Elaine Fantham to present next Finley Lecture

Elaine Fantham to present next Finley LectureApril 03, 2002

Elaine Fantham, the Giger Professor of Classics at Princeton University from 1986 until her retirement three years ago, will present “Rome, the Undemocratic Republic?” at the second installment of the 2002 Spring Finley Lecture series, 4:30 p.m. April 11 in the Hall of Languages, Room 207. The lecture is free and open to the public.

A lively and engaging speaker, Fantham will explore the nature of Roman government and political institutions during the last years of the republic.

Born in England, Fantham received undergraduate degrees at Oxford University and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Liverpool in 1962. After spending two years at the University of Indiana, she moved to Canada, where she was a member of the faculty at the University of Toronto from 1968 to 1986. A former trustee of the American Academy in Rome, Fantham has been vice president of the Classical Association of Canada and of the American Philological Association. Her primary research interests are Roman comedy and rhetoric, Latin epic, Roman religion and the social history of Roman women.

Her publications include “Roman Literary Culture” (1995), “Women in the Classical World: Image and Text” (1994, with H. Foley et al.), “Studies in Republican Latin Imagery” (1972) and commentaries on Seneca’s “Troades,” Lucan’s “Pharsalia” and Ovid’s “Fasti.” She is coeditor and translator of “Erasmus: The Educational and Literary Works”(1989).

The Finley lecture series is presented by the Classics Department in The College of Arts and Sciences in memory of Moses I. Finley. The lectures are made possible by a contribution from Robert Papworth ’68. Finley ’27 was a SU alumnus who became one of the most influential historians of the 20th century. He enjoyed a long, distinguished career as a professor of ancient history and master of Darwin College at Cambridge University.