Sather Professor Gregory Nagy Presents Lectures on
Homeric Poetry
By Genevieve Shiffrar
February 4, 2002
For
almost 90 years, the Jane K. Sather Classical Lectures have been given
on campus each year by some of the most distinguished scholars of classical
antiquity the world over. This spring, the Classics Department welcomes
Dr. Gregory Nagy from Harvard University. Professor Nagy will discuss
Homeric poetry and the ways in which it looks upon itself. He will trace
the poetry backwards in time, from the Roman era to the Bronze Age,
on six successive Wednesdays starting February 6.
Dr. Nagy, the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature
and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, as well
as the Director of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington,
D.C. and Curator of the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature,
will spend the spring semester in Berkeley as the Sather Professor of
Classical Literature.
On February 6, Dr. Nagy will give the inaugural talk of the series,
Homer the Classic in the Age of Virgil, at which he hopes to
show that the appreciation of the visual arts tradition enriches appreciation
of the verbal arts. He will discuss ecphrasis, the process of
describing the visual arts in poetry. Although Homeric poetry derived
from oral traditions, which were fluid and ever-changing, Homeric poetry
describes itself as unchanging and rigid as a sculpture. Nagy will incorporate
contemporary film clips, music, and painting to illustrate the lecture.
The talk starts at 8:10pm in 2050 Valley Life Science Building. The
schedule for Professor Nagy's Sather Lectures is as follows:
- Homer the Classic in the Age of Virgil," February 6,
8:10 pm, 2050 Valley Life Sciences
- Homer the Classic in the Age of Callimachus, February 13,
8:10 pm, 2040 Valley Life Sciences
- Homer the Classic in the Age of Plato and Aristotle, February
20, 8:10 pm, 2040 Valley Life Sciences
- Homer the Classic in the Age of Pheidias, February 27, 8:10
pm, 2040 Valley Life Sciences
- Homer in the so-called Dark Age, March 6, 8:10 pm 2040 Valley
Life Sciences
- Homer the"Classic" in the Bronze Age, March 13,
8:10 pm 2040 Valley Life Sciences
Among scholars of classical literature and linguistics, Professor Nagy
is considered one of the very best. According to Robert Knapp, Chair
of the Classics Department, "Gregory Nagy is the outstanding Homerist
in the United States, perhaps the world. His major publication, The
Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry,
is a seminal work in the study of the Homeric tradition and the ways
in which the Homeric poems came to be composed in the form that we have
them today. It has been extremely influential linguistically as well
as in literary circles, both for its approach and for its results."
Professor Nagy has written six other books, edited a number of volumes
and written over 100 articles. He has received numerous honors and has
held many of the most prestigious lectureships offered in the field
of classical antiquity. Dr. Nagy's commitment to undergraduate education
is underscored by his interest in the potential of information technology
to enrich the learning experience as well as in his belief in the benefits
of student writing in undergraduate curricula.
Established by Jane K. Sather over almost 100 years ago, the Sather
Professorship of Classical Literature is the most prestigious all-English
language professorship on a classical subject. The Classics Department
considers candidates from all areas of study in classical antiquity
and selects each Sather Professor three years in advance. The lectures
are published in the Sather Classical Lecture Series, a very distinguished
series of monographs which dates back to 1921 and serves to give the
talks eternal value. Sather Professors also teach a graduate seminar;
select graduate students are provided Sather Assistantships to assist
the Sather Professor in research and preparation of their talks and
graduate seminars.
Genevieve Shiffrar photo
