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Publications

Below are links to talks and essays, some old, some new. Many can also be accessed through my site on academia.edu. 
All items are copyright but may be quoted if credit is given.
View my CV for a full list of my publications.
You can contact me with any questions at wrconnor1@gmail.com.

“Reading Thucydides in a Time of Pandemic," American Scholar, February 2022 (web edition)

City Dionysia and Athenian Democracy  
  • ​A close look at the evidence shows that the great festival honoring Dionysus was established soon after Cleisthenes' democratic reforms.  Democracy and the Dionysia were closely intertwined. 

​​"Unmasking the Maxim: An Ancient Genre and Why it Matters Now" Arion 28.3  (Winter 2021) pp. 5 - 42.   
  • They are everywhere in ancient Greek culture and in cultures influenced by the Greeks.  They constitute  an ubiquitous and  powerful genre, yet its significance is often underestimated. 

​"Women Poets and the Origin of the Greek Hexameter" Arion 27.2  (Fall 2019) pp. 85 - 104.   
  • ​Despite much argument we still do not know for sure where the Greek hexameter came from.  But  some ancient Greeks did, or thought they did.  Pausanias the periegete leads us on the trail  to an answer, and along the way  introduces  us to some not-to-be-forgotten poets.
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“When Hyperbole Enters Politics: What Can Be Learned From Antiquity and Our Hyperbolist-In-Chief” Arion 26.3 Winter 2019, pp. 15 – 32.
  • Hyperbole seems to rule the roost these days, not least in American politics.  How does this ancient and “figure of speech” work; what are its effect; and what are the most effective responses to it?  It’s a case where ancient can learn from modern and vice versa.  

Populist or Demagogue? A Vacuum at the Center”  American Scholar  87,2 Spring 2018 pp. 20- 31.
  • Until the 1960s or so “populism” was restricted to a agrarian movement in late nineteenth century America.  In recent years, however, it has eclipsed an older and, in my view, indispensable term, “demagogy,” to describe  a form of political leadership now very much in evidence in the United States and abroad.
  • This essay looks at demagogy as it was understood by Aristophanes and Thucydides, the earliest writers to use the term, and explores the metaphor of the typhoon used for this type of leadership.  That, I argue, helps explain the oscillations in policy of a modern demagogue such as Donald Trump.
  • Ancient writers, the authors of the Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and others recognized the tendency of demagogy to turn into autocracy.  That is why a careful examination of demagogy is so important in our present situation. 

"Pericles on Athenian Democracy." Classical World 111, no. 2 (2018): 165-175. 
  • Understanding the role of democracy in Thucydides’ history depends to a large extent on 2.37.1 in the Periclean Funeral Oration. Four ostensibly minor stylistic features of the passage show that Thucydides represented Pericles as praising Athenian democracy but carefully embedding his comments in a wider discussion of Athenian mores (epitēdeumata) and characteristics (tropoi).  These account for much of Athens’ endurance and resilience during the war but have the ironic effect of prolonging the war and increasing the loss and suffering it caused.

"Black Learning Matters" 
InsideHigherEd December 9, 2016 

"Please Don't Make the Case for the Humanities"  Appeared under the title "Moving  beyond Op-Eds" InsideHigherEd on April 2, 2016. 

The Origins of Liberal Education
  • "... liberal education  ... was for them an education in and for freedom..." Adapted from a talk at the University of Pennsylvania in February 2014.
  • An earlier essay The Earliest Evidence for Liberal Education  has been revised and in new form now appears above as "The Origins of Liberal Education." 
The Best Defense is a Good Offense
  • Proactive Strategic Planning for the Classics
  • Adapted from remarks at the Presidential Panel at the January 2014 meeting of the American Philological Association 

Taking Mark Seriously
  • A draft essay on the second g gospel raises questions about religious and literary authority, narrative form, and  a "minimalist" Christianity. 

The Culture Wars Again 
The Huffington Post November 20, 2013

The Shrinking Humanities   Honey, I shrunk the Humanities in Inside Higher Ed January 4, 2013
  • " …we...risk replicating, validating, and promulgating one of the gravest failings of the humanities as currently practiced – "presentism," that is, an exclusionary focus on the most highly modernized societies of the contemporary  world, and the uncritical judging of the past by today’s interests and standards...." 

Review of Pache A Moment's Ornament:  The Poetics of Nympholepsy in Ancient Greece
Mnemosyne 65 (2012) 882 - 84
      ". . .  Do such stories provide … a model for the actions of real-life 
       nympholepts?   . . . "

Does Higher Education Need a New Theory of Change? Chronicle of Higher Education  December 31 2011
http://chronicle.com/article/Lets-Improve-Learning-OK/130179/
  • "... a true theory of change . . . has to include plausible ways to determine whether the claims it makes and the goals it sets are being realized..."  

We Must Call the Classics before a Court of Shipwrecked Men
Classical World 104 2011

Do Majors Matter?
InsideHigherEd, June 2011

Navigating a Perfect Storm
National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, June 2011

The Pygmies in the Cage: The Function of the Sublime in Longinus
in D. Heiland and L. Rosenthal  Literary Study, Measurement, and the Sublime: Disciplinary Assessment, The Teagle Foundation 2011

Perfect Storm: How an Imminent Crisis in Higher Education Can Strengthen Liberal Education
2011

Mycalessus: Narrative Compression and Emotional Power in Thucydidies (Draft)
2010

Great Expectations: The Expected and the Unexpected in Thucydides and in Liberal Education (Draft)
Arthur and Mary Platsis Symposium, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan, November 7, 2010

Liberal Arts I: They Keep Chugging Along (with Cheryl Ching)
Inside Higher Ed, October 1, 2010

When the Budget Sinks, Can Student Learning Still Rise? A Fable
Council of Independent Colleges Chief Academic Officers Institute
Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 11, 2009

Can Learning Be Improved When Budgets are in the Red? (with Cheryl Ching)
The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 25, 2010

When Hope and History Rhyme: Good Work in Hard Times
The Teagle Foundation Annual Report 2009

Talking the Talk, Then Walking the Walk
Inside Higher Ed, September 25, 2009

As an Economy Measure, the Light at the End of the Tunnel Has Been Turned Off
Meeting of the Spencer-Teagle "Systematic Improvement of Undergraduate Education" Projects
Durham, North Carolina, June 11, 2009

The View from My Perch: A Teagle Perspective on Improving Higher Education Now
Faculty Retreat at Hope College
Holland, Michigan, February 10, 2009

What's Happened to the Major in Liberal Education?
Liberal Education, Spring 2009

A Second Adolescence: Two Big Questions and Where They Belong
Meeting of the Institute of College Student Values
Tallahassee, Florida, February 1, 2008

The Role of the Undergraduate Major in Advancing Liberal Learning
Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association
Washington, DC, January 4, 2008

Trifecta, or, Three Bets Teagle is Making to Improve Student Learning
The Teagle Foundation Annual Report 2008

Looking Ahead: Letters to the Next President from Higher Education's Leaders
Change Magazine, September - October 2008

Searching for Islands of Success
Inside Higher Ed, October 4, 2007

Watching Charlotte Climb: Little Steps Towards Big Questions
Liberal Education, Spring 2007

Do as I Say, Not as I Did
Annual Meeting of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges
Boston, Massachusetts, December 7, 2006

Last Bastion of Liberal Education?
Inside Higher Ed, July 24, 2006

Ready for the Freight Train
Meeting of the Council of Independent Colleges-Collegiate Learning Assessment Consortium
July 24, 2006

The Right Time and Place for Big Questions
The Chronicle Review, June 9, 2006

Dreams and Fancies
2006 Annalists Letter, Hamilton College
June 3, 2006

From Foxes to Hedgehogs
Inside Higher Ed, March 31, 2006

Liberal Education: Liberating Education
Remarks to fifth form students and their parents at St. George's School
Newport, Rhode Island, February 16, 2006

Where Have All the Big Questions Gone?
Inside Higher Ed, December 12, 2005

Give Majors an Overhaul
Slate, November 15, 2005

Morality and other "Big Questions" in Liberal Education
Remarks to the Mid-Atlantic Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 15, 2005

Said Woodrow Wilson, "My Dearest West ...": Reflections on a Century of the Departmental Organization of Knowledge (Draft)
The William Kelly Prentice Lecture, Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey, December 2, 2003

Moral Knowledge in the Modern University 
Ideas, December 1999
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