Sarah Elizabeth Ruden is an American writer,

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 ...

scholar, and translator. She has been a visiting scholar at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

since 2018. Her publications include poetry, essays, and popularizations of

Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

, religious criticism and interpretation.

Early life

Sarah Ruden was born in Ohio in 1962 and raised in the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant Christian denomination, denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was ...

. She holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. In addition to her academic appointments, Ruden has worked as a medical editor, a contributor to American periodicals, and a

stringer Stringer may refer to: Structural elements * Stringer (aircraft), or longeron, a strip of wood or metal to which the skin of an aircraft is fastened * Stringer (slag), an inclusion, possibly leading to a defect, in cast metal * Stringer (stairs), ...

for the South African investigative magazine ''

Noseweek ''Noseweek'' is a monthly South Africa, South African tabloid published by Chaucer Publications that appeared in print from June 1993 to mid-2021. It is best known for regular legal action against it, including a failed bid at interdiction by banki ...

''. Ruden became an activist

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

during her ten years spent in post-apartheid South Africa, where she was a tutor for the South African Education and Environment Project. Both before and after her return to the United States in 2005, Ruden has engaged in ecumenical outreach and published a number of articles and essays, in both liberal and conservative publications.

Career

She was a lecturer in Classics at the University of Cape Town. In 2016, she was awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete her translation of ''The Confessions of Augustine'' (2017). She is an advocate for the popularization of ancient texts. Ruden has been a visiting scholar at the

since 2018.

Awards

In 2010, Ruden was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to fund her translation of the ''Oresteia'' of Aeschylus. She won a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete her translation of ''The Confessions'' of Augustine in 2016. Her translation of the Gospels was funded in part by a Robert B. Silvers Grant for Work in Progress in 2019.

Personal life

Ruden has been a “convinced Friend,” or

convert, since 1992. Her Quakerism informs her translation methodology.

Books

Poetry

* (Awarded the 1996

Central News Agency Literary Award The Central News Agency Literary Award (CNA Literary Award, CNA Prize) was a major annual literary award in South Africa. It was named for the CNA chain of bookstores. Founded by Phillip Stein, it recognised works in prose and poetry, and in both ...

)

Translations

* * * * Revised and expanded (Yale Univ. Press, 2021). * *

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

(2016). ''

The Oresteia The ''Oresteia'' () is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BC, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of the curse on the House of ...

'', in ''The Greek Plays'' (ed.

Mary Lefkowitz Mary R. Lefkowitz (born April 30, 1935) is an American scholar of Classics. She is the Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she previously worked from 1959 to 2005. She has published ten b ...

and James Romm). Modern Library. * *Plato (2015). ''Hippias Minor or The Art of Cunning: A new translation of Plato’s most controversial dialogue'' (trans.)''.'' With introduction and artwork by Paul Chan; essay by Richard Fletcher. Badlands Unlimited and the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art. *Anonymous (2021). ''The Gospels'' (trans.)

Modern Library The Modern Library is an American book publishing Imprint (trade name), imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Moder ...

Biblical interpretation

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruden, Sarah American Quakers American women poets American classical scholars American women classical scholars 21st-century American poets Harvard University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Living people 1962 births American Christian writers Translators of the Bible into English University of Michigan alumni American women non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers Translators of Virgil 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American translators 21st-century translators Female Bible translators 20th-century Quakers 21st-century Quakers Quaker writers