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 2018 Charles Beebe Martin Lectures
Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor in Classics at the University of Chicago
Revolutionary Rereading: The Western Classics in Modern China
Monday, Oct. 8 at 7:30 pm: The Road to June 4, 1989
Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 4:45 pm: Plato's Republic in the People's Republic of China
Thursday, Oct. 11 at 4:45 pm: The Politics of Rationality
Friday, Oct. 12 at 4:45 pm: Socrates, Confucius, and Chinese Nationalism
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
O’Donnell, James J. (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
Morris, Ian (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
Nagy, Gregory (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
Putnam, Michael (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
Kurke, Leslie (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
Gruen, Erich (University of California at Berkeley), Idenitity 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
Osborne, Robin (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
Farrell, Joseph (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
Kraus, Christina (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
Goldhill, Simon (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
Wohl, Victoria (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
Barchiesi, Alessandro (University of Siena, 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
Frankfurter, David (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
Martin, Richard (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”
2017
Ellis, Steven (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”