PETER
T. STRUCK
Associate Professor, Undergraduate Chair, Department of
Classical Studies; graduate faculties of Religion and Comparative Literature
University of
Pennsylvania
201 Logan Hall
249 South 36th
Street
Philadelphia,
PA 19104-6304
ph: 215-898-7425
email:
struck@sas.upenn.edu
Last updated April 2009
Areas
of Interest
Greek and Roman literary
criticism; Greek and Roman divination; Greek and Roman religion; History of
literary theory from the ancient period to the present; Late Antiquity; Greek and
Roman magic; Theurgy; Neoplatonism; contemporary hermeneutics; contemporary
semiotics
Professional
Experience
Princeton University,
Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Classics (Spring 2008)
University of Pennsylvania
Associate
Professor, Department of Classical Studies (2005- ); Undergraduate Chair (2007
- )
Assistant
Professor, Department of Classical Studies (1999-2005)
Director, Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program (2009 - )
Chair, creator, Integrated Studies Planning Committee (2009 - )
Director
(interim), Undergraduate Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory,
University of Pennsylvania (Spring 2005)
Director, Post-Baccalaureate
Program, Department of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania (2003-06)
Faculty Fellow, Stouffer
College House, University of Pennsylvania (2000-2002)
Faculty Fellow (Interim),
Hamilton College House, University of Pennsylvania (1999-2000)
University of
Missouri-Kansas City, Assistant Professor,
co-director, Program in Classical Languages and Literatures (1998-99)
Ohio State University, Senior Lecturer, Department
of Classics (1997-98)
University of Chicago, Preceptor, Master of Arts
Program in the Humanities (1996-97)
University of Chicago, Lecturer, Department of
Comparative Literature (Fall 1996)
University of Chicago, Instructor, Department of
Classics, Intensive Greek Program (Summer, 1996)
Education
Ph.D.,
University of Chicago, 1997 (Comparative Literature)
M.A.,
University of Chicago, 1991 (Divinity: Religion and Literature)
A.B.,
University of Michigan, 1987 (English and Anthropology)
Grants,
Awards, and Honors
Center
for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford (scheduled fellow for
2009-10; awardee 2005)
The Teagle Foundation. Grant to create the National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education ($392,500), with Sarah Igo of Vanderbilt, 2009-12. Goal of the forum is to make pedagogy and good academic governance a more prominent part of junior faculty's career portfolios.
C. J. Goodwin Award of Merit for best book of the year in the field of classics, American Philological Association (2007)
College
of General Studies Distinguished Teaching Award (2006)
Fellow, Young Faculty Leaders
Forum, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2002-2006).
Mellon
Faculty Research Fellow, Penn Humanities Forum (2004-2005)
Lindback
Teaching Award, University of Pennsylvania (highest award university-wide)
(2004)
Robert F.
and Margaret S. Goheen Fellow, National Humanities Center (2002-2003)
Andrew W.
Mellon/ACLS Fellowship for Junior Faculty (2002-2003)
Research
Foundation Grant, University of Pennsylvania (2001)
Distributed
Learning Venture Fund Grants, University Pennsylvania (2000, 2001) (see
http://www.classics.upenn.edu/myth)
Whiting
Dissertation Year Fellowship(1995-1996)
Overseas
Dissertation Research Fellowship, University of Chicago (1994)
University
of Chicago, Dean of the Humanities Travel Grant (1994, 1995, 1996)
University
Fellowship (1989-1994)
Publications
Book:
Birth
of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of Their Texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004) xiv +
312 pp.
•C. J. Goodwin Award of Merit for best book of the year in the field of classics, American Philological Association (awarded 2007)
•Reviews:
Times Literary Supplement (Jan. 14,
2005): 4-5
Bryn Mawr Classics Review 2005.06.08
Classical World 99.1 (2005) 95-96
New England Classics Journal 32.3
(2005): 266-68
Comparative Literature 58 (Summer
2006): 256-59
Classical Review 57 (April 2007):
50-52
•Review
articles:
David
Konstan, "Reading for the Meaning," Literary Imagination 7.1
(2005): 105-18
Aldo
Setaioli,"Simbolo e allegoria. Aproposito di un libro recente,"
International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13.1 (Summer 2006):
69-90.
Book
in Progress:
Divine Signs and Human
Nature
Edited
Volumes:
Cambridge Companion to
Allegory, co-edited with Rita Copeland (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, forthcoming 2009)
Mantikê: Studies in
Ancient Divination, co-edited with Sarah Iles Johnston, Religions in the
Graeco-Roman World (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
Articles:
"The Invention of Mythic Truth in Antiquity," in Christine Walde, ed., Meta-Mythologien/Meta-Mythologies
(De Gruyter, forthcoming 2009).
"Allegorical
Interpretation," in Margalit Finkelberg, ed., The Homer Encyclopedia
(Blackwell, forthcoming 2009).
"Allegory and
Ascent," in Rita Copeland and Peter Struck, eds. The Cambridge Comanion
to Allegory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2009)
"Introduction,"(with
Rita Copeland) in Rita Copeland and Peter Struck, eds. The Cambridge
Companion to Allegory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
forthcoming 2009)
"A World Full of
Signs: Understanding Divination in Ancient Stoicism," in Seeing
with Different Eyes: Essays on Astrology and Divination (Cambridge Scholars
Press, forthcoming 2007).
"Symbol and
Symbolism," Encyclopedia of Religions, second edition, ed. Lindsay
Jones (New York: Macmillan, 2005) [10,000 words].
"The Self in
Artemidorus' Interpretation of Dreams," Religion and the Self in
Antiquity, eds. David Brakke, Michael L. Satlow, and Steven Weitzman
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), pp. 109-120.
"Divination and Literary
Criticism?," in Mantikê Studies in Ancient Divination, Sarah Iles
Johnston and Peter T. Struck, eds., Religions of the Greco-Roman World (Leiden:
Brill, 2005).
"Hermeticism," Religions
of the Ancient World: A Guide, ed. Sarah Iles Johnston (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 650-52.
"Viscera and the Divine:
Dreams as the Divinatory Bridge between the Corporeal and the
Incorporeal," Prayer, Magic and the Stars in Antiquity, ed. Scott
Noegel (State College, Pa.: Penn State University Press, 2003), pp. 125-36.
"The Ordeal of the
Divine Sign: Divination and Manliness in Archaic and Classical Greece," in
Andreia, ed. Ralph Rosen and Ineke Sluiter (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp.
167-86.
"Pagan and Christian
Theurgies: Iamblichus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Religion and Magic in Late
Antiquity," Ancient World 32.2 (2001): 25-38.
"The Poet as Conjurer:
Magic and Literary Theory in Late Antiquity," in Magic and Divination
in the Ancient World, vol. 2, ed. Leda Ciraolo and Jonathan Seidel (Leiden:
Brill, 2001), pp. 119-31.
"Speech Acts and the
Stakes of Hellenism in Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7," in Magic and
Ritual in the Ancient World, ed. Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer, Religions
of the Graeco-Roman World Series (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 289-303.
"Iamblichus, De
Mysteriis, book 1," introduction, translation, and notes, in Religions
of Late Antiquity in Practice, ed. Richard Valantasis (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2000), pp. 489-505.
"At the Limits of
Mimesis: Reading Symbolically in Late Antiquity and Beyond," in Mimesis:
Studien zur literarischen Representation, ed. Bernhard F. Scholz (Basel: A.
Francke Verlag, 1998), pp. 149-64.
"Allegory, Aenigma, and
Anti-Mimesis: A Struggle Against Aristotelian Literary Theory" in Greek
Literary Theory after Aristotle , ed. J. G. J. Abbenes, S. R. Slings, and
I. Sluiter, (Amsterdam: Vrije University Press, 1995), pp. 215-34.
Reviews:
Review of François
Guillaumont, Le De diuinatione de Cicéron et les theories antiques de
la divination (Brussells: Éditions Latomus, 2006) and D. Wardle, Cicero:
On Divination, Book 1, Clarendon Ancient History Series (Oxford:
Oxford University Press,2006), forthcoming in Classical Review.
Review of Luc Brisson, How
Philosophers Saved Myths (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004),
Journal of Religion 86.4 (2006): 713â716.
Review of G. R. Boys-Stones,
ed., Metaphor, Allegory and the Classical Tradition (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2003) Hermathena (2006).
Review of Dan Cohn-Sherbok
and John M. Court, eds., Religious Diversity in the Graeco-Roman World: A
Survey of Recent Scholarhip (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press,
2001), in Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2004):214-16.
Review of Oiva Kuisma, Proclus'
Defense of Homer (Societas Scientiarum Fennica,1996), in Classical
Philology 94.1 (1999): 114-21.
Editorial Boards
Journal of the History of Ideas
Magic,
Ritual, and Witchcraft
Lapham's Quarterly
Professional Activities
Penn Humanities Forum,
topic director for 10th-year program, "Change"(2008-09)
"Meat in Human Society: Killing, Consuming, and Commodifying Animals," May 1-2, 2009, University of Pennsylvania. Co-organizer for conference.
Penn Humanities Forum,
Faculty Advisory Board (2005 - present)
Consultant on higher
education, Teagle Foundation, New York (2003-present).
New England Ancient History
Colloquium, respondent, Yale University, Oct. 25, 2007.
Classical Association of the
Atlantic States, panelist, Centennial Roundtable Discussion, "Do Liberal
Arts Colleges Deliver a Liberal Education?" Washington, D.C., Oct. 6,
2007.
Teagle Foundation,
participant, "Listening" session on Classical Antiquity, New York
(December 3, 2004).
Presenter at American
Philological Association Seminar on "Divination in Ancient Greece,"
American Philological Association, Boston, January 2005.
"Greek and Roman
Divination," University of Pennsylvania, April 20-21, 2001. Principal
organizer for conference.
"Europe and the
Mediterranean in Late Antiquity," respondent for session at the Society of
Biblical Literature, Nashville, November 18-21, 2000.
Service
Faculty Director, Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program (2009 - )
Graduate Council of the Faculties (2008 - )
SAS Committee on Graduate Continuing Education (2008 - )
Undergraduate Chair,
Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania (2007-)
Learning and Technology Committee,
School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania (2007-)
Critical Writing Committee,
University of Pennsylvania (2001- )
Fellow, Teaching with
Technology Seminar, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of
Pennsylvania (2007-08)
Director, Post-Baccalaureate
Program, Department of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania (2003-06)
Lindback Award Review
Committee, University of Pennsylvania (2005, 2006, 2008)
School of Arts and Sciences
Teaching Awards Review Committee, University of Pennsylvania (Spring 2005,
Spring 2006)
Director (interim),
Undergraduate Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, University
of Pennsylvania (Spring 2005)
Dean's Welcome to the
College, University of Pennsylvania, panel presenter for in coming freshman
class (2003, 2004, 2005)
Center for Teaching and
Learning Advisory Board, University of Pennsylvania (2004-06)
Dean's Welcome to the Pilot
Curriculum, University of Pennsylvania, presenter for incoming freshman class
(2002)
Freshman Advisor, University
of Pennsylvania (1999- )
Penn Ethics Forum on Ethics
in Practice, University of Pennsylvania (Spring 2004- )
Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching
Fellowship Review Committee, University of Pennsylvania (2001)
Faculty Fellow, Stouffer
College House, University of Pennsylvania (2000-2002)
Interim Faculty Fellow,
Hamilton College House, University of Pennsylvania (1999-2000)
Hamilton College House,
Faculty Master search, University of Pennsylvania (2000)
Penn Reading Project
discussion leader (2000)
Informal presentations for
Career Services on life after graduate school (2000)
Undergraduate Committee, UMKC
(1998-1999)
Review committee, Comparative
Literature, University of Chicago (1994)
Latin tutor to local high
school students, Chicago (1992-1994)
Invited
Lectures on Research
"Making Sense of the Macrocosm: Divine Signs and Somatic Signals in Ancient Stoicism," Annual Goodwin Award Lecture, University of Cincinati, April 24, 2009.
"Iamblichus on the Rationality of Divine Knowledge," delivered at "Wisdom in Ancient Thought," Columbia University, Center for the Ancient Mediterranean, April 3-4, 2009.
"Magicians in Ancient Times," Penn Humanities Forum, Public Lecture Series, University of Pennsylvania, March 26, 2009.
"Classical Allegory and Medieval Mystical Traditions,"delivered at the Cambridge Neo-Latin Society Symposium, Clare College, Cambridge University, Faculty of Classics, September 22-23, 2008.
"Divination and Human
Nature in Aristotle," Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, April 16, 2007.
"A World Full of
Signs: Understanding Divination in Ancient Stoicism," Keynote
address at "Seeing with Different Eyes," University of Kent, April, 2006
"Natural
Supernaturalism: Aristotle's On Divination by Dreams," Columbia
University, April, 2004
"Divination and
Sympathy: Stoic Theories of Divine Signs," Fordham University, April, 2004
"Artemidorus and the
Ancient Greek Self," delivered at "The Religious Self in
Antiquity," Indiana University (Bloomington), September, 2003
"Physicalist Theories in
Ancient Greek and Roman Divination," University of Texas at Austin,
February, 2003
"Microcosm and Macrocosm
in Greek Divination," Amsterdam Hellenist Club, December, 2002
"Microcosm and Macrocosm
in Greek Divination," Leiden University, The Netherlands, December,2002
"Microcosm and Macrocosm
in Greek Divination" University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, November,
2002
"Microcosm and Macrocosm
in Greek Divination" University of North Carolina Greensboro, October,
2002
"Invocation Theories of
Literature in Late Antiquity" Princeton University, March, 2002
"Notes on the Mechanics
of Divination in Practice: Divine and Human Speech in the Iliad, Oedipus
Rex, and the 'Wooden Wall'" at the Bryn Mawr Classics Colloquium,
November, 2000
"Sacramental
Reading" at the Hall Center, Social and Cultural Studies Before1500
Seminar, University of Kansas, February, 1999
Invited Presentations on the Academic Profession
Presenter, "How Are We Doing? Scholarly Judgments of Academic Achievement," Panel Discussion at ACLS Annual Meeting, Friday, May 8, Philadelphia.
Presenter, "New Leadership for Student Learning," Panel Discussion at the Teagle Foundation conference on Systematic Improvement of Student Learning, October 9-11, 2008, Durham, NC.
Teagle Foundation planning meeting, Washington Duke Inn, February 7-8, 2008.
Presenter, "Do Liberal
Arts Colleges Deliver a Liberal Education?" Classical Association of the
Atlantic States, Centennial Roundtable Discussion, Washington, D.C., Oct. 6,
2007.
Participant, Teagle Foundation, "Listening: Roundtable on Classical Antiquity and the Liberal Arts," New York
(December 3, 2004).
Other Presentations of Research
"Physicalist Theories in
Ancient Greek and Roman Divination," University of Pennsylvania, February,
2003
"Divination and Literary
Criticism?" at the conference "Greek and Roman Divination,"
University of Pennsylvania, April, 2001
"Viscera and the Divine:
Dreams as Divinatory Bridge between the Corporeal and the Incorporeal" at
"Prayer, Magic, and the Stars," University of Washington, Seattle,
March 2000
"Divination, Andreia
and Virtus: The Divine and the Formation of Social Goods," at the
conference "ANDREIA and Ancient Constructs of Manly Courage,"
Penn-Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values 1, University of Leiden, The
Netherlands, June, 2000
"Sacramental Reading:
The Dionysian Imagination in Late Antiquity," at the conference
"Plotinus and his Visions: The Alexandrian Intellectual World in
Transition," Claremont Institute for Antiquity and Early Christianity,
February, 1999
"Dreams and Flesh: The
Case of Hippocrates' On Regimen IV," at the American Philological
Association annual meeting, Dallas, December, 1999
"Synesius and the
Hermeneutics of Within: Dream Divination and Psychology in a Synthetic
Cosmos," American Academy of Religions Conference, Europe and the
Mediterranean in Late Antiquity Session on "Pagans and Christians at the
End of Antiquity," Orlando, Fla., November, 1998
"Speech Acts and the
Stakes of Hellenism in Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7," at the Second
International Conference on Magic in the Ancient World, Orange, Calif., August,
1998
"Pagan and Christian
Theurgies," at the American Philological Association annual meeting,
Chicago, December, 1997
"Speech Acts and the
Stakes of Hellenism in Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7," (earlier
version of paper delivered at Orange, California) at the American Academy of
Religions meeting, San Francisco, November, 1997
"The Talismanic
'Symbol': The Poet as Conjurer in Ancient Literary Theory," American
Philological Association annual meeting, New York, December, 1996
"Face to Face with the
Gods: The Theurgic 'Symbol' and the Representation of the Divine,"
American Academy of Religions annual meeting, New Orleans, November, 1996
"Against Mimesis: The
Neoplatonists and the 'Symbol' in Ancient Literary Theory," at the
conference, "Mimesis 50 Years Later: A conference in honor of Erich
Auerbach," Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen, the Netherlands, May, 1996
"The Riddling Text:
Divination and the Interpretation of Literature in Antiquity," The
Workshop on Rhetoric and Poetics, Ancient and Modern, University of Chicago,
May, 1996
"The Riddling Text"
(earlier version of above) delivered at the conference, "Ancient and
Medieval Philosophy and Social Thought," Binghamton University, SUNY,
October, 1995
"The Neoplatonists and
the Symbol: A Performative Background for Medieval Literary Theory,"
delivered at the conference, "Performance, Ritual, and Spectacle in the
Middle Ages," Columbia University, October, 1995
"Allegory and
Anti-mimesis," delivered at the conference, "Greek Literary Theory
after Aristotle," Amsterdam, Vrije University, April, 1994
"Sumbolon: The
Magical History of Proclus' Literary Theory," delivered at the conference
"Magic and Divination in the Ancient World," University of
California, Berkeley, February, 1994
"The Early History of
the Symbol: Proclus' Invention of a Literary Category from Pythagorean,
Theurgic, and Allegorical Traditions," delivered at the Workshop on
Poetics and Rhetoric, Ancient and Modern, University of Chicago, February, 1994
Referee
Oxford University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, Princeton University Press, Routledge, Blackwell, Addison Wesley Longman, Prentice Hall, Classical Philology, Mosaic, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Classical World, Journal of the History of Ideas, American
Journal of Philology
Dissertations
Advised (all University of Pennsylvania)
Roshan Abraham (Classical
Studies, 2009), "Magic and Religious Authority in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana"
Jeremy Leftkowitz (Classical
Studies, 2009), "Aesop's Pen: Adaptation, Authorship, and Satire in the Aesopic Tradition" (reader)
Todd Krulak (Religious
Studies, 2009), "The Animated Statue and the Ascension of
the Soul: Ritual and the Divine Image in Late Platonism" (reader)
Daniel Munoz-Hutchinson (Philosophy, 2009), "Plotinus on Consciousness: A Multi-Layered Approach" (reader)
Daniel E. Harris-McCoy (Classical
Studies, 2008), "Varieties of Encyclopedism in the Early Roman Empire: Vitruvius, Pliny the Elder, Artemidorus"
T.J. Wellman (Religious
Studies), "The Holy Man in Antiquity" (reader)
Daniel McLean (Classical
Studies, 2002),"Refiguring
Socrates: Comedy and Corporeality in the Socratic Tradition" (reader)
Alex Purves (Classical
Studies, 2002), "Telling Space: Topography, Time, and Narrative from Homer
to Xenophon" (reader)
Jennifer Ebbler (Classical
Studies, 2001), "Pedants in the Apparel of Heroes? Cultures of Latin
Letter-Writing from Cicero to Ennodius" (reader)
Michael McShane (Philosophy,
2000), "Plotinus and the Limits of DiscursiveRationality" (reader)
UndergraduateAdvisees
Theses:
Alex Perkins, Classical Studies,
2006
Jacob Cytryn, Classical
Studies, 2004
Flint Dibble, Classical
Studies, 2004
Other:
Fran
Lattanzio, Michael Horwitz, and Timothy Demorest. Undergraduates originally
hired as part of a Distributed Learning Venture Fund Technology Grant to create
a web site for the course "Greek and Roman Mythology" (CLST 200).This
work developed into a senior thesis research project for Lattanzio and Horwitz
on using database display technology in pedagogically advantageous ways.
(2001-2002)
Stephanie
Langin-Hooper. Faculty Advisor for her individualized major in "Myth,
Ritual, and Religion of Ancient Cultures" (2001-2002)
Masters
Thesis Directed
"Selections from Michael
Psellos' Interpretation of the Chaldean Oracles: Translation, Introduction, and
Commentary" Lee T. Papouras, Ohio State University (1998)
Professional
Memberships
American Philological
Association (since 1995)
American Academy of Religions
/ Society of Biblical Literature (1995-2000)
Related
Experience
Founding member, Editorial
Advisory Board, Lapham's Quarterly (2007- )
Media consultant, NBC, History Channel, Newsweek,
U.S. News and World Report, A & E
Managing
Editor, History, a book series conceived by Peter Struck and Lewis
Lapham. First volume, The End of the World (New York: History Book Club,
1997; reissued St. Martin's Press, 1998)
Top Dog Media (a company
making films for children based on Greek myths) (2002-)
Editorial Assistant, Critical
Inquiry (1992-1994)
Fact-Checker,
Researcher-Reporter, U. S. News and World Report (1988-1989)
Copyeditor, The New
Republic (1987-1988)
Languages
Greek, Latin, French, Italian, German