NYU professor guest lectures on Rome and Republican Politics Apr. 10

Date: Apr. 10, 2008
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Location: Gottwald Science Center A201

Dr. Joy Connolly, associate professor of classics and director of the College of Arts & Sciences' Honors Program at New York University, will give a guest lecture, "Rome as the Founders Saw It: The Challenge of Republican Politics," on April 10 at 5 p.m. in the Gottwald Science Center.

According to Connolly, Rome matters—not because of the lessons of its empire or "bread and circuses"-style cultural decay, but because of the way its leading thinkers, especially Cicero, defined the republic and the republican citizen. This talk examines how the American founding generation understood Roman thinking about citizenship and its responsibilities—not just in the well-known political writings of the constitutional framers, but in late eighteenth-century American fiction.  It also explores the practical consequences of taking Roman thought seriously, especially in the realm of education. 

An associate professor of Classics, Joy Connolly works mainly on Roman ideas about communication, education, and governance and their ongoing relevance for the modern world.  After studying classics at Princeton (AB 1991) and Penn (PhD 1997), she taught at the University of Washington and Stanford University before coming to NYU in 2004.
 
Her first book, The State of Speech: Rhetoric and Political Thought in Ancient Rome, was published in 2007 (Princeton University Press); her second book, Talk about Virtue: Roman Remedies for Politics, is under contract with Duckworth.  Recent publications include chapters on rhetoric and education in Blackwell and Cambridge "Companions" and essays on a range of topics: the pastoral voice in Vergil and Milton, figures of speech in the Aeneid, Augustan declamation and Greek assimilation to Roman rule.  Her reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, the Women's Review of Books, Bookforum, and TLS, and her edition of Wilkie Collins' nineteenth century classic The Moonstone was published in 2005.  Recent teaching includes the history of ancient political thought, identity and imperialism in the Roman empire and NYU's "Great Books"-style core course called "Conversations of the West." 
 
Connolly was a Laurance S. Rockefeller Fellow at the Center for Human Values in Princeton University in 2003-04.  She serves as the director of the Honors Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at NYU and sits on the board of trustees of Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. 
 
After years of being asked "What's the use of Classics?" she plans to co-edit a book for the general public on classics, liberal education and democracy. 

Posted February 12, 2008