Richter1

DANIEL S. RICHTER

Associate Professor of Classics, University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA 90089

tel. 213-740-3676 – e-mail.

Research and Teaching Interests

Cultural History of the Hellenistic and Early Roman Empires; Stoicism; the Classical Tradition, Genealogy, Ethnicity

Education

  • Ph.D. The University of Chicago. June 2001, Classical Languages and Literatures

Dissertation: Ethnography, Archaism, and Identity in the Early Roman Empire

  • Universität Heidelberg. October 1998 – July 1999, Leibniz Seminar fürNachleben der Antike
  • M.A. Columbia University. December 1993, Department of Religion (thesis awarded Distinction)

Thesis: The Matron Lucina, An Analysis of a Hagiographic Topos

  • B.A. Vassar College. May 1992, Department of Classics (with honors)
  • The Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Fall 1990

Employment

  • University of Southern California, Department of Classics, Associate Professor (2011-present); Assistant Professor (2005-2011)
  • Northwestern University, Department of Classics, Visiting Assistant Professor (2002-2005)
  • Princeton University, Department of Classics, Lecturer (2001-2002)
  • University of Chicago, Department of Classics, Lecturer (1998, 2001)

Awards and Fellowships

  • General Education Teaching Prize, USC (2010)
  • Fellow, Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington D.C. (2009)
  • USC Faculty Development Grants (2006-20015)
  • Faculty Affiliate, The Kaplan Center for the Humanities, Northwestern University (2004-2005)
  • Faculty Honor Roll for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Northwestern University (2005, 2004, & 2003)
  • Teaching Prize, Department of Classics, Northwestern University (2003)
  • Johnstone Fellow, The Franke Institute for the Humanities, The University of Chicago (1999-2000)
  • Fellow, Leibniz Seminar fürNachleben der Antike, Universität Heidelberg (1998-1999)
  • Paul Shorey Fellowship in Classical Studies, The University of Chicago (1995-1998)
  • University Fellowship, The University of Chicago (1995-1998)
  • Edward Ryerson Travel Fellowship in Classical Archaeology, University of Chicago (Summer 1996)

Publications

Books

Cosmopolis: Imagining Community in Late Classical Athens and the Early Roman Empire (Oxford University Press 2011).

  • The Oxford Handbook to the Second-Sophistic [co-editor with William A. Johnson] (Oxford University Press, under contract, est. publication date 2016).
  • IN PROGRESS: The Author’s Barbarian: The Lives and Afterlives of Lucian of Samosata.

Refereed Articles and Book Chapters

  • “Lucian’s Games with the Name(s) of the Syrian Goddess,” in S. McElduff and E. Sciarrino (eds.) Complicating the History of Western Translation: The Ancient Mediterranean Perspective (Manchester, UK 2011) 131-45.
  • “Lives and Afterlives of Lucian of Samosata,” Arion (2005) 13.1:75-99.
  • “Plutarch on Isis and Osiris: Text, Cult, and Cultural Appropriation," Transactions of the American Philological Association (TAPA) (2001)131:191-216.
  • In the Oxford Handbook to the Second Sophistic (forthcoming 2016): “Lucian” (8,000 words); “Cosmopolitan Thought” (8,500 words); “Introduction” [with William Johnson] (2,000 words).

Book Reviews and Translations

  • Review of Lawrence Kim,Homer Between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature (Cambridge University Press 2010) Classical Philology (2012) 107.3:271-75.
  • Review of Tim Whitmarsh, (ed.) Local knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World (Cambridge University Press 2010) Phoenix (2012) 66.1-2: 207-9.
  • Review of Maria Pretzler, Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece (London 2007) Journal of Hellenic Studies (2009) 129: 200-1.
  • Review of Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton and Oxford 2004) Classical Philology (2006) 101.3: 287-91.
  • Review of Thomas Schmidt, Plutarque et les Barbares: La rhétoriqued'une image. (Louvain 1999)Plutarchos 17.2 (Spring 2001).
  • Translation from German: Franz Alto Bauer, "Urban Space and Ritual: Constantinople in Late Antiquity,"Acta ad archaeologiam et atrium historiampertinentia (2001) 15: 27-61.

Selected Invited & Refereed Lectures

2015

  • “Pneuma and Empire: Stoic Cosmopolitanism in the Roman Oration and the Panathenaicus of Aelius Aristides,” Grenoble, France.
  • “So, what are these things about oak and stone?” An Ancient Genealogical proverb and its Problems,” Patras, Greece.
  • “Eloquentiagraeca, patria barbara: Nature and Culture in the Second Sophistic,” Gothenburg, Sweden.

2014

  • “Who is the God of the Jews? Syncretism and Cosmopolitanism in Plutarch’s Table Talks,” International Plutarch Conference, Delphi, Greece.

2013

  • “The Descent of Fiction, The Fiction of Descent: Genealogy Between Fact and Fiction in the Early Roman Empire” Claremont, CA.

2011

  • “Concerning Oak and Stone: An Ancient Genealogical Proverb,” Keynote Address, Undergraduate Research Conference UC Irvine.
  • “’As if it were a single polis’': Aelius Aristides (with a little help from Isocrates) Invents the Roman World,” USC/UCLA Greek Studies Symposium
  • “The Idea of the Classical Polis in the Early Roman Empire,” [Response to Claudia Rapp] California State, Long Beach

2010

  • “Cosmopolitan Polytheism: Early Imperial Encounters with the Foreign Divine,” Chicago-Paris Workshop on Ancient Religions, Paris

2009

  • “How Not to Translate: Lucian’s Games with the Name(s) of the Syrian Goddess,” The Society for Biblical Literature, Rome
  • “With Un-perfumed Voice: A Paper in Honor of Frederick Brenk,” The Society of Biblical Literature, Rome
  • “Can Virtue Be Taught?: Lineage and Nobility in Plato’s Meno,” The Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC

2008

  • “The Meaning of Birth as a Criterion of Identity in the Post-Classical Mediterranean,” The Ancient Mediterranean World Workshop, University of Southern California
  • “Black Athena in the Early Roman Empire,” African Athena: Black Athena 20 Years On, University of Warwick, UK

2007

  • “Striking Close to Home: Lucian on the Ignorant (and Syrian) Book Collector,” The University of Cincinnati

2005

  • “Beg, Borrow, or Steal: Travelers and the Origins of Greek Wisdom,” Ohio State University
  • “The Ethnic Identity of Paideia,” University of Southern California

2004

  • “Light and Roman Memory: Photographs by Shimon Attie,” The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago
  • “Irony and the Oriental Mind: Reading and Writing Syrian Identity in the Greek World,” Colloquium on Ethnicity, Identity and Empire, Northwestern University
  • “The Baby and the Bathwater: Ancient and Modern Claims for Lucian’s ‘Oriental Character,” The Workshop on Ancient Societies, The University of Chicago
  • “Religion, Repression, and Fear: The Cult of Dionysus in Italy in the Late Roman Republic,” Northern Illinois University

2003

  • “Ethnography, Barbarism and the Sacred: Lucian’s De Syria Dea,” Consortium on Ancient Religion, Ohio State University

2002

  • “A Eunuch for all Seasons: Favorinus between Greece and Rome,” The University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • “Favorinus’ Corinthian Oration between Greece and Rome,” Northwestern University
  • “Greeks, Barbarians and Sophists: Language and Cultural Identity in the Hellenistic and Early Roman Periods," Pennsylvania State University
  • “Genos and Identity in the Second Sophistic,” New York University

2001

  • “Language, Ethnicity, and Identity in Lucian of Samosata and Isaeus the Syrian Sophist," Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Santa Clara University

2000

  • "Lucian of Samosata and the Canonization of Cult," The Rhetoric and Poetics Workshop, The University of Chicago
  • "'Isis is a Greek Word': Plutarch and the Gods of the Barbarians," "Hellenism, History, and Ethnography in the Early Roman Empire," The Franke Institute for the Humanities, The University of Chicago
  • "Imperial Paideia: The Seven Wise Men and the Origins of Greek Wisdom," The Rhetoric and Poetics Workshop, The University of Chicago

1999

  • "Lucian’s Learned Barbaros: Parodying Diatribe in the AdversusIndoctum," American Philological Association, Dallas

1997

  • "Socrates’ Homeric Allusion at Apology 34d: 'I was not born from the oak or the rock'," American Philological Association, Chicago
  • "Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride: A History of Religion in Antiquity," The Workshop on Ancient Societies, The University of Chicago
  • "The Performance of Foundation Legends in Late Antique Christian Hagiography," The Workshop on Ancient Societies, The University of Chicago

1996

  • "A Reevaluation of the Homeric Simile: Achilles Beneath the Walls," American Philological Association, New York

1995

  • "The Matron Lucina, An Analysis of a Hagiographic Topos," American Philological Association, San Diego

Conferences, Series and Panels Organized and Chaired

  • Session Chair: “With Un-perfumed Voice: studies in Plutarch, in Greek literature, religion and philosophy, and in the New Testament background,” Panel in honor of Frederick Brenk, SJ, Society for Biblical Literature, Rome, Italy July 2009
  • Session Chair: Chicago/Paris Working Group on Ancient Religions, Paris, October 2009
  • Session Chair: “Post-Classical Greek Literature,” Panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association, January 2009
  • Session Chair: “The Classical Tradition,” Panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association, January 2008
  • Session Chair: “The Spirit Within: Inspiration, Possession, and Disease in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin,” University of Chicago, March 2005
  • Organizer, “Myth in Film” series, Northwestern University, Fall 2004
  • Organizer, Colloquium series of six papers on Ethnicity, Identity and Empire, Northwestern University, Spring 2004
  • Organizer and Chair, “Hellenism, History, and Ethnography in the Early Roman Empire,” The Franke Institute for the Humanities, The University of Chicago, February 2000
  • Session Chair: “Woman as Widow: Historical Perspectives in Pre-Industrial Societies,” The University of Chicago, May 1997

Courses Taught

Lectures

  • Diversity in the Classical Western Tradition (USC)
  • Hellenistic Civilization (Princeton)
  • Classical Mythology (Northwestern, USC)
  • Roman Civilization (Northwestern, USC)
  • Greek Antiquity and its Legacy (University of Chicago’s Athens Program)

Seminars

  • Ancient Genealogical Thought (Graduate, USC)
  • Fascination with Variety (Undergraduate Honors College, USC)
  • Lucian’s Past: Classicism and Atticism in the Second Century (Graduate, USC)
  • Ethnicity, Culture, and Authority in the Post-Classical World (Graduate, USC)
  • Post-Classical Greek Literature (Undergraduate, Princeton)
  • Roman Satire (Undergraduate, Northwestern)
  • Utopian Thought: Ancient and Modern (Undergraduate, Northwestern, USC)
  • Ethnicity and Culture in the Ancient Mediterranean (Undergraduate, Northwestern)

Language (in addition to first-year Latin and Greek)

  • Cicero (USC)
  • Catullus and Horace (Princeton)
  • Lucian of Samosata (University of Chicago)
  • Herodotus (Northwestern)
  • Homeric Epic (Princeton and Northwestern)

University and Professional Service

  • USC Academic Senate, Nominating Committee Member (Spring 2014)
  • Dornsife Representative to USC Academic Senate (2013-14)
  • USC Dornsife College Faculty Council, Member (2012-2014)
  • Director of Graduate Studies, Classics, USC (2012 – present)
  • Faculty Committee, Provost’s Initiatives in the Arts & Humanities, USC (2011-12)
  • College Post-Doctoral Fellowship Committee, USC 2011
  • College Doctoral Fellowship Committee, USC 2011
  • Advisory Board Member, Thematic Options Program, USC (2011-present)
  • Director of Undergraduate Studies, Classics, USC (2006-2008; 2010-2011)
  • Faculty Mentor, McNair Scholars Program, USC (Summer 2006)
  • Session Chair, USC Thematic Options Undergraduate Research Symposium (2006, 2007, 2010)
  • Interviewing Member, USC, Classics Department Faculty Search (2006, 2007, 2009)
  • Graduate Admissions Committee, USC (2006-2013)
  • Merit Review Committee, USC (2006, 2008)
  • Classics Department Library Liaison, USC (2006-2008)
  • Willard Faculty Fellow, Willard Residential College, Northwestern (2002-2005)
  • Steering Committee Member, Classical Traditions Initiative, Northwestern (2003-2005)
  • Director of the Undergraduate Language Program, Northwestern (2003-2004)
  • Classics Department Teaching Assistant Coordinator, Northwestern (2003-2004)
  • Referee for Classical Philology, Classical Antiquity, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Oxford University Press, Ramus

11/2015