WILLIAM LEVITAN

CURRICULUM VITAE

 

 

 

 

 

CURRENT POSITION:         Professor

                                                Department of Classics

                                                Grand Valley State University

                                                Allendale, Michigan 49401

                                                Phone: (616) 331-3600

 

 

EDUCATION

 

Ph.D., Classics, 1983.  The University of Texas at Austin

B.A., Latin, 1970.  Yale University

 

 

PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS

 

Grand Valley State University

            Professor of Classics, 2007-

            Associate Professor of Classics, 2000-07

Chair of Department, 2000-03

Associate Professor of English, 1996-2000

            Assistant Professor of English, 1993-96

 

Middlebury College

            Visiting Associate Professor of Classics, 2003-04

 

Bryn Mawr College

            Research Associate, Departments of Greek and Latin, 1992-93

            Visiting Assistant Professor of Latin, 1991-92

 

Princeton University

            Assistant Professor of Classics, 1985-91

 

University of Southern California

            Assistant Professor of Classics, 1983-85

 

 

 

 

PUBLICATIONS

 

 

Books

 

Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum and Heloise’s Epistula ad Abaëlardum.  Edition and

            commentary in preparation for Bryn Mawr Latin Commentaries.

 

Abelard and Heloise: The Letters and Other Writings.  Hackett Publishing Co., 2007.

 

 

Articles and Reviews

 

“Heloise: Second Letter to Abelard.”  New England Review 27.1 (2006): 175-86.

 

“Heloise: First Letter.”  New England Review 26.1 (2005): 6-18.

 

Review of P. J. Davis, Seneca: Thyestes.  New England Classical Journal 32.1 (2005): 71-3. 

 

 “Abelard’s History of Calamities.”  Translated with Debra Nails.  New England Review 25.1 & 2

(2004): 9-35.

 

Review of S. J. Harrison, J. L. Hilton, and V. J. C. Hunink, Apuleius: Rhetorical Works. 

American Journal of Philology 124 (2003): 156-160.

 

“Riding Homer Out on a Rail.”  Grand Valley Review 23 (2001): 91-96.

 

“Give Up the Beginning?: Juno’s Mindful Wrath (Aeneid 1.37).”  Liverpool Classical Monthly

18 (1993): 14.

 

“What to Do With Seneca.”  Bryn Mawr Classical Review 3 (1992): 420-28.

 

Review of T. G. Rosenmeyer, Senecan Drama and Stoic Cosmology.  Renaissance Quarterly 43

(1990): 641-43.

 

“Seneca in Racine.”  In Richard Goodkin, ed.  Autour de Racine: Studies in Intertextuality,

Yale French Studies 76 (1989): 185-210.

 

“Dancing at the End of the Rope: Optatian Porfyry and the Field of Roman Verse.”

            Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 115 (1985):

245-69.

 

Review of L. Kaiser, Early American Latin Verse.  Classical Outlook 62 (1985): 103.

 

“Plexed Artistry: Aratean Acrostics.”  GLYPH: Johns Hopkins Textual Studies 5 (1979): 55-68.

 

 

 

 

SELECTED LECTURES AND CONFERENCE PAPERS

 

 “Asserting Agency in the Early Middle Ages—Heloise.”  Medieval and Early Modern Seminar:

            Women and the Problem of Agency in the Pre-Modern Era, AL 892.  Michigan State

            University, East Lansing, MI.  January 21, 2005.  With Prof. D. Nails.

 

“Heloise: Philosopher and Writer.”  University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.  November 3, 2004.

 

“A Brief for the Translation of Violence.”  Arts and Humanities Faculty Symposium on

            Violence, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI.  November 16, 2000.

 

“The Senecan Paradox of the Actor.” Conference on “Seneca in Performance,” Northwestern

University, Evanston, IL.  November 15, 1998.

 

Keynote Address.  Michigan Junior Classical League State Convention, Allendale, MI. 

November 9, 1996.

 

“Freedom and Euripides’ Orestes.”  VIIth International Meeting on Logos and Art, International

            Center of Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Research, Olympia, Greece.  August 1996.

 

“Obsessive-Compulsive Literature of the Late Empire.”  Mary Washington College,

Fredericksburg, VA.  October 1994

 

“Caesar’s Commentaries as Historiographic Narrative.”  Congrès de la Fédération Internationale

            des Associations d’Études Classiques, Québec, Canada.  August 1994.

 

“Heard Melodies: The Sounds of Ancient Music.”  Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA.

            February 1993.

 

“History in Virgil’s Aeneid.”  University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.  March 1992.

 

“The Ancient Carmen Figuratum.”  University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.  March 1992.

 

Workshop on the Roman Comic Theater.  University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.  April 1991.

 

“Literary Repetition in Rome: The Case of Terence’s Eunuch.”  Swarthmore College,

Swarthmore, PA.  February 1991.

 

“Performing Against the Plot in Terence’s Eunuch: Phaedria Takes Off.”  Panel on “Comic

Acting and Dramatic Structure,” Annual Meeting, American Philological Association,

San Francisco, CA.  December 1990.

 

“Poetry for the End of Empire.”  Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.  May 1989.

 

“Seneca in the Seventeenth Century.”  American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy.  June 1988.

 

“Nec Sit Modus—Let There Be No End: Narrative and Theatrical in Senecan Drama.”

            International Conference, Society for the Study of Narrative Literature, Columbus, OH.

            April 1988.

 

“Pattern Poetry in the Ancient World.” American Academy, Rome, Italy.  February 1988.

 

“The Problem of Ancient Music.”  Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.  December 1986.

 

“Music and Myth in Pythian 12.”  Conference on “Pindar in Performance,” University of

Kansas, Lawrence, KS.  November 1985.

 

“Renaissance Lullabies.”  Keynote Address, Annual Meeting, Classical Association of New

            Jersey, Princeton, NJ.  October 1985.

 

“The Latin Poetry of Permutation.”  Conference on “The Call of the Phoneme,”  Society for the

            Humanities, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.  September 14, 1985.

 

“Latin Poetry and Pedagogy.”  Annual Meeting, California Classical Association—Southern

Section, Irvine, CA.  November 1984.

 

“The Naeniae of Giovanni Pontano.”  Congresso Internazionale, Centro Studi Umanistici

            ‘Angelo Poliziano,’ Montepulciano, Italy.  July 1984.

 

“Above Suspicion: Caesar’s Narrative Technique.”  Panel on Narratology, Annual Meeting,

            American Philological Association, Cincinnati, OH.  December 1983.

 

“Myths of the Goddess: Jane Harrison, Robert Graves, and Altman’s Three Women.”  Annual

            Meeting, Philological Association of the Pacific Coast, Santa Barbara, CA.

            November 1983.

 

“Optatian Porfyry.”  Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.  May 1983.

 

“On Performing Ancient Music.”  University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.  April 1980.

 

 

HONORS AND AWARDS

 

Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

 

Vice-President, Board of Governors, Society of Fellows, American Academy in Rome, 1992-93.

 

Rome Prize and NEH Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, 1987-88.

 

 

RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

 

Editorial Consultant        Yale University Press, 2000-05

Hackett Publishing Co., 1992-98

                                    Pantheon Books, 1990

 

Reader/Referee                        Cornell University Press

                                    Hackett Publishing Co.

                                    Parmenides Publishing Co.

                                    Princeton University Press

                                    Stanford University Press

                                    University of Wisconsin Press

                                   

Co-director, Seneca’s Oedipus, Grand Valley State University, April, 2007.

 

Producer/director of radio series broadcasting dramatic adaptations of ancient and medieval

literary works, KUT-FM, Austin, TX, 1976-79.

 

 

COURSES TAUGHT

 

At Grand Valley State University

                        Elementary and Intermediate Latin; Horace’s Odes; Mediaeval Latin Literature;

Introduction to Latin Literature; Ancient Drama; “Classical Theater Workshop”; “Notions of the Classics (Classics Capstone)”; English Composition: Exposition and Argument; “Classical Literature” (epic and tragedy); “British Literature I” (medieval and renaissance); “Renaissance Literature” (English drama); “Modern World Masterpieces”; “Topics in Literature: Comedy”; “Topics in Literature: Virgil, Dante, Milton”; “Studies in Drama”; Honors College “Classical World I and II”

 

At Middlebury College

                        Elementary Latin; Advanced Greek; independent reading course on Roman

                        comedy

In translation: Classical Epic; Ancient Comedy; “Seminar in Classical Literature”

(Senecan Drama and Its Tradition)

 

At Bryn Mawr College

            Undergraduate:

                        Elementary and Intermediate Latin; Roman Comedy; Literature of the Empire

                        In translation: “Comedy From Aristophanes to Woody Allen.”

            Graduate:

                        History of Roman Republican Literature; independent reading course in Roman

                        satire.

 

At Princeton University

            Undergraduate:

                        Elementary and Intermediate Latin; “Catullus and His Age”; “The Origins of

Rome: Livy and Virgil”; “Introduction to Augustan Literature: Ovid”; “Roman

Drama: Terence”; “Roman Drama: Seneca”; “Virgil’s Aeneid”; independent

reading courses on Seneca, Ovid, Propertius, Catullus, Lucretius; supervision of

Senior Theses and Junior Independent Work on Servius, Catullus, Lucretius,

Virgil, Horace, Roman Elegy, Plautus, Propertius, Euripides, ancient music,

G. Leopardi, E. Pound.

In translation: “Homer and the Tragic Vision”; “The Ancient Comic Tradition”;

“Studies in the Classical Tradition.”

 

            Graduate:

                        Catullus, Survey of Latin Literature: the Republic; Senecan drama; independent

                        reading courses on archaic Latin literature; reader of dissertations on Catullus,

Ovid, Aristophanes.

 

At the University of Southern California

            Undergraduate:

                        Elementary and Intermediate Latin; Roman Lyric Poetry.

                        In translation: Comedy; “Music in the Ancient World”; “The Tradition of

Romance: Homer to Shakespeare.”

            Graduate:

                        Senecan Tragedy; Survey of Latin Literature: the Empire.

 

 

SELECTED COMMITTEE AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE

at Grand Valley State University

 

University Task Force on Minor in Chinese, 2006-

University Institutional Representative to the American Academy in Rome, 2002-

University Institutional Representative to the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, 2002-

University Faculty Personnel Policy Committee, 2001-03, 2005- ; Chair, 2002-03

Grand Valley Review, Assistant Editor, 1996-

University Committee on Housing 2008 (Honors College architectural planning), 2006-07

Department of English, Oldenburg Prize Committee, Judge, 1995, 2002, 06

University Task Force on Academic Reorganization, 2003

Division of Arts and Humanities Dean Search Committee, 2002-03

Department of Classics, Chair, 2000-03

Division of Arts and Humanities, Executive Committee, 1998-2003

Division of Arts and Humanities Curriculum Committee, 2001-02

University Academic Senate, Executive Committee of the Senate, 2000

Department of Music, Student Essay Competition, Juror, 2000

University Task Force on Classics, Chair, 1999-2000

Division of Arts and Humanities, Chair-elect, 1998-99; Chair, 1999-2000

Classics Coordinating Committee, Chair, 1995-2000

Coordinator of Classics, 1995-2000

Grand Valley Classical Forum, Organizer, 1995-2000

Department of English Personnel Committee, 1996-99; Chair, 1997-99

Shakespeare Festival Committee, 1997-98

Department of English, Chamberlain Scholarship and Davis Scholarship Committee,

1995-96, 97-98

Department of English Lecture Series Committee, Chair, 1995-97

Department of English Chair Search Committee, 1993-94

 

 

LANGUAGES

 

Latin, Greek (ancient), French, Italian, German

 

 

8/5/07