Education

• 1982-87, Ph.D., Comparative Literature, Princeton University
• l976-80, B.A., Classics, Yale University (magna cum laude)

Fellowships and Awards

• Birkelund Fellowship, Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library (2010-11)
• Biography Fellowship, Leon Levy Center for Biography (2010-11; declined)
• NEH Summer Stipend (2009)
• Center for Hellenic Studies Junior Fellowship ('99-2000) for work on "Ancient Greek views of India"
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1999) for work on "Ancient Greek views of India"
• Long-term NEH Fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library (Providence, R.I., Fall semester 1993) for research on the Renaissance Classical tradition
• NEH Summer Stipend (Summer 1993)

Employment

• 2005- James H. Ottaway, Jr. Professor of Classics, Bard College
• 2000-2005, James H. Ottaway Associate Professor of Classics, Bard College
• 1996-99, Visiting Associate Professor of Classics, Fordham University
• 1990-96, Assistant Professor of Classics, Bard College
• 1987-90, Townsend Assistant Professor of Classics, Cornell University

Interests and Specializations

Greek and Macedonian history and politics; Herodotus; Geography and natural science

Languages

Ancient Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian

Publications

Books

• Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire, forthcoming; Knopf, N.Y. 2011
• The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander, and illustrated and annotated edition of the Anabasis (tr. Pamela Mensch), Pantheon, N.Y. 2010
• Alexander the Great: Selections from Diodorus, Plutarch, Quintus Curtius,and Arrian (edited, with introduction and notes; translated by Pamela Mensch and James Romm; forthcoming, Hackett Publications, Spring 2005)
• Herodotus: On the War for Greek Freedom (edited, with notes and introduction; translated by Samuel Shirley; Hackett Publishing, 2002)
• Herodotus, a study in the Hermes series, ed. John Herington (Yale University Press, 1998).
• The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction (Princeton University Press, 1992; paperback edition, 1994).

Articles 1. On Greek and Roman Literature and Science

• "Alexander and the Greek," "Alexander's Army and Military Leadership," "Alexander's Geographic Notions" and "Arrian's Life and Works," appendices to The Landmark Arrian, ed. J. Romm (N.Y. 2010)
• "Climates, Continents and Cultures: Greek Theories of Global Structure," forthcoming in Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-modern Societies, edd. K. Raaflub and R. Talbert (Blackwell, 2010), pp. 215-35.
• "Travel and Exploration in the Ancient Novel," in The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, ed. Tim Whitmarsh (Cambridge 2008).
• "Herodotean Geography," appendix to The Landmark Herodotus, ed. R. Strassler (N.Y. 2007).
• "Georgraphy as Eschatology: Greek Alexander Lore and the Eastern Limits of India," in Ancient India in its Wilder World, edd. G. Parker and C. Sinopoli (U. Michigan Press 2007).
• "From Babylon to Baghdad: Teaching Alexander in the Post-9/ 11 Era, "CW 100 (2007) 431-5.
• "Herodotus and the Natural World," in The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus, edd. John Marincola and Carolyn Dewald.
• "Alex in Wonderland: Greece and Rome at the Edges of the Earth," Oxymoron 2 (1998) 11-12.
• "Strabo," reference article in Ancient Greek Authors (Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 176), ed. Ward W. Briggs Jr. (Detroit 1997) 359-62.
• "Eratosthenes," "Strabo," reference articles in The Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy, edd. D. Zeyl, P. Mitsis, A. Laks (Westport, Ct. 1997), 220-1 and 536-7.
• "Dog-Heads and Noble Savages: Cynicism before the Cynics," in The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy for Europe, edd. Bracht Branham and Marie Odile Goulet-Caze (University of California Press, 1996).
• "Novels beyond Thule: Antonius Diogenes, Rabelais, Cervantes," in The Search for the Ancient Novel, ed. James Tatum (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) 101-116.
• "Alexander, Biologist: Oriental Monstrosities in the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem," in Discovering New Worlds: Essays in Medieval Exploration and Imagination, ed. S. Westrem (Garland Medieval Casebooks #2, N.Y. 1991) 16-30.
• "The Shape of Herodotus' World," in Norton Critical Edition of Herodotus: The Histories, edd. W. Blanco and J. Roberts (Norton, 1992) 323-7.
• "Aristotle's Elephant and the Myth of Alexander's Scientific Patronage," AJP 110 (1990) 566-75.
• "Wax, Stone, and Promethean Clay: Lucian as Plastic Artist," Classical Antiquity 9 (1990) 74-98.
• "Herodotus and Mythic Geography: The Case of the Hyperboreans," TAPA 119 (1989) 97-117.
• "Lucian and Plutarch as Sources for Kepler's Somnium," Class. and Modern Lit. 9 (1989) 97-107.

Articles 2. On the Renaissance Classical Tradition

• "Myth, Maps and History: Abraham Ortelius and Plato's Atlantis," in Abraham Ortelius, Humanist and Cartographer (catalogue of Ortelius exhibition at the Museum Plantin Moretus, Antwerp) 1998.
• "A New Forerunner of Continental Drift," Nature 367 (Feb. 3, 1994) 407-8.
• "New World and novos orbes: Seneca in the Renaissance Debate over Ancient Knowledge of the Americas," in vol. 1 of The Classical Tradition and the Americas, edd. Meyer Reinhold and W. Haase (De Gruyter, 1994) 78-116.
• "Abraham Ortelius as Classical Humanist: The 16th-century Debate over Ancient Discoveries of the Americas," Allegorica 15 (1994) 49-69.
• "More's Strategy of Naming in the Utopia," The 16th Century Journal 22 (1991) 173-83; reprinted in vol. 12 of Great Political Thinkers, edd. J.M. Dunn and Ian Harris.

Articles/Books 3. Forthcoming or In Preparation

• "The Atlantis Myth in 19th-century America," forthcoming in America's Classical Greece, ed. W. Haase (De Gruyter).
• "Columbus and King Solomon: The Biblical Ophir and the Discovery of the Americas," forthcoming from Berghahn Books in a collection of papers from the "Jews and the Expansion of Europe" conference (John Carter Brown Library 1997)

Public Lectures

• Keynote address at "Other Worlds" conference, U. of Pennsylvania, upcoming (Feb. 2000)
• Keynote address at conference on Ethnography in the early Empire, U. of Chicago, upcoming (Feb. 2000)
• "King Solomon in the Americas? The Problem of Ophir in Medieval and Renaissance Hermeneutics," upcoming in the Harvard Medieval Studies Colloquium (November 1999)
• "Greeks and Indian Brahmans: The Mysterious Deaths of Calanus and Zarmanochegas," U. of Chicago Ancient Societies seminar (May 1999), Fordham U. Classics Colloquium (May 1999)
• "The Americas and Biblical History: The Sacred Geography of the World," U. of Minnesota (Nov. 1998).
• "Postcards from the Edge: The Greek and Roman Ethnographic Utopias," Brown U. conference on Utopias and Imaginary Worlds, March 1998.
• "The Things of the Mother: Hellenizing and Cross-dressing among Herodotus' Scythians," Bryn Mawr Classics Colloquium, March 1998; CUNY Classics colloquium, May 1997.
• "Nomos Basileia: The Scythian-Amazon marriage in Herodotus," APA Convention 1997.
• "Alexander the Great: Kingship and Cosmic Order," AIA Symposium, Bronxville, N.Y. March 1997.
• "Seneca and Columbus: Classical Sources for the Discovery of the Americas," John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R.I., Oct. 1993; Center for Literary and Cultural Studies, Harvard, Jan. 1992; APA Convention 1992.
• "The Atlantis Myth in the Americas," Montclair State College, Upper Montclair, N.J., Dec. 1992.
• "Sources of the Nile in Greco-Roman Literature and Science," APA Convention 1993.
• "Alexander as Anti-Hero in the Alexander Romance," APA Convention 1991.

Administrative Service

• Co-organizer, Fordham Honors Program for freshmen, 1996-97
• Director of Bard First-year Seminar program (a required humanities course), Fall 1991 and Spring 1995; supervised recruitment and organization of 20 faculty members teaching 320 students
• Co-organizer and co-teacher, "Initiation to Classical Culture" program, Cornell University, 1988-90

Professional Service

• Organizer and Chair of panel on "The Classics as Counter-culture: Subversion, Challenge and Rebellion in the Classical Tradition," scheduled for 1998 APA Convention.
• Member of APA Committee on the Classical Tradition (term started December 1995)
• Chair of "Greek Historiography" panel at APA-AIA convention, December 1996
• Representative to ad hoc APA Committee on Graduate Travel Awards (1993-4)
• Referee for manuscripts submitted to TAPA, Classical World, Arion, St. Martin's Press
• Member of APA, CAAS, Institute for the Classical Tradition, New York Classical Club

References

• Deborah Boedeker, Director, Center for Hellenic Studies, 3100 Whitehaven St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20008
• Diskin Clay, Dept. of Classical Studies, Duke U., Durham, N.C. 27708
• Harry Evans, Dept. of Classics, 234 Administration, Fordham U., Bronx, N.Y. 10458
• Robert Fagles, Dept. of Comparative Literature, 318 East Pyne, Princeton U., Princeton, N.J. 08544
• David Konstan, Depts. of Classics and Comparative Literature, Brown U., Providence, R.I. 02912
• Charles Segal, Depts. of Classics and Comparative Literature, Harvard U., Cambridge, MA 02138
• David Sider, Dept. of Classics, 233 Administration, Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y. 10458
• Froma Zeitlin, Dept. of Classics, 104 East Pyne, Princeton U., Princeton, N.J. 08544