Helene P. Foley is an American classical scholar. She is Professor of Classical Studies at

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and a member of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality at Columbia. She specialises in

ancient Greek literature Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, ar ...

(

epic poetry In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard t ...

tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...

, and

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

), women and gender in antiquity, and the reception of

classical drama Classical drama may refer to: *Theatre of ancient Greece *Theatre of ancient Rome The architectural form of theatre in Rome has been linked to later, more well-known examples from the 1st century BC to the 3rd Century AD. The theatre of ancient ...

Career

Foley took her first degree at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...

in 1964. She then received an

MAT A mat is a hard or soft floor covering that generally is placed on a floor or other flat surface. Mats serve a range of purposes including: * serving to clean items passed over it, such as a doormat, which removes dirt from the soles of shoe ...

(Master of Arts in Teaching) in English (1966) and an MA in Classics (1967) from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, and a PhD 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 ...

(1975). Her doctoral thesis was entitled 'Ritual Irony in the ''

Bacchae ''The Bacchae'' (; , ''Bakkhai''; also known as ''The Bacchantes'' ) is an ancient Greek tragedy, written by the Athenian playwright Euripides during his final years in Macedonia, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthum ...

'' and Other Late Euripidean Plays'. She taught at Swarthmore until 1979, when she moved to Barnard College, Columbia University. In 1998 she was the President of the American Philological Association (now the

Society for Classical Studies The Society for Classical Studies (SCS), formerly known as the American Philological Association (APA), is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization founded in 1869. It is the pree ...

). In Spring 2008 she was the 94th

Sather Professor of Classical Literature The Jane K. Sather Professorship of Classical Literature is an endowed chair for the study of classics at the University of California, Berkeley. Established in 1914 after a donation by Jane K. Sather, widow of the Norwegian-American banker Ped ...

at the University of California, Berkeley; her Sather Lectures focused on the restaging of Greek tragedies in America, and the ways in which modern productions of these plays explored themes of contemporary concern including slavery, race, the status of women, immigration, and identity. These lectures were later published as ''Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage'' (2012). She has also been Visiting Professor at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. She is currently finishing a book on

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

Hecuba Hecuba (; also Hecabe; , ) was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War. Description Hecuba was described by the chronicler John Malalas, Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "dark, good eyes ...

, coordinating an issue of the Proceedings of the Modern Language Association with Jean Howard on Tragedy, and working on tragic choruses. A conference, 'Female Agents: Gender, Drama, Reception, Performance', will be held in her honour 31 March-1 April 2023 at Barnard College.

Selected publications

* ''Reflections of Women in Antiquity'' London: Routledge, 1981. * ''The

Homeric Hymn to Demeter The ''Homeric Hymns'' () are a collection of thirty-three ancient Greek hymns and one epigram. The hymns praise deities of the Greek pantheon and retell mythological stories, often involving a deity's birth, their acceptance among the gods ...

.'' Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. * ''Women in the Classical World: Image and Text'' (ed., with

Elaine Fantham Elaine Fantham (born Elaine Crosthwaite, 25 May 1933 – 11 July 2016) was a British-Canadian classicist whose expertise lay particularly in Latin literature, especially comedy, epic poetry and rhetoric, and in the social history of Roman women. ...

, N. B. Kampen and S. B. Pomeroy). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. * ''Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides.'' Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985. * ''Female Acts in Greek Tragedy'' Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. * ''Visualizing the Tragic: Drama, Myth, and Ritual in Greek Art and Literature. Essays in Honour of Froma Zeitlin'' (ed., with Chris Kraus, Simon Goldhill and Jas Elsner). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. * ''

Antigone ANTIGONE (Algorithms for coNTinuous / Integer Global Optimization of Nonlinear Equations), is a deterministic global optimization solver for general Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programs (MINLP). History ANTIGONE is an evolution of GloMIQO, a global ...

on the Contemporary World Stage'' (ed., with Erin B. Mee)''.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. * ''Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012.

References

External links

A Brief History of the Sather Professorship
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foley, Helene Living people American classical scholars American women classical scholars Scholars of ancient Greek literature Swarthmore College alumni Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Barnard College faculty Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Year of birth missing (living people)