 | This articlerelies excessively onreferences toprimary sources. Please improve this article by addingsecondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Society for Classical Studies" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Formation | 1869 |
|---|---|
| Type | Learned society |
| Headquarters | 20 Cooper Square, 3rd Floor,New York University,New York City, U.S. |
| Location | |
Executive Director | Zachary Slates |
| Subsidiaries | Transactions of the American Philological Association |
| Affiliations | American Council of Learned Societies (member) |
| Website | classicalstudies |
Formerly called | American Philological Association |
TheSociety for Classical Studies (SCS), formerly known as theAmerican Philological Association (APA), is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects ofGreek andRoman civilization founded in 1869. It is the preeminent association in the field and publishes a journal,Transactions of the American Philological Association (TAPA). The SCS is currently based atNew York University.[1]
The APA was inaugurated byWilliam D. Whitney, ofYale, atPoughkeepsie, New York, in 1869 as an outgrowth of the Classical Section of theOriental Society.[2] Of the 151 inaugural members, just 8 were women, includingAlice Robinson Boise Wood, the first woman to study (informally) at theUniversity of Michigan and to graduate with a B.A. from theOld University of Chicago.[3] Originally its members studied a great variety of texts and languages, but as disciplines such aslinguistics and modern languages have created their own societies, the APA came to be concerned with classical antiquity and fields closely related to the study of antiquity, while the definition of "philology" broadened to include many approaches to understanding the ancient world. In 2013, the American Philological Association elected to change its name to the Society for Classical Studies.[4]
The Society holds its annual convention in January, meeting jointly with theArchaeological Institute of America. About 400 scholarly papers are delivered at the Society's meeting, which is also the site for interviewing for college and university positions and for the meetings of the many committees and affiliated groups. It is also the occasion for the presentation of Society awards[5] for teaching, public outreach, and scholarly publications publication, including theGoodwin Award of Merit, which recognizes a recently published book.
At every meeting, an Outreach Division conducts two events that are open to the general public. One is a special panel that is of interest to non-specialists. Topics have included the movieTroy, Classics and Contemporary Fiction and theHBO seriesRome and Classics and Comics. The second is the staged reading of a classical or classically themed play, by the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance. The productions have been:The Invention of Love (Tom Stoppard, directed by Mary-Kay Gamel, produced byJudith Hallett),The Heavensgate Deposition (based onApocolocyntosis bySeneca the Younger, adapted by Douglass Parker, directed by Amy R. Cohen, produced by Thomas Jenkins),The Golden Age (byThomas Heywood, directed by C. W. Marshall),Iran Man (based onPersa byPlautus, directed by Mary-Kay Gamel),Thespis (byW. S. Gilbert andA. S. Sullivan, with new music by Alan Riley Jones, directed by John Starks, produced by John Given),The Birds (byAristophanes, directed by Thomas Talboy),Cyclops (byEuripides, directed by Laura Lippman and Mike Lippman),Thersites (perhaps byNicholas Udall, directed by C. W. Marshall),Thesmophoriazusae (byAristophanes, directed by Bella Vivante),The Jurymen (by Katherine Janson, directed by Amy R. Cohen) andAlcestis (byEuripides, translated by Mary-Kay Gamel, directed by Gamel and Mark Damen).
The Society presents awards, fellowships and grants for teaching at both pre-collegiate and collegiate level, for projects that bring classics to a wider public, and for research and publication.[5] In addition to the prestigious Goodwin Award of Merit, recognizing scholarly books by Society members, these include the SCS Awards for Excellence in Academic Advising and in Teaching (at both the collegiate and high school level and the Mary-Kay Gamel Outreach Prize.[5] The Society also recognizes graduate student writing through theErich S. Gruen Prize and literary translation through theRaffaella Cribiore Award for Outstanding Literary Translation.[5]
TheCharles J. Goodwin Award of Merit is the Society's annual prize for outstanding publications in the field ofclassics, named in honor of Charles Jaques Goodwin (1866–1935), a long-time member and benefactor of the Society.[6] Award recipients are chosen by a five-member elected committee and presented at the Society's annual meeting. Prior to the creation of the Raffaella Cribiore Award in 2025, they were the only prizes for books given by the Society.[7]
Works eligible for the award must be published by a member of the Society during the preceding three years. Until 2013, the award had a single recipient; since then, the SCS Board of Directors mandated the Committee make three awards each year.[7] The Goodwin Award is considered among the most prestigious accolades in classical studies and has had only one repeat winner,Peter T. Struck. Its inaugural recipient wasDavid Magie ofPrinceton University in 1951.[8]
The Outreach Prize recognizes outstanding projects or events by an SCS member or members that make an aspect of classical antiquity available and attractive to an audience other than classics scholars or students in their courses.[5] Previously known as the APA Scholarly Outreach Prize, it was later renamed in honor of translator and classical theatre producer Mary-Kay Gamel of theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz, who won the prize in 2009. Previous winners includeRobert B. Strassler for editing theLandmark Ancient Histories andSarah Bond for her portfolio of public writing.[9] The inaugural prize in 2009 was split betweenHerbert Golder, editor-in-chief of the classics journalArion, and archaeologistAnn Olga Koloski-Ostrow ofBrandeis University.[9]
The Erich S. Gruen Prize recognizes the best graduate research paper on multiculturalism in the ancient Mediterranean.[5] Named in honor of ancient historianErich S. Gruen, a former president of the APA and long-time professor at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, the prize awards high-quality papers treating any aspect of race, ethnicity, or cultural exchange as it pertains to the ancient Mediterranean by any student currently enrolled in a North American graduate program, regardless of citizenship, immigration status, or Society membership.[10] The prize was first awarded in 2020 to Kelly Nguyen ofBrown University.
The Raffaella Cribiore Award for Outstanding Literary Translation honors up to two books each year by Society members published within the past three calendar years, each translating a primary text in Ancient Greek or Latin.[11] The award is named in memory ofRaffaella Cribiore ofNew York University, the 2004 recipient of the Goodwin Award.
Through its divisions of Research, Education, Publications, Professional Matters, and Program, the Society conducts a variety of activities to support and disseminate knowledge of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. For example, it operates a Placement Service, gathers statistical information about the demographics of classicists, hears complaints of violations of professional ethics, provides advice and funding for major research projects (such as theBarrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World), and publishes monographs, textbooks and software. The Outreach Division produces a newsletter,Amphora,[12] for non-specialists, and the electronic newsletterThe Dionysiac,[13] which gives information about performances of classical plays and other events related to ancient performance.
Many notable scholars have served as executives of the APA and SCS, includingBasil Lanneau Gildersleeve,William Watson Goodwin,Herbert Weir Smyth,Paul Shorey,Lily Ross Taylor,Berthold Ullman,Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton, Gerald Else,Helen F. North,Bernard Knox, Charles Segal,Emily Vermeule, andShelley Haley.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
