling community-owned development of new products.- Contributed to an automated concierge platform built on Slack (using AWS Lambda)
- Refactored Assembly's chat platform (https://github.com/asm-products/landline-web)
- Built Assembly's payments platform for distributing project income to contributors (https://github.com/asm-products/payments)
Kosmix (@WalmartLabs)
September 2009 - April 2014
Relevance Analyst (intern, contract, 2009-2011), Software Engineer (intern, contract, 2011-2013), SWE III (full-time, 2013-2014)
Kosmix built a search engine on top of a unique taxonomy of entities. Walmart acquired Kosmix (which became @WalmartLabs) in 2011.Volunteer
Telluride Association
June 2011 - June 2019
Trustee
https://tellurideassociation.org
The Telluride Association is an educational non-profit that runs scholarship programs at Cornell and the University of Michigan focused on building democratic, self-governing communities.- ITAC (chair, 2015 - 2018): Maintain the Association's online presence
- Telluride Association – Deep Springs Liaison (chair, 2014 - 2017): Facilitated communications between the Association and Deep Springs College, and maintain a record of shared institutional history
Languages
- Spanish – advanced
- Ancient Greek – advanced
- Latin – advanced
- French – intermediate
- Italian – intermediate
- Catalan – reading
- German – reading