Gregory Nagy
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Gregory Nagy ( hu, Nagy Gergely, ; born October 22, 1942 in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
)"CV: Gregory Nagy"
''gregorynagy.org''
is an American professor of Classics at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, specializing in
Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
and archaic Greek poetry. Nagy is known for extending
Milman Parry Milman Parry (June 23, 1902 – December 3, 1935) was an American Classicist whose theories on the origin of Homer's works have revolutionized Homeric studies to such a fundamental degree that he has been described as the " Darwin of Homeric ...
and
Albert Lord Albert Bates Lord (15 September 1912 – 29 July 1991) was a professor of Slavic and comparative literature at Harvard University who, after the death of his mentor Milman Parry, carried on Parry's research on epic poetry. Early life Lord was bor ...
's theories about the oral composition-in-performance of the ''
Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
'' and ''
Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...
''.Greg Nagy and the oral tradition of Homeric poetry, an interview, a video and a performance (Digital Pioneers@Harvard, September 2014)


Education and career

Nagy received his A.B. from
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...
in 1962 in classics and linguistics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1966 in classical
philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
. Since 1966, he has been a professor at Harvard University. Since 2000, he has been the director of the
Center for Hellenic Studies The Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) is a research institute for classics located in Washington, D.C. at 3100 NW Whitehaven Street. It is affiliated with Harvard University. Nestled in Rock Creek Park behind Embassy Row, the Center for Hell ...
, a Harvard-affiliated research institution in
Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
. He is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of
Comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
at Harvard, and continues to teach half-time at the Harvard campus in
Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
. From 1994 to 2000, he served as Chair of the Classics Department at Harvard University. He was Chair of Harvard's undergraduate Literature Concentration from 1989 to 1994. He served as the president of the American Philological Association in the academic year 1990-91. Since 2015, he has been posting his current work on a weekly basis at his research blog,
Classical Inquiries
'.


Massive open online course

In 2013 Harvard offered his popular class, The Ancient Greek Hero, which thousands of Harvard students had taken over the last few decades, through edX as a
massive open online course A massive open online course (MOOC ) or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, man ...
. To assist Professor Nagy, Harvard appealed to alumni to volunteer as online mentors and discussion group managers. About 10 former teaching fellows have also volunteered. The task of the volunteers is to focus online class discussion on the course material. The course had 27,000 students registered.


Personal life

Nagy and his wife, Olga Davidson, Research Fellow
Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
and chair of the Ilex Foundation, served as Faculty Deans (previously called co-masters) of Currier House at Harvard from 1986 to 1990. Nagy has two brothers in allied fields: Blaise Nagy is a professor emeritus of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in
Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
, while Joseph F. Nagy is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.


Works


Books


As sole author

* Nagy, Gregory, ''Greek Dialects and the Transformation of an Indo-European Process'' (Harvard University Press, 1970) * Nagy, Gregory,
Comparative Studies in Greek and Indic Meter
' (Harvard University Press, 1974) * Nagy, Gregory,

'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998; original publication, 1979) * Nagy, Gregory, ''Greek Mythology and Poetics'' (Cornell University Press, 1990) * Nagy, Gregory,

'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990) * Nagy, Gregory, ''Poetry as performance. Homer and beyond.'' (Cambridge University Press, 1996) * Nagy, Gregory,
Homeric Questions
' (University of Texas Press, 1996) * Nagy, Gregory, ''Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music : The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens'' (Harvard University Press, 2002) * Nagy, Gregory, ''Homeric Responses'' (University of Texas Press, 2003) * Nagy, Gregory, ''Homer's Text And Language'' (University of Illinois Press, 2004) *Nagy, Gregory, ''Homer the Classic'' (Harvard University Press, 2009) * Nagy, Gregory,
Homer: The Preclassic
' (University of California Press, 2010) * Nagy, Gregory, ''The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours'' (Harvard University Press, 2013)


As editor or co-editor

* Victor Bers and Nagy, G. eds., ''The Classics In East Europe: From the End of World War II to the Present'' (American Philological Association Pamphlet Series, 1996) * Nicole Loraux, Nagy, G., and Slatkin, L., eds., ''Postwar French Thought vol. 3, Antiquities'' (New Press, 2001) * Nagy, Gregory ed. with very brief introductions to collections of reprinted articles, ''Greek Literature'' (Taylor and Francis, London, 2001; Routledge, 2002), 9 vols.


Articles

* Nagy, Gregory, "The Professional Muse and Models of Prestige in Ancient Greece," ''Cultural Critique'' 12 (1989) 133–143 * Nagy, Gregory, "Early Greek Views of Poets and Poetry," in: ''The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 1'' (ed. G. Kennedy; Cambridge 1989; paperback 1993) 1–77 * Nagy, Gregory, "The Crisis of Performance," in: ''The Ends of Rhetoric: History, Theory, Practice'' (ed. J. Bender and D.E. Wellbery; Stanford 1990) 43–59 * Nagy, Gregory, "Distortion diachronique dans l'art homérique: quelques précisions," in: ''Constructions du temps dans le monde ancien'' (ed. C. Darbo-Peschanski; Paris 2000) 417–426. * Nagy, Gregory, “The Name of Achilles: Questions of Etymology and ‘Folk-Etymology.’” Illinois Classical Studies 19 (1994): 3–9. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23065415.


References


External links


Nagy's website at the Harvard Department of the ClassicsAn audio interview
with Nagy on "New Books in Classics"
An account of Nagy's pioneering new project "A Homer Commentary in Progress"A Homer Commentary in Progress
- An evolving, collaborative commentary with Nagy among the commentators {{DEFAULTSORT:Nagy, Gregory American classical scholars 1942 births Living people Classical scholars of Harvard University Hungarian emigrants to the United States Harvard University alumni Indiana University alumni