News

Daniel Mendelsohn, who received his doctorate in Classics in 1994, has been awarded one of the two most distinguished honors Princeton bestows on alumni, the Madison Medal. Daniel’s accomplishments as a writer, critic, and scholar inspire pride and gratitude in equal measure.

Mendelsohn demonstrates and exemplifies the many ways in which classical texts transform the lives of their readers.

Alice Oswald visited Princeton on October 2–4, 2017 as the speaker for the first Robert Fagles Lecture for Classics in the Contemporary Arts. Oswald’s love of the Classics and her deft, thoughtful, and welcoming treatment of Homer’s work strike many of the same notes as Robert Fagles’ translations. By giving these works life, putting long-winged phrases back into the air, Oswald demonstrates the unbroken connection we have with the ancient world.

Whether traveling with students on a summer course, serving on the judging panel of a book contest, researching a new book or simply putting their feet up, professors — like book lovers everywhere — think carefully about what to read each summer. Dan-el Padilla Peralta, assistant professor of Classics, is one of six professors who shared their reading lists.

Congratulations to Robert Kaster, Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin Language and Literature, on receiving the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at commencement exercises held on June 6, 2017. Kaster, who has served on the faculty since 1997, is a widely known classicist specializing in Latin literature and language.

It was Grant Storey’s love of languages that drew him to computer programming in middle school and Latin in high school. But it was his time at Princeton that allowed him to examine the intersections between these two seemingly unrelated fields — computer science and classics.

Joshua Katz, Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics, has been awarded the Institute of Classical Studies' Dorothy Tarrant Fellowship for 2017–18. Commemorating the contribution of a pioneering figure in UK classics, the fellowship is awarded to senior scholars from universities outside the UK with research interests in any field of classical studies.

Congratulations to Ayelet Wenger, class of 2017, on being awarded the Keasbey Scholarship, which provides the opportunity to study at selected British universities. Ayelet will pursue an M.Phil. in Judaism and Christianity in the Graeco-Roman World at the University of Oxford.

We invite you to read assistant professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta’s article on immigration in The Trump Era, published in the Princeton Alumni Weekly.

In a message to the Princeton community on January 27, President Chris Eisgruber responded to last Friday’s federal executive order barring entry into the US to refugees and citizens of seven nations in Africa and the Middle East.