Helene P. Foley is an Americanclassical scholar. She is Professor of Classical Studies atBarnard College,Columbia University, and a member of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality at Columbia. She specialises inancient Greek literature (epic poetry,tragedy, andcomedy), women and gender in antiquity, and the reception ofclassical drama.[1]
Foley took her first degree atSwarthmore College in 1964. She then received anMAT (Master of Arts in Teaching) in English (1966) and an MA in Classics (1967) fromYale University, and a PhD in Classical Philology fromHarvard University (1975). Her doctoral thesis was entitled 'Ritual Irony in theBacchae and Other LateEuripidean Plays'.[2] She taught at Swarthmore until 1979, when she moved to Barnard College, Columbia University.[3] In 1998 she was the President of the American Philological Association (now theSociety for Classical Studies).[4] In Spring 2008 she was the 94thSather Professor of Classical Literature at the University of California, Berkeley; her Sather Lectures focused on the restaging ofGreek tragedies in America, and the ways in which modern productions of these plays explored themes of contemporary concern including slavery, race, the status of women, immigration, and identity.[5] These lectures were later published asReimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage (2012).[6] She has also been Visiting Professor atDartmouth College andNew York University.[7]
She is currently finishing a book onEuripides'Hecuba, coordinating an issue of the Proceedings of the Modern Language Association with Jean Howard on Tragedy, and working on tragic choruses. A conference, 'Female Agents: Gender, Drama, Reception, Performance', will be held in her honour 31 March-1 April 2023 at Barnard College.[citation needed]
