Joseph Howley

Joseph A. Howley is an American academic scholar, author and social activist. He is Associate Professor of Classics at Columbia University, where his teaching and research focus on the history of reading, the social life of books, and Roman antiquarian traditions.

Early life and education Howley received a Bachelor of Arts in ancient history and literature from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2005. He continued his studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland earning a Master of Letters in 2007 and completing a Doctor of Philosophy in 2011. His doctoral thesis examined Roman antiquarianism and the cultural role of Aulus Gellius’s Noctes Atticae.

Academic career Howley began his career as a Teaching Fellow in Latin and Classics Studies in the School of Classics at the University of St. Andrews.

Howley joined the Columbia University Department of Classics in 2011 as an assistant professor and was later promoted to associate professor. He teaches Latin, the history of the book, and Literature Humanities in the university’s Core Curriculum He received the Columbia University Faculty Mentoring Award in 2022.

Howley is on academic leave for the 2025–2026 academic year, serving as a fellow at Columbia's Institute for Ideas and Imagination, where he is working on a study of enslaved labor in Roman book culture. During the same year, he serves as President of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he has been a Senior Fellow since 2016.

His first book, Aulus Gellius and Roman Reading Culture: Text, Presence and Imperial Knowledge in the Noctes Atticae, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. The volume examines how Aulus Gellius presented knowledge and identity in the Roman Empire through his Noctes Atticae. The book was reviewed in classical studies journals including Bryn Mawr Classical Review and Acta Classica. Howley has also published articles and book chapters on Latin literature, antiquarianism, and the history of the book.

Activism Howley has been an outspoken Jewish faculty supporter of pro-Palestinian student protests at Columbia. He has written that critics have used antisemitism allegations to suppress campus dissent on Palestine, and has defended students' right to protest in essays in The Nation and other publications.

During the April–May 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia, Howley was among the faculty members who publicly supported the student protesters. He was quoted by the Associated Press describing the university's response to the encampment, and was interviewed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about restrictions on campus access during the protests.

In March 2025, after the detention of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Howley spoke at a press conference defending Khalil. He later published a version of the speech in Literary Hub, writing that "it is always dangerous to speak in public for Palestinian rights, safety, and freedom with your face uncovered and your name declared."

Books