The Charles Beebe Martin Memorial Lectures
The Martin Lectures Fund was established by gifts of many friends of Professor Charles Beebe Martin ’76, in recognition of his service of more than 40 years as a teacher of Greek and the Fine Arts.
The 2021-22 Charles Beebe Martin Lectures
Esther Eidenow, Chair in Ancient History
Department of Classics and Ancient History
University of Bristol
Title and Dates to be announced soon!
All talks take place in the Craig Lecture Hall of the Oberlin College Science Center (corner of Lorain and Woodland Streets).
The public is cordially invited to a reception after Monday night's lecture.
History and Listing of the Martin Lectures
Volumes I-XXX were published by the Harvard University Press by arrangement with the Martin Classical Lectures Committee. Thereafter a new series was established, with publication by the Princeton University Press.
Each volume, except the first, was delivered by a single individual and accordingly each such volume has its own title.
2001
James J. O’Donnell, University of Pennsylvania
The Lives of Augustine
- Mar. 5: “Death in Hippo”
- Mar. 6: “The Man without Qualities”
- Mar. 8: “The Past Recaptured”
- Mar. 9: “The Tongue Set Free”
2002
Ian Morris, Stanford University
The Greek Economic Miracle
Feb. 11: “The Case of the Missing Capitalists”
Feb. 12: “How the Good Life Got Better in Ancient Greece”
Feb. 14: “Weight of Numbers: the Economic History of the Very Long Term”
Feb. 15: “Making Sense of Miracles”
2003
Gregory Nagy, Harvard University
Masterpieces of Classical Metonomy
Mar. 3: “Music at the Festival”
Mar. 4: “Art and its Attractions”
Mar. 6: “Beauty and its Delicate Creations”
Mar. 7: “Mysteries of Fusion”
2004
Michael Putnam, Brown University
Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace
NS. Vol. VII, Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace (2006)
Mar. 8: “Time and Place”
Mar. 9: “Speech and Silence”
Mar. 11: “Helen”
Mar. 12: “Virgil”
2005
Leslie Kurke, University of California at Berkeley
Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition and Cultural Dialogue in Antiquity
Feb. 28: “The Aesop Tradition and Aesop at Delphi”
Mar. 1: “Aesop as Sage: Political Counsel and Discursive Practice”
Mar. 3: “The Aesopic Parody of High Wisdom”
Mar. 4: “Aesop in Plato and Herodotus, or the Socio-Politics of Prose”
2006
Erich Gruen, University of California at Berkeley
Identity Theft: Cultural Appropriations and Collective Identity in Antiquity
Feb. 27: “Fictitious Kinships”
Feb. 28: “Foundation Legends”
Mar. 2: “Cultural Appropriation and Approbation”
Mar. 3: “Embracing the ‘Other’”
2007
Robin Osborne, The University of Cambridge
The Politics of Pictorial Representation in Early Athenian Democracy
Mar. 5: “Painted Pottery and its History”
Mar. 6: “The Politics of War”
Mar. 8: “Athletics and the Politics of Desire”
Mar. 9: “Pots and Politics”
2008
Joseph Farrell, The University of Pennsylvania
Juno’s Aeneid: Narrative, Metapoetics, Dissent
Feb. 25: “The Choice of Aeneas: Achilles and Odysseus in the Eyes of Homer’s Critics”
Feb. 26: “The Wrath of Jono In Vergil’s Homeric Program”
Feb. 28: “The Vergilian narrator and Augustus’ Culture of Dissent”
Feb. 29: “No Second Troy? Reading with Aeneas”
2009
Christina Kraus, Yale University
Tacitean Polyphonies: The Agricola and its Scholarly Reception
Apr. 13: “The Agricola and the Problem of Genre”
Apr. 14: “In the Castra with the Lead Pipe: The Fetishization of Roman Britain”
Apr. 16: “Which Tacitus? The Agricola and the Career of the Author”
Apr. 17: “The Challenges of Commentary”
2010
Simon Goldhill, Cambridge University
Virgins, Lions, and Honest Pluck: The Victorians and Classical Antiquity
Feb. 22: “Desire and the Classical Body: Victorian Imaging, from Waterhouse to Warhol”
Feb. 23: “Who Killed Chevalier Gluck?”
Feb. 25: “The Most Popular American Book Ever”
Feb. 26: “How Classics Destroyed the Church”
2011
Victoria Wohl, University of Toronto
Euripides and the Politics of Form
Feb. 21: “The Politics of Form”
Feb. 22: “Broken Plays for a Broken World”
Feb. 24: “Beautiful Tears”
Feb. 25: “The End”
2012
Alessandro Barchiesi, University of Siena and Stanford University
The Council of the Gods
Nov. 5: “The Divine Senate”
Nov. 6: “The Council in Hell”
Nov. 8: “A Triadic Model”
Nov. 9: “Adjustment Team”
2013
David Frankfurter, Boston University
Christianizing Egypt: Syncretism and Local Worlds
Nov. 4: “Re-Modeling the Christianization of Egypt”
Nov. 5: “Domestic Religion and Religious Change”
Nov. 7: “A Site of Blessings, Dreams and Wonders: The Egyptian Saint’s Shrine as a Crucible of Christianization”
Nov. 8: “Whispering Spirits, Holy Processions: Christianizing the Egyptian Religious Landscape”
2014
Richard Martin, Stanford University
Homer Abroad: Greek Epic in Comparative Perspective
Oct. 6: “Crete and Homeric Singers”
Oct. 7: “Ireland and Homeric Audiences”
Oct. 9: “Kyrgystan and Homeric Heroes”
Oct. 10: “Mali and Homeric Composers”
2015
Ruby Blondell, University of Washington
Helen of Troy on Screen
Nov. 2 “Olympus Moves to Hollywood”
Nov. 3 “The First Flapper Queen”
Nov. 5 “There She Is, Miss America!”
Nov. 6 “Ridiculous Female Trappings”
2017
Steven Ellis, University of Cincinnati
The Pompeian Context: Lessons from the Excavation of a Roman City
Nov. 6: “Context and Complexity in the Social and Structural Making of Pompeii”
Nov. 7: “Retail Investment and the Socio-economics of Sub-elite Construction”
Nov. 9: “The Specialized Roman City: The Rise and Fall of Urban Innovation”
Nov. 10: “Life of Marcus Surus Garasenus: A Syrian in Pompeii”
2018
Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, University of Chicago
Revolutionary Re-readings: The Western Classics in Modern China
Oct. 8: “The Road to June 4, 1989”
Oct. 9: “Plato's Republic in the People's Republic of China”
Oct. 11: “The Politics of Rationality”
Oct. 12: “Socrates, Confucius, and Chinese Nationalism”
2019
Daniel Selden, Professor of Literature and Classical Studies University of California Santa Cruz
Holy Wandering: The Worlding of the Alexander Romance
Nov. 4: Mapping the Alexander Romance
Nov. 5: The Quest for the Waters of Life
Nov. 7: Guardians of Chaos
Nov. 8: Iskandar and the Idea of Iran