Karl Galinsky (born 1942) is an American

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

best known for his research on

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

Early life

Galinsky was born 1942 in

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

. He finished high school in Germany and then moved to the U.S., where he went to Bowdoin College. He received his B.A. from

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...

in 1963 and his Ph.D. in

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1966. In 2011, he received an honorary Doctor of

Philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

from the

Ruhr-Universität Bochum The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...

. Galinsky is the ''Floyd A. Cailloux Centennial Professor of Classics'' and ''Distinguished University Teaching Professor'' at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Career

Galinsky has published widely on Roman literature, social and cultural history, art, and religion and is a noted expert on Augustan Rome and the role of memory in Rome. Other interests include the reception of classical themes and heroes (especially

Herakles Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...

) and the influence of Rome on

American popular culture The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western, and European origin, yet its influences includes the cultures of Asian American, African American, Latin American, and Native American peoples and their cultures. The U ...

. Galinsky has received many awards for both his teaching and scholarship, including NEH,

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...

, and

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

s; most recently he was awarded an International Research Prize from the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

for 750,000 euros and directed the project ''Memoria Romana''. Galinsky has held visiting appointments in the U.S., Europe,

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and received numerous grants from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

, including three summer seminars for college and university faculty at the

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) in Rome. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History In 1893, a group of American architects, ...

, where he was also a Resident in 1973. He has been a consultant on academic programs to many institutions, including the South African Ministry of Research after the end of the

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

regime. Galinsky regularly teaches large introductory courses on

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

and Rome and on Greece and Rome in Film.

Selected publications

*''Aeneas, Sicily and Rome.'' Princeton Univ. Press, 1969. *''The Herakles Theme''. Oxford:Blackwell, 1972. *''Ovid's Metamorphoses: an introduction to the basic aspects''. Univ. of California Press, 1975. *''Classical and Modern Interactions: postmodern architecture, multiculturalism, decline and other issue''s. Univ. of Texas Press, 1992. *''Augustan culture: an interpretive introduction''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. *Ed., ''The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus". Cambridge University Press, 2005. *''Augustus: introduction to the life of an emperor.'' Cambridge University Press, 2012. German transl. 2013. *Ed., ''Memoria Romana: Memory in Rome and Rome in Memory''. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome suppl. vol. 10. University of Michigan Press, 2014. *Ed., with K. Lapatin, ''Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire.'' Getty Museum Publications, Los Angeles, 2015. *Ed., ''Memory in Rome and Early Christianity.'' Oxford Univ. Press (UK), 2016.

References

Living people 21st-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 1942 births University of Texas at Austin faculty 21st-century American male writers {{US-historian-stub