Sarah Iles Johnston (born 25 October 1957) is an American academic working at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

, studying and publishing on ancient Greek myths and

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

Education

Johnston attended the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

where she received her B.S. in

Journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

in 1979, followed shortly by her

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

Classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

in 1980. She then attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

, where she also worked as a teaching assistant, to complete her

M.A. A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

in Classics in 1983 and her

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1987, where she studied ancient Greek myths and religions.

Career

Johnston began her teaching career proper when she accepted the post of

lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in Classics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, where she worked from 1987 to 1988. Since then, she has held a number of positions at Ohio State University, including assistant professor of Classics (1988–1995), associate professor of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

(1995–2000) and professor of Greek and Latin (2000–). In 2011 she was named the Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of Religion at Ohio State, and in 2017 she was named the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Religion. She holds a professorship in Ohio State's Department of Classics. She was the founding director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Ohio State (2006–2010). Her scholarly books include ''The Story of Myth'' (2018), ''Ancient Greek Divination'' (2008), ''Ritual Texts for the Afterlife:

Orpheus In Greek mythology, Orpheus (; , classical pronunciation: ) was a Thracians, Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned Ancient Greek poetry, poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in se ...

and the Bacchic Gold Tablets'' (2007, with Fritz Graf), ''Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece'' (1999) and ''

Hekate Hecate ( ; ) is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, or snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. She is variously associated ...

Soteira'' (1990). Additionally, she has also been an editor for a number of collections, including ''Narrating Religion'' (2017), ''Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide'' (2004) and ''Ancient Religions'' (2007), and she has authored a number of articles and essays for Classical journals. In 2023, her first book for the general public, ''Gods and Mortals: Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers'', was published.

Awards and fellowships

Johnston's awards and fellowships include: * Fellow, Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Universität Göttingen, March 1-July 1, 2012. * Senior ACLS Fellow and Visiting Fellow, Princeton Univ. Dep’t. of Classics, 1999/2000. * Senior Fellow, Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion, University of Chicago, Fall 1997. * Fellow, Fondation Hardt, Vandoeuvres, Switzerland, July-August 1996. * Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ, Spring 1995.

Publications

Books

* ''Gods and Mortals: Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers'' (Princeton Univ. Press: 2023). * ''The Story of Myth'' (Harvard Univ. Press: 2018). * ''Ancient Greek Divination'' (Wiley-Blackwell: 2008). * With Fritz Graf, ''Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets'' (Routledge: 2007; second edition 2013). * ''Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece'' (University of California Press: 1999). * ''Hekate Soteira'' (Amer. Class. Studies #21) (Scholars' Press: 1990; now published by Oxford University Press).

Edited volumes

* ''Narrating Religion'' (MacMillan: 2017). * ''Ancient Religions'' (Harvard University Press: 2007). * Co-Editor (with Peter T. Struck) ''Mantikê: Studies in Ancient Divination. Religions in the Greco-Roman World''. vol. 155 (Brill: 2005). * ''Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide'' (Harvard University Press: 2004). * Co-Editor (with James J. Clauss) ''Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy and Art'' (Princeton University Press: 1997).

Chapters and articles

* "The Religious Affordance of Supernatural Horror Fiction," ''Numen'' 70 (2023) 113-137. * "Here Lies Hecate: Poetry and Immortality in 2nd-Century Mesembria," ''Archiv für Religionsgeschichte'' 24 (2022) 305-18. * "Ancient Greek Tales of the Afterlife," in David Saunders, ed., ''Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife in Ancient Greek Vase Painting'' (Getty Museum: 2021). * "Theurgy," in ''Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic,'' ed. David T. Frankfurter (Brill 2019). * "Many (Un)Happy Returns: Ancient Greek Concepts of a Return from Death and their Later Counterparts," in ''Round Trip to Hades in the Eastern Mediterranean Tradition'', eds. Gunnel Ekroth and Ingela Nilsson (Brill 2018) 356-69.

Other

* 2024 TEDx talk: Why Supernatural Horror Fiction Might Make You Think about God

References

External links

Academic Staff Page, Ohio State University

Academia.edu page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnston, Sarah Iles 1957 births Living people 20th-century American historians Cornell University alumni American classical scholars American women classical scholars American women historians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women