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Letter from the Chair Princeton NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS Spring 2007 Letter from the ChairClassics nce again The department’s graduate students Inside this issue… I welcome continue to defy the conventional wisdom News from the Faculty ................................2 Othe op- that graduate school is an angst-ridden portunity to bring and morose phase of life. Their zest and Faculty Bookshelf .........................................5 you up to date on creativity make them a pleasure to work the department’s with. We are delighted to congratulate our Classical Studies ..........................................6 activities over the four job seekers this year, all of whom are last year—and once beginning tenure-track positions in the Senior Theses ..............................................6 fall: Eugenia Lao (Holy Cross), Jon Master again I begin by Graduate News ............................................7 thanking our edi- (Emory), Nate Powers (SUNY-Albany), and Denis Feeney, Chair tor, Marc Domingo Rob Sobak (Bowdoin). Four of our graduate Dissertations ................................................8 Gygax, and our indispensable computer sup- students have won prestigious fellowships port person, Donna Sanclemente, for mak- this year: Kellam Conover (Jacobus), Pauline Tennyson, Tithonus, and the End of the ing the Newsletter happen for the second Leven (Sibley), Jason Pedicone (Javits), and New Sappho ...........................................10 time. As a Latinist, I know that if something Susan Satterfield (Harvey). Our successes happens twice it’s part of the mos maiorum. at the undergraduate and graduate level “Images of Philology” Colloquium ............11 Our remarkable successes in under- are linked, since the faculty are dedicated graduate recruitment and teaching continue to improving their own teaching skills and Alumni News .............................................12 from last year. Compared to the normal those of the graduate students they mentor. In Memoriam ..............................................14 totals of two dozen that we were used to The department enjoys the advantages of be- until very recently, we now have a total of ing simultaneously an intimate environment Lectures ......................................................15 42 concentrators (19 juniors, 23 seniors), and a large collection of specialists covering practically the same as last year’s record of virtually every base in the discipline. 43; we are confident that the trend towards The faculty who do all of this teaching these higher numbers will continue. By and mentoring are still researching and pub- the end of this academic year, we will have lishing at the same time, and you may see taught 775 undergraduates in all of our the latest results in the “Bookshelf” section courses, a figure that is a bit down from (p. 5). We welcome the award-winning teach- last year’s record 920 but still considerably er and renowned historical linguist Joshua above our historic norms. We enjoy not Katz to the tenured ranks of the faculty, and just quantity but continuing quality. One of we salute the promotion of the distinguished our star majors, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, was Greek historian Michael Flower to the salutatorian for the Class of 2006, and Zach- rank of senior research scholar, as a fitting ary Squire was co-winner of the George B. recognition of his outstanding contributions Wood Legacy Sophomore Prize for the Class to the department. We look forward to the of 2008. Three of our majors in the Class of arrival in fall 2007 of two brilliant young 2007 (Marya Grupsmith, Maya Maskarinec, scholars who join us as assistant professors: and Jonathan Pomerantz) are in the top 20 Yelena Baraz, a Latinist, and Brooke Holmes, of the 1,200 students in the graduating class. a Hellenist. Mark Buchan leaves us for a po- We take pride in continuing Princeton’s sition at Columbia University; we wish him tradition of close interactions between under- well and shall miss his distinctive intellectual graduates and faculty: the professors’ doors energy. are open and the corridor hums with energy. See Letter from the Chair on page 10 2. Princeton Classics News from the Faculty Mark Buchan has recently published a book on Homer’s Odyssey, The Limits of Heroism, and is the co-editor of and contributor to a collection of essays on Lacan and antiq- uity. He also contributed an essay on Lacan and Socrates to The Blackwell Companion to Socrates. He has just finished the draft of a book on the difficulty of reading Homer’s Iliad, with chapters on riddles and identity, Mark Buchan Ted Champlin Marc Domingo Gygax Denis Feeney comedy and class struggle, art and politics, and war and desire, as well as articles on Marc Domingo Gygax published articles in sity of Florida-Gainesville; in the summer Euripides’ Medea and the importance of Mètis. Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens, of 2006 he was invited to give the Ronald Thetis’ ignorance in the Iliad. His immediate n.s. 4, 2006 (“Les origines de l’évergétisme. Syme Memorial Lecture at Victoria Univer- future projects include a book on the cur- Échanges et identités sociales dans la cité sity, Wellington, in his homeland of New rent relevance and significance of classical grecque”), Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 32, Zealand, and was able as well to give talks at antiquity, to be co-written with Professor Joy 2006 (“Contradictions et asymétrie dans the other New Zealand classics departments, Connolly; a short book on Herodotus; and a l’évergétisme grec: bienfaiteurs étrangers et at the Universities of Auckland, Canterbury, series of pieces of literary criticism on Greek citoyens entre image et réalité”), Mnemosyne and Otago. In April 2006 he co-organized lyric poetry and tragedy. 59, 2006 (“Plutarch on Alcibiades’ Return the third annual “Corridor Latinfest,” now a ❆ to Athens”), Anatolian Studies 55, 2005 (“‘He fixed part of our calendar, in which faculty who of all mankind set up the most numer- and graduate students from Penn, Rutgers, Last summer Ted Champlin spent two days ous trophies to Zeus’—The Inscribed Pillar Columbia, and Princeton meet for a day- at Sperlonga, on the coast south of Rome, of Xanthos Reconsidered”), and Bulletin of long informal seminar; this time participants and five days on Capri, communing with the American Society of Papyrologists 42, 2005 met at Penn to discuss the poet Phaedrus. the spirit of the emperor Tiberius, who has (“Change and Continuity in the Administra- confirmed his resolve to write a book about tion of Ptolemaic Lycia. A Note on P. Tebt. I ❆ Tiberius on Capri. Three preliminary papers 8”). His most recent work includes an article Andrew Feldherr’s intellectual high points of have since appeared on the Princeton-Stan- on gift exchange for Gerión (forthcoming), the last year were two German conferences ford website: “Tiberian Neologisms,” “Tales another one on Greek euergetism (under over the summer: one in Münster, on the of Brave Ulysses,” and “Odysseus at Rome.” review), and a contribution to a Festschrift in conception of the self in ancient literature, A fourth, “Tiberius the Wise,” will be read honor of Santiago Alcolea on the reception and the other in Freiburg, on the represen- to the New York Classical Club in May and of archaeological discoveries in 19th-cen- tation of a past-within-the-past in ancient posted on the Web immediately thereafter. tury Barcelona (forthcoming). He is also historiography. In addition to his now-even- This semester he and Bob Kaster are enjoy- completing a book on the origins of Greek nearer-completion manuscript on Ovid, ing a graduate seminar on “Culture in the euergetism. This fall he gave a lecture at other research projects included a contribu- Age of Tiberius,” in which Ted is afraid that the University of Pennsylvania on “Rewards tion to the forthcoming Blackwell Companion he has learned far more from the outstand- in Advance: Proleptic Honors in Greek Euer- to Catullus and one on Sallust to The Blackwell ing students than he has taught them. Next getism.” Among other courses, he taught a Companion to Ancient Historiography. He has year he will be on sabbatical leave to work freshman seminar on Greek democracy and also taken on a new editorial task as one of on the book, with a fellowship from the a graduate seminar on the ways ancient his- the co-editors of the first volume (of six!) of National Endowment for the Humanities. torians have been influenced by the theories the Oxford History of Historical Writing. Look- In the meantime, his Nero has appeared in and methods of the main historiographic ing ahead to this year’s smaller projects, he Spanish and Rumanian translations. He schools of the 20th century (historicism, wants to write up some ideas on Horace’s continues to teach and enjoy the old survey positivism, structuralism, poststructuralism, “Cleopatra Ode,” developed during his course warhorses—Roman law last semester, and postmodernism). ongoing graduate seminar, and a paper on the Roman Republic this semester—but the representations of the sublime in Livy. real surprise for him has been two 200-level Denis Feeney’s book of his Sather Lectures, Latin courses that he had never taught be- delivered at Berkeley in spring 2004, was pub- ❆ fore, “Latin Letters” last year and “Invective, lished in the spring by California University Harriet Flower’s book The Art of Forgetting: Slander, and Insult” last semester. Teaching Press as Caesar’s Calendar: Ancient Time and Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Cul- Latin to an enthusiastic group of advanced the Beginnings of History. He also co-authored ture was published at the end of 2006 by the students (13 in the first instance, 19 in the a note on Vergilian acrostics with Damien University of North Carolina Press at Chapel second) for an hour and half twice a week Nelis and a review of Thomas Habinek’s The Hill. This work represents more than a de- was almost pure pleasure, alloyed only by the World of Roman Song with Joshua Katz.
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