1
THOMAS HABINEK
Curriculum vitae December 7, 2016
PRESENT POSITION
Professor, Department of Classics
Director, Society of Fellows in the Humanities
University of Southern California, THH 256
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0352
(213) 740-3676
2100 Ivar Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90068
(323) 469-0713
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Latin literature, Roman cultural history, classical rhetoric and aesthetics, humanistic and natural scientific models of mind, Stoicism, antiquity in the formation of modernity
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT
Professor of Classics, University of Southern California (1992- present)
Director, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, University of Southern California
(2016 - )
Chair, Department of Classics, University of Southern California (1993-96, 2002-
2014)
Assistant Professor of Classics, Associate Professor of Classics and Rhetoric, Professor of Classics and Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley (1984-92)
Faculty Assistant to Dean of Humanities, University of California, Berkeley (1988)
Assistant Professor of Classics, UCLA (1981-84)
1
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Classical Philology, Harvard University (1981)
M.A. Harvard University (1978)
A.B. Classics, summa cum laude, Princeton University (1975)
PUBLICATIONS: BOOKS
Personhood and Authorship in Ancient Rome (under contract, Johns Hopkins University Press)
Cultural History of Ideas in Antiquity (edited volume, under contract, Bloomsbury Academic)
Ancient Rhetoric: As Explained by Greek and Roman Authors (under review, Penguin Books)
Methodical Fire: The Physics of Art and Artistic Theory from Antiquity through the Modern Era(jointly authored with Hector Reyes, in preparation)
Cicero on Living and Dying Well (London: Penguin Books, 2012).
The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Winner, Distinguished Achievement Award, Association of American Publishers, Best Book in Classics and Ancient History, 2005; Choice Outstanding Academic Book.
Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2005) Blackwell Introductions to the Classical World (hard cover and paperback)
The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998; pbk. re-issue, 2001)
Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 1998
The Roman Cultural Revolution, edited with A. Schiesaro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1997; pbk. re-issue, 2004)
The Colometry of Latin Prose (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1985). University of California Studies in Classical Philology, 25.
PUBLICATIONS: ARTICLES, ESSAYS, AND BOOK CHAPTERS
“Distributed Cognition and its Discontents,” jointly authored with Hector Reyes;
accepted pending revisions, History of Distributed Cognition, ed. D. Cairns and
M. Spevak (University of Edinburgh Press)
“Explicit versus Implicit Visualization: Three Episodes from the Poetry of Vergil.”
Under review for publication in Cognitive Visions, ed. F. Budelmann and K.
Earnshaw, Oxford University Press
"Optatian and his oeuvre: Explorations in Ontology," in Morphogrammata/ The Lettered
Art of Optation: Figuring Cultural Transformations in the Age of Constantine, ed. J. Wienand and M. Squire (Munich: Fink) 2016.
"The Self in Latin Literature," Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. (2016)
"At the Threshold of Representation: Cremation and Cremated Remains in Classical
Latin Literature." Classical Antiquity35 (2016) 2- 44.
"Art as Oikeiosis in Vitruvius, De Architectura 2," Arethusa 49 (2016) 299-316.
"Was there a Latin Second Sophistic?" to appearOxfordCompanion to theSecond
Sophistic, ed. D. Richter and W. Johnson
"Poetry, Patronage, and Politics in Rome," A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, ed.
P. Destrée and P. Murray (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015): 68-80
"Rhetoric, Music, and the Arts in Classical Rome,"Oxford Handbook to
Classical Rhetoric, ed. M. MacDonald. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
forthcoming in print)-available online as of March 1, 2014.
“Imago Suae Vitae: The Life of Seneca in Context,” introductory essay for Brill’s Companion to Seneca, ed. G. Damschen and A. Heil. (Leiden and New York: Brill, 2014): 3-32.
"Keyword: Mimesis," in Notes from the Field, Art Bulletin: journal of the College Art Association95 (2013) 202-3.
“Ritualization and Political Agency in Late Republican Rome,” Métis (Paris: Ecole des
hautes études en sciences sociales), n.s. 10 (2012) 107-117
“Tentacular Mind: Stoicism, Neuroscience, and the Configurations of Physical Reality”,
in Bridging the Gap Between Neuroscience and the Humanities: A Field Guide to a New Meta-Field, ed. B. Stafford. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2011) 64-83
“Ancient Art versus Modern Aesthetics: A Naturalist Perspective.”Arethusa 43 (2010)
215-230. Special issue on The Art of Ancient Art History, ed. Michael Squire and
Verity Platt.
“Matter and Metaphysics.” Comment on papers by Marie-JosuéMondzain, Megan
O’Neil, and Erika Naginski inJournal of Visual Culture 9.3 (2010), special
issue, edited by Lynn Hunt and Vanessa Schwartz.
“Manilius’ Conflicted Stoicism,” in Forgotten Stars, ed. K. Volk and S. Green (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010) 34-47.
“Situating Literacy at Rome”, in Ancient Literacies, ed. W. Johnson and H. Parker (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009)114-42.
“Probing the Entrails of the Universe: Astrology as Bodily Knowledge in Manilius’ Astronomica,” in Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire, ed. T. Whitmarsh and J. König. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 229-231.
“The Wisdom of Ennius,” Arethusa 39 (2006) 471-88, special issue onEnnius and the Invention of Roman Epic, ed. B. Breed and A. Rossi
“Latin Literature Between Text and Practice,”Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 125 (2005) 83-90
"Slavery and Class," thematic chapter in A Companion to Latin Literature, ed. S. Harrison (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005) 385-93
"Satire as Aristocratic Play," thematic chapter in Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire, ed. K. Freudenburg (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005) 177-91
"Ovid and Empire," thematic chapter in Cambridge Companion to Ovid, ed. P. Hardie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 46-61.
"Seneca's Renown: Gloria, Claritudo, and the Replication of the Roman Elite," Classical Antiquity 19 (2000) 264-303.
“Singing, Speaking, Making, Writing: Classical Alternatives to Literature and Literary Studies,” Stanford Humanities Review 6.1 (1998) 65-76
“The Invention of Sexuality in the World-City of Rome” in Habinek and Schiesaro, The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997) 23-43
“Ideology for an Empire in the Prefaces to Cicero’s Dialogues” Ramus 23 (1994) 55-67
“‘Grecian Wonders and Roman Woe’: The Romantic Rejection of Rome and its Consequences for the Study of Latin Literature” in The Interpretation of Roman Poetry ( = Studien zur klassischen Philologie, 67), ed. K. Galinsky (Frankfurt 1992) 227-242
“An Aristocracy of Virtue: Seneca on the Begninnings of Wisdom” in Beginnings in Classical Literature (= Yale Classical Studies, 29), ed. T. Cole and F. Dunn (Cambridge 1992) 187-203.
“Lucius’ Rite of Passage,” Materiali e discussioni per analisi dei testi classici 25 (1990) 40-69
“The Politics of Candor in Cicero’s De Amicitia,” Apeiron 23 (1990) 165-185
“Sacrifice, Society, and Vergil’s Ox-Born Bees,” Cabinet of the Muses: Essays in Classical and Comparative Literature in Honor of Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, ed. M. Griffith and D. Mastronarde (Atlanta 1990) 209-223 (reprinted in Routledge Essays on Virgil, ed. P. Hardie)
“New Directions in Classical Scholarship,” Association of College and Research Libraries, WESS Occasional Publications 3 (1990) 1-7
“Science and Tradition in Aeneid 6,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 92 (1989) 223-256
“Greeks and Romans in Book 12 of Quintilian,” Ramus 16 (1987) 192-202
“The Marriageability of Maximus,” American Journal of Philology 107 (1986) 407-416
“Prose Cola and Poetic Word Order,” Helios 12 (1985) 51-66
“Aspects of Intimacy in Greek and Roman Comic Poetry,” Themes in Drama 7 (1985) 23-33
“A Note on Cicero, ad Atticum 12, 23, 3,” Hermes 111 (1983) 126-127
“Propertius, Cynthia, and the Lunar Year,” Latomus 41 (1982) 589-96
“Seneca’s Circles: Ep. 12.6-9,” Classical Antiquity 1 (1982) 66-69
PUBLICATIONS: EDITIONS OF CLASSICAL TEXTS
Edition, translation, commentary, and introductory essay for each of the following, all in Brill’s New Jacoby: Fragments of the Greek Historians, ed. I. Worthington (Leiden 2006 - ; online and print editions). Approx. 70,000 words total.
Seneca Cordubensis (644)
L. Cincius Alimentus (810)
Metrodorus of Skepsis (184)
Polles (705)
Fragments pertaining to Etruscan history (706)
ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES
“Seneca the Elder,” “Declamation,” “Latin Panegyrics,” “Quintilian.”Cambridge
Dictionary of Classical Civilization, ed. G. Shipley et al. (Cambridge 2006).
“Seneca the Younger.” Dictionary of New Testament Biography. (Provo, Utah 2000).
BOOK REVIEWS
Sean Gurd, Work in Progress: Literary Revision as Social Performance in Ancient Rome.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). American Journal of Philology
2013: 340-343.
Enrica Sciarrino, Cato the Censor and the Beginnings of Latin Prose. (Columbus: Ohio
State University Press, 2011). Journal of Roman Studies 102 (2012) 372-74.
Complicating the History of Western Translation: The Ancient Mediterranean in
Perspective. (Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2011). Translation and
Literature 21 (2012) 213-218
William Johnson. Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Classical Philology 106 (2011) 180-182.
Rex Winsbury.The Roman Book: Books, Publishing and Performance in Classical Rome. (London: Duckworth, 2009). Ancient History Bulletin 2010.
Denis Feeney, Caesar's Calendar. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)
Phoenix 64(2010) 202-204
Q. Horatii Flacci Carmina. Liber IV. Introduzione di Paolo Fedeli. Commento di Paolo Fedeli e Irma Ciccarelli. (Firenze: Le Monnier, 2008). Gnomon82 (2010) 654- 56.
E. Gunderson, ed. Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rhetoric and J. Williams, ed. Introduction to Classical Rhetoric: Essential Readings.Times Literary SupplementFebruary 2010.
M. Beard, The Roman Triumph. American Historical Review, April 2009. Featured Review.
Armin Eich, Politische Literatur in der römischen Gesellschaft. Gnomon 80 (2008) 561
V. Rimmel, Ovid’s Lovers: Desire, Difference, and the Poetic Imagination and Peter Davis, Ovid and Augustus: A Political Reading of Ovid’s Erotic Poems Journal of Roman Studies98 (2008) 239-40.
D. Gross, The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle’s Rhetoric to Modern Brain Science. Rhetorica26 (2008) 200-202.
J.P. Schwindt, La reprėsentation du temps dans la poėsie augustėenne. International Journal for the Classical Tradition14 (2007) 632-34.
T.P. Wiseman, The Myths of Rome. Classical Journal 2007 (102.4)
C. Martindale, Latin Poetry and the Judgment of Taste. Hermathena 2007
J. Dyson, King of the Wood: The Sacrificial Victor in Virgil's Aeneid. Vergilius 49(2003) 159-65
Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern and Popular Culture, ed. S. Joshel, M. Malamud, and D. McGuire. The European Legacy (8) 2003.
J-P. Brachet, Recherches sur les préverbes de- et ex- du latin. Gnomon 2003
J.P. Schwindt, Prolegomena zu einer "Phaenomenologie" der roemischer Geschichtsschreibung.International Journal of the Classical Tradition 9 (2002/3) 311-314
S. Mattern, Rome and the Enemy. The European Legacy 7 (2002) 118
J. Farrell, Latin Language and Latin Culture from Ancient to Modern Times. Classical Review 52 (2002) 157-58
D. Potter, Literary Texts and the Roman Historian in International Journal of the
Classical Tradition 8 (2001/2) 627-629
P. Baehr, Caesar and the Fading of the Roman World. The European Legacy
A. Schäfer, Unterhaltung beim griechischen Symposion. American Journal of Archaeology 103 (1999)
K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture.Vergilius 43 (1997) 156-160
E. Fantham, Roman Literary Culture.Classical Philology 1997
K. Galinsky, Classical and Modern Interactions.American Journal of Archaeology 97 (1993)
O. Murray, Sympotica; W. Slater, Dining in a Classical Context; and F. Lissarrague, Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet. American Journal of Archaeology 97 (1993) 177-178
C. Bodelot, Termes introducteurs et modes dans l’interrogation indirecte en latin de Plaute à Juvenal.Gnomon 65 (1993) 73-74
A. Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa.American Journal of Philology 113 (1992) 460-462
V. Srensen, Seneca: A Humanist at the Court of Nero. Helios 12 (1985)
TRANSLATION OF MODERN SCHOLARSHIP
F. Dupont, “La réorganisation de l’éspace de la parole publique sous l’Empire: la recitatio.” translated with A. Lardinois, for The Roman Cultural Revolution
EDITORIAL WORK
Series Editor, Classics and Contemporary Thought: University of California Press
Titles published in this series:
W. Fitzgerald, Catullan Provocations: Lyric Poetry and the Drama of Position
E. Greene, Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches
and Re-Reading Sappho: Reception and Transmission
C. Rocco, Tragedy and Enlightenment: Athenian Political Thought and the Dilemmas of Modernity
D. Tandy, Warriors into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece
P. L. Bowditch, Horace and the Gift Economy of Patronage
P. Vasunia, The Gift of the Nile: Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander
C. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire
Chair of Editorial Board, Classical Antiquity (University of California Press) 1986-1992
Member of editorial board, Classical Antiquity, 1999-present
Consultant, Penguin Books: assessed all volumes pertaining to Cicero and wrote proposal for new editions
Past editor for Latin literature, The Literary Encyclopedia, on-line.
Member of editorial board, Authorship, 2010 - present
LECTURES, INVITED PRESENTATIONS, CONFERENCE TALKS
"Visualizing Cremation in Latin Poetry" presentation at Cognitive Visions Conference,
Oxford University, January 11, 2016; invited lecture, University of Rome La
Sapienza, January 8, 2016.
"Optatian Porphyry: Explorations in Ontology?" Morphomata Kolleg, University of
Cologne, Germany. July 2, 2015; Shapes of Knowledge Conference, Dept.
of Art History, USC, October 8, 2015.
"Personhood and Authorship in Ancient Rome." Ronald Syme Memorial Lecture. University of Victoria. Wellington, NZ October 2014.
"Cremation in Latin Literature." Research Seminar. University of Victoria. Wellington, NZ October 2014.
"Stoicism and the Arts," Jordan Lecture, Newhouse Center for the Humanities,
Wellesley College, with accompanying faculty seminar, Dec. 5-6, 2013.
Also delivered Department of Classics, University of Toronto, March 2013;
Department of Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley, February 2014;
Department of Classics, Canterbury University, Christchurch, NZ, Oct 2015
"Color and Variety in Stoic Physics." Annual Meeting of American Philological
Association, Chicago, IL, January 2014.
"Physical Theory and Artistic Practice in Vitruvius, De Architectura" Alexander von
Humboldt University, Berlin, July 2013
"Cicero, Crassus, and the Unity of the Arts," Annual Meeting of American
Philological Association, Seattle, WA, January 2013.
Respondent to P. Ethington, "Neuroinstitutionalism," USC Academy for Polymathic
Study, May 2012
"Everything New is Old Again" presentation on Classics and the Humanities to USC Board of Trustees, April 2012.
"Ritualization and Political Agency in the Late Roman Republic," University of Paris/ University of Chicago, September 2011.
"The Radical Potential of Classical Aesthetics," University of London, July 2011.
"Latin Literature and Roman Identity," University of Copenhagen, May 2011.
“Presence and Meaning in Roman Culture.” Invited lecture. Workshop on Text and Performance in Classical Rome. Jesus College, Oxford University. September 2009.
Discussant. Visions and Voices presentation of Sophocles Antigone by National Theater
of Cyprus. Campus-wide event sponsored by Provost’s Initiative for the Arts
and Humanities, USC. Sept. 2009.
Discussant. “Capturing the Moment,” UCLA-USC Conference on Eyewitnessing in
History. May 2009
Discussant. USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture conference on Visions and
Dreams. April 2009
“Tentacular Mind.” Invited lecture. Department of Classics and Institute for Neuroscience, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. February 2009.
“Phantasia, Mimesis, and the Materiality of Aesthetic Experience.” Conference talk. Panel on the Art of Ancient Art History. Joint Session of American Philological Association and American Institute of Archaeology. Philadelphia, PA. January 2009.
“Descartes’ Error or Descartes’ Dream? Cognitive Science and the Need for History” Keynote Address. Annual symposium of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric. San Diego, California. November 2008.
“The Logic of Astrology.” Invited presentation at conference on the Latin poet Manilius. Department of Classics. Columbia University. October 2008.
“Classics and Cognition.” Invited lecture. Department of Classics and Center for the Humanities. University of Wisconsin, Madison. April 2008.
“Phantasia, Mimesis, and the Materiality of Aesthetic Experience.” Invited lecture. University of Chicago Rhetoric and Poetics Workshop, March 2008 and Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati, April 2008.
“Mirror Neurons and Mimetic Regimes.” Conference presentation. Panel on Neuro-art history. College Art Association. Dallas, TX. February 2008.
“Imitation, Evolution, and Cultural Change." Benefactors’ Fund Annual Lecture. Department of Classics, Dartmouth College. May 2006.
“Situating Roman Literacy.” Invited presentation. Semple Symposium on Literacy in the Ancient World. University of Cincinnati. April 2006.
“Imitation and Identity in the Ancient World.” Keynote Address at Graduate Student Conference. Department of Classics, Ohio State University. April 2006.
“Roman Song as Ritualized Speech.” Invited presentation. Conference on Ancient Song in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Department of Classics and Program in Mediterranean Studies, Emory University. March 2006.
“Mimesis and Social Memory.” Invited lecture. Department of Classical Studies and Program Classics in Context. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. November 2005.
also delivered as James W. Poultney Memorial Lecture, Department of Classics, The Johns Hopkins University. March 2006.
“Heroes Real and Surreal.” Invited presentation. USC Comic Book Club. October
2005.
“Mimesis in Theory and Practice.” Invited lecture. Department of Classics and Ancient
History. University of Exeter, UK. May 2005.
“The Wisdom of Ennius.” Invited lecture. USC-UCLA Roman Studies Seminar, April 2005, and Laurence Seminar, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, UK, June 2005.
“Pandora’s Box.” Keynote Address, Thematic Option Undergraduate Research Conference, USC. April 2005.
“Political Intellectuals and the Limits of Expertise. ” American Philological Association, Panel on Public Intellectuals and the Classics. Jan. 2005.
"Replication, Reanimation, Ritualization: Aspects of Art and Text in Ancient Rome," USC Initiative in Literary, Visual, and Material Culture, Faculty Work-in-Progress Series. Jan. 2004.
"Adoption and Cultural Impact of New Technologies: A View from Antiquity." Invited lecture. USC Engineering Honors Colloquium. Nov. 2003.
"Latin Literature Between Text and Practice." Conference presentation. Future of Latin
Literary Studies. Department of Classics, Rutgers University. October 2003.
"Rites of Manhood: Vergil, Ovid and Their Interpreters." Invited lecture. Department of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Nov. 2001, and Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages, University of Minnesota. Nov. 2001.
"Towards an Anthropology of Performance in the Roman World." Invited lecture. Summer Seminar on Anthropology and the Classics. King's College London. June 2001.
"Early Roman Song." Invited lecture, College of Wooster, April 2000, and Wellesley College, November 1999.
"Chorus and Cosmos in Archaic Rome." Conference presentation. USC-UCLA Seminar
in Roman Studies. March 2000.
"An Epigraphic Precursor to Elegy?" Conference presentation. USC- UCLA Seminar in
Roman Studies. November 1999.
“Ovid and Empire.” Invited lecture. Department of Rhetoric, UC Berkeley. April 1999.
“Song, Ritual, and Myth in Early Rome: The Case of the CarmenSaliare” Invited lecture, Department of Classics. Yale University (Feb. 1999) and UC-Berkeley (Jan. 1999)
“Seneca’s Renown.” Invited lecture. Yale University (February 1999) and UC-
Berkeley (November 1998)
Keynote RemarkKeynote Address. Graduate Student Conference on Texts/Authors/Contexts, Dept. of
Classics, Princeton University (October 1998)
“Literary Culture vs. Performance Culture,” Berkeley (April 1998) and University of Texas-Austin (April 1997)
“The Lost Ideologeme” paper delivered as part of panel on “The Future of Intertextuality” at American Philological Association (December 1996)
“The Latinity of Latin America,” UCLA (October 1996) and University of Bristol (June 1995)
“Classics and the American Dream,” NEH Summer Institute on Classics and 21st Century Curricula, University of Arizon, Tucson (June 1996)