Lawrence Kim, Ph.D.
- Professor , Classical Studies
I have been teaching at 性爱天堂 in the Classical Studies Department since 2010, aside from two years (2013-14, 2015-16) spent on leave in Germany, at the University of Heidelberg, on an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. Before I came to 性爱天堂, I worked in the Classics departments at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the University of Texas at Austin. My Classics teaching includes language courses鈥攁dvanced Latin and all levels of Ancient Greek鈥攁s well as a rotating trio of ancient literature and history courses鈥Classical Mythology,听The Ancient Novel, and聽The World of Late Antiquity. In addition, I regularly teach in the First-Year Experience,听Great Books of the Ancient World聽(known as HUMA); I am currently also the director and co-ordinator of HUMA, which comprises the FYE and HUMA 2301.
My research focuses on the so-called "Second Sophistic," or the renaissance of Greek literature and culture under the High Roman Empire (roughly 50-250 CE), but I am also interested in ancient narrative prose, literary criticism, and historiography of all periods. My book,听聽(Cambridge, 2010) looks at some of the ways in which the extent of Homer's knowledge of the Trojan War was debated, defended, and mocked by four Greek writers of the Empire: the geographer Strabo, the orator Dio of Prusa, the satirist Lucian, and the writer Philostratus. The book was awarded the 2011聽聽as an outstanding contribution to classical scholarship from the Society for Classical Studies (formerly the American Philological Association).
My recent publications (listed below, for more visit my聽) reflect my ongoing research on various aspects of Greek culture under the Roman Empire: literary criticism, prose style, the novel, the reception of Homer, and more broadly, Imperial Greek authors' perception and understanding of their past. My two current long-term projects, which combine many of these interests, focus on 'anti-classicizing' movements in the Second Sophistic and are tentatively titled聽The Idea of the Archaic in Imperial Greek Culture听补苍诲听The Politics of Style in Imperial Greece.