About the faculty of the
Department of Greek and Roman Classics
Martha Davis, Associate Professor, received degrees in Classics and English from Florida State University, and the PhD in Classics from Cornell University. Her research is in Latin Poetry, particularly post-Augustan epic. She regularly teaches courses in Latin, comparative mythology, the ancient city, and Sacred Space (General education Arts). In 2004 Martha Davis was a winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Philological Association. Dr. Davis is Chair of the Board of Eta Sigma Phi, national undergraduate honorary society for Classics, and co-sponsors
the local chapter, Zeta Beta, with Dr. Karen Hersch. Dr. Davis is also the adviser for the Department. 204-8202. madavis@temple.eduKaren Klaiber Hersch, Assistant Professor, received her B.A. in Classics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, her M.A. in Classics from Tufts University and her Ph.D. in Classics from Rutgers University. Her research interests include Roman religion, Roman social history and imperial Latin literature. She is currently working on her book The Roman Wedding, a revision of her dissertation. She teaches courses in Latin, Roman literature, Women in Antiquity, Sacred Space, Roman religion and Intellectual Heritage. Dr. Hersch is co-adviser of Eta Sigma Phi, the National Classics Honor Society. Her publications include a review of Ittai Gradel's Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford, 2002) in the Journal of Roman Studies, and an article in the classical journal Arethusa entitled Violentilla Victa, a study of the depiction of the uniquely independent bride Violentilla in Statius. She works with Dr. Davis as co-adviser of Eta Sigma Phi. During 2004-5 Dr. Hersch held a Faculty Fellowship in Temple's Society of Fellows in the Humanities. khersch@temple.edu
Eric Kondratieff, Senior Lecturer, earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Ancient History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he wrote his dissertation on Popular Power in Action: Tribunes of the Plebs in the Later Republic. While at Penn, Eric taught a wide range of courses in Greek and Roman history, archaeology, topography and Latin. One of the co-authors for the book Mapping Augustan Rome (Journal of Roman Archaeology, Suppl. 50), he has also published articles in Roman numismatics, a continuing research interest for nearly two decades. He is currently working on a revision of his dissertation for publication, and on articles exploring the intersection of Augustan coinage as commemorative art and as evidence for other commemorative art. His other (current) research interests include Greek and Roman historiography, epigraphy and economy. ekondrat@temple.edu
Daniel Markovic, Lecturer. He received a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His most recent appointment was as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Illinois Wesleyan University. His main fields of interest are Greco-Roman rhetoric, Epicurean and Stoic philosophy, and Latin poetry. Recently he has published an article on the rhetorical role of hyperbaton in Greek literary sentence, and a comparative literary study on the role of maxim in archaic Greek lyric poetry and South Slavic lyric poems. His two miscellanea forthcoming in Mnemosyne elucidate Lucretius' use of his literary and philosophical sources at 1.471-7 and 1.638-44. His book The Rhetoric of Explanation in Lucretius' De rerum natura is coming out in summer 2008 in Mnemosyne Supplements. He is currently working on the image of the world as an orrery in Latin poetry and philosophica. daniel.markovic@temple.edu.
Robin Mitchell-Boyask, Professor and Chair, received his B.A. In Classics from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Brown University. He teaches courses in the Greek and Latin languages, classical mythology, ancient epic and Greek drama. He has won the Ketels Award for teaching in Intellectual Heritage and the Eleanore Hofkin Award for Excellence in Teaching from CLA. Robin serves as Web Editor of the American Philological Association. His research interests include Greek drama, Homer, Vergil and Comparative Literature, and he has published a number of articles on Euripides, Sophocles, the Aeneid, and comparative approaches to Greek tragedy. His book, Approaches to Teaching the Dramas of Euripides was published by the MLA in 2002, and Focus issued his translation and commentary on Euripides' Hecuba in 2006. His monograph Plague and the Athenian Imagination: Drama, History, and the Cult of Asclepius, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008, and his study of the Eumenides of Aeschylus also appears in 2008 with Duckworth. Future plans include a book on the function of the horse in ancient epic. He has been a Junior Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, and, during 2005, he was a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. 204-3672. His complete vita is available. robin@temple.edu
Laura Samponaro, Lecturer. Laura received her Ph.D. in Classics from Columbia University where she taught classes in Latin and Contemporary Civilization, a core curriculum course required for all Columbia undergraduates. Her interests include classical rhetoric and Roman republicanism. In her dissertation, a study of the development of Ciceronian ethos, she analyzed the connections between Cicero’s politics and his Latin style. She is currently working on the publication of individual chapters as articles and on the entire manuscript for a book on classical republicanism. laura.samponaro@temple.edu
Daniel P. Tompkins, Associate Professor, earned his B.A. at Dartmouth College and his Ph. D. at Yale University. He has written reviews and essays on Homer, Thucydides, Wallace Stevens, and the ancient city, and is currently working on Thucydidean historiography and language. He teaches courses on the history of slavery, the ancient city, Greek language, and the western intellectual tradition. Dr. Tompkins also has won the Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Philological Association. His website is available now. 204-4900, pericles@temple.edu
PEGGY SHADDING is the department secretary. 204-8267.
Affiliated Faculty
Jane Evans is Associate Professor of Art History. Her doctorate is from the University of Pennsylvania, and her research areas are Art of Ancient Rome, Art of Ancient Greece, History of Crafts (to the Industrial Revolution). During the summer she participate in an excavation of the small Gallo-Roman town of Javols, France, under the direction of Alain Ferdieres, Universite de Tours. Temple students join Dr Evans in the work.
Vasiliki Limberis is Associate Professor of Religion. She received her doctorate from Harvard. Dr. Limberis is trained in the History of Ancient Christianity and is fascinated by the interplay of religious cultures -- pagan, Christian, Jewish -- in the first five centuries of the common era. Her teaching reflects a wide variety of themes, but invariably lands on the two most volatile centuries, the first and the fourth, when the power of the Roman state brings the most to bear on the varieties of religions in the Mediterranean. In addition, her teaching interests have expanded to include the visual arts of the period, iconography, sculptural arts, Roman painting, and mosaics. Dr. Limberis' main topic of research is the Cappadocian Fathers. She is currently researching the imbrication of "family" in Late Antiquity and Christianity.
David Wolfsdorf, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Ph.D. University of Chicago, specializes in Greek philosophy. His book Trials of Reason: Plato and the Crafting of Philosophy is forthcoming (OUP, 2007). He has published many articles on Greek philosophy with a particular focus on Plato. He is currently working on Greek philosophical treatments of pleasure and its relation to goodness.
GHR Classics is located on the third floor of Anderson Hall.
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