Stephanie Roberta West ( Pickard; 1 December 1937) is a British classical scholar specialising in the study of

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient 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. Despite doubts about his autho ...

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, and

Lycophron Lycophron ( ; ; born about 330–325 BC) was a Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, and commentator on comedy, to whom the poem ''Alexandra'' is attributed (perhaps falsely). Life and miscellaneous works He was born at Chalcis in Euboea, a ...

Early life and education

Stephanie Roberta Pickard was born on 1 December 1937. She was educated at Nottingham Girls' High School, an

independent school A private school or independent school is a school not administered or funded by the government, unlike a State school, public school. Private schools are schools that are not dependent upon national or local government to finance their fina ...

in Nottingham. She studied '' Literae humaniores'' (i.e.

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 ...

) at

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. It began admitting men in 1994. The colle ...

, achieving

first class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure used for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied, sometimes with significant var ...

in mods in 1958 and in greats in 1960. In 1959, West (then Pickard) won the Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse while a student at Somerville, having previously won the First Craven Scholarship. She graduated from the University of Oxford with a

Bachelor of Arts 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 deg ...

(BA) in 1960. She remained at Somerville to undertake a

Doctor of Philosophy 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 Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

(DPhil) degree, which she completed in 1964. Her

doctoral thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

was titled "The Ptolemaic papyri of Homer", and was supervised by Professor

Hugh Lloyd-Jones Sir Peter Hugh Jefferd Lloyd-Jones (21 September 1922 – 5 October 2009)

Academic career

From 1965 to 1967, West was a Mary Ewart Research Fellow at

. From 1966 to 2005, she was a

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

Hertford College, Oxford Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main ga ...

. From 1981 to 2005, she was also a lecturer in Greek at

Keble College, Oxford Keble College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University Museum a ...

. She was the Fellow Librarian of Hertford from 1990 to 2005. She is an honorary fellow of Hertford College. In 1990, she was elected as a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

(FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. She was elected as a Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. In recognition of her work for the college a photograph of West featured in the all-female portrait gallery on the walls of the great hall of Hertford College. The gallery was established in 2014 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first female fellows elected to the college.

Personal life

West met her eventual husband Martin West (d. 2015), a fellow Classicist, in 1960 at a lecture by former chair in Latin Eduard Fraenkel at

Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corpus Christi College (formally, Corpus Christi College in the University of Oxford; informally abbreviated as Corpus or CCC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1517 by Richard Fo ...

. The pair married in 1960, in Nottingham, and lived together in Polstead Road, Oxford. Together, they had one daughter and one son.

Selected publications

*1967. ''The Ptolemaic papyri of Homer'' *1981. ''Omero, Odissea 1 (libri I-IV)'' *1988. ''A commentary on Homer's Odyssey'' *2002. ''Demythologisation in Herodotus''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Stephanie Fellows of the British Academy Living people British women archaeologists British classical archaeologists British women classical scholars Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Year of birth missing (living people)