The Jane K. Sather Professorship of Classical Literature is an

endowed chair A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are ...

for the study of

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 the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. Established in 1914 after a donation by Jane K. Sather, widow of the Norwegian-American banker Peder Sather, the professorship requires its holder to spend one term at the university. Sather Professors would teach a full programme of classes. Since 1919, the post entails a set of lectures on a unified topic which is later published as a book by the

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

. According to

classicist 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 ...

Oliver Taplin Oliver Taplin, FBA (born 2 August 1943) is a retired British academic and classicist. He was a fellow of Magdalen College and Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Oxford. He holds a DPhil from Oxford University. ...

, the chair is "the most prestigious rofessorshipin the subject in the world".

Foundation

In 1886, the Norwegian-American banker Peder Sather died, leaving a substantial fortune to his second wife Jane K. Sather. In 1900, after managing the bequest herself for some time, she decided to make an initial donation of $75,000 and other assets to the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

. At this time, Sather stipulated that her donation be used to establish a professorship of the

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 ...

and a fund for the study of law. Shortly before her death in 1911, she arranged for the funds to be consolidated; they were now to pay for what would become the Sather Tower and the establishment of two professorships: one in Classics and one in

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...

. The

Regents of the University of California The Regents of the University of California (also referred to as the Board of Regents to distinguish the board from the corporation it governs of the same name) is the governing board of the University of California (UC), a state university sys ...

complied with Sather's wishes and divided her donation accordingly. $100,000 were allocated for each of the professorships. Although her husband had accumulated the initial donation, both the tower and the professorships were named after her. In 1914,

Benjamin Ide Wheeler Benjamin Ide Wheeler (July 15, 1854– May 2, 1927) was a professor of Greek and comparative philology at Cornell University, writer, and President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919. Life and career Early years Benjamin ...

, the university's president, appointed the British

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

John Myres Sir John Linton Myres (3 July 1869 – 6 March 1954) was a British archaeologist and academic, who conducted excavations in Cyprus during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Having been a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford and then Ch ...

to be the first holder of the chair.

Professorship

Initially, holder of the professorship would spend one term at Berkeley, teaching a full programme of classes. In 1919, classicists

Ivan Mortimer Linforth Ivan Mortimer Linforth (15 September 1879, San Francisco – 15 December 1976, Berkeley, California) was an American scholar, Professor of Greek at University of California, Berkeley. According to the ''Biographical Dictionary of North American Cla ...

and George Calhoun modified the nature of the appointment: henceforth, holders would give a specified number of lectures (initially eight, later six) on a unified topic. The lectures should then be published as a book by the

. Until 1952, Sather Professors were given access to an office in the university's

Wheeler Hall Wheeler Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California in the Classical Revival style. Home to the English department as well as the university's College Writing Programs department, it was na ...

which included its own lavatory. The office has since been replaced by rooms in Dwinelle Hall furnished with a dedicated library and portraits of past holders of the chair. The Sather Professorship has been held by numerous distinguished scholars including Cyril Bailey,

E. R. Dodds Eric Robertson Dodds (26 July 1893 – 8 April 1979) was an Irish classical scholar. He was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford from 1936 to 1960. Early life and education Dodds was born in Banbridge, County Down, the son of ...

, Denys Page,

Geoffrey Kirk Geoffrey Stephen Kirk, () was a British classicist who served as the 35th Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge. He published widely on pre-Socratic philosophy and the work of the Greek poet Homer, culminating in a six-volu ...

Ronald Syme Sir Ronald Syme, (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roma ...

Edward Rand Edward Kennard Rand FBA (December 20, 1871 – October 28, 1945), known widely as E.K. Rand or to his peers as EKR, was an American classicist and medievalist. He served as the Pope Professor of Latin at Harvard University from 1901 until 1942 ...

, and

Bernard Knox Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox (November 24, 1914 – July 22, 2010Wolfgang Saxon ''The New York Times'', August 16, 2010.) was an English classicist, author, and critic who became an American citizen. He was the first director of the Cente ...

. Appointments in the 21st century have included Latinists Philip Hardie, Alessandro Barchiesi, and Denis Feeney,

Hellenists In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in History of Greece, Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra, Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed ...

Helene P. Foley, and

Gregory Nagy Gregory Nagy (, ; born October 22, 1942, in Budapest)"CV: Gregory Nagy"
''gregorynagy.org''< ...

, and historians Mary Beard and Nicholas Purcell. According to classicist

, the chair is "the most prestigious rofessorshipin the subject in the world".

Impact

Writing for ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'', poet and author

Robert Bringhurst Robert Bringhurst Appointments to the Order of Canada (2013). (born 1946) is a CanadianWong (1999). poet, typographer and author. He has translated substantial works from Haida and Navajo and from classical Greek and Arabic. He wrote ''The El ...

states that the Sather Lectures and its associated publications "include many major works of classical scholarship". The 1969 Lectures, given by Hellenist

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

, offered "an important re-examination of the religious beliefs of the Greeks in the pre-classical and classical periods". They resulted in 1971 in the publication of Lloyd-Jones' first influential publication, ''The Justice of Zeus''. In 1970, historian F. W. Walbank delivered the Sather Lectures on the Greek writer

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

. His resulting book (''Polybius'' (1972)) was still considered the standard work on this topic in the early 21st century. In 2007, Helene P. Foley gave the first Sather Lecture on the topic of

classical reception studies Classical reception studies is the study of how the classical world, especially Ancient Greek literature and Latin literature, have been received since antiquity. It is the study of the portrayal and representation of the ancient world from ancien ...

. Analysing the re-performance of classical plays in the United States, her lectures are described by Taplin as "somewhat of a milestone" in moving the subject closer to the mainstream of classical scholarship.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Professorship of Classical Literature, Sather University of California, Berkeley Classical Literature, Sather