Cynthia Damon
{{Short description|Professor of Classical Studies}}
{{Infobox academic
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Cynthia Damon
| honorific_suffix =
| image = CDNovember2018.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption = Cynthia Damon, Professor of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = 1957
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| death_cause =
| region =
| nationality =American
|citizenship=| other_names =
| occupation =
| period =
| known_for =Translation of and commentary on classical texts
| title =
| boards = American Philological Association (2007-2010)
| spouse =
| children =
| parents =
| family =
| awards =
| website =
| education =
| alma_mater = Stanford University
| thesis_title =Vetus atque antiquus quaestus: The Art of the Parasite in Ancient Rome
| thesis_url =
| thesis_year =
| school_tradition =
| doctoral_advisor =Edward Courtney, Susan Treggiari, Elaine Fantham
| influences =
| era =
| discipline = Classical Studies
| sub_discipline = Latin literature, historiography
| workplaces = Harvard University
Amherst College
University of Pennsylvania
| doctoral_students =
| notable_students =
| main_interests =
| notable_works =
| notable_ideas =
| influenced =
| signature =
| signature_alt =
| signature_size =
| footnotes =
}}Cynthia Ellen Murray Damon (born 1957) is a Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on Latin literature and Roman historiography, having published translations and commentaries on authors such as Caesar and Tacitus.{{Cite web|url=https://www.classics.upenn.edu/people/cynthia-damon|title=Cynthia Damon {{!}} Department of Classical Studies|website=www.classics.upenn.edu|language=en|access-date=2017-10-20}}
Career
Cynthia Damon received her B.A. in History from Stanford University in 1979, M.A. in Classics from Boston College in 1984 and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1990,{{Cite web|url=https://classics.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/summer_1990_newsletter.pdf|title=Classics Stanford Newsletter Summer 1990|date=1990|access-date=30 Jul 2018|archive-date=11 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160311115522/https://classics.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/summer_1990_newsletter.pdf|url-status=dead}}{{Cite journal|date=1989|title=Dissertations in Progress|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/456166/summary|journal=Syllecta Classica|language=en|volume=1|issue=1|pages=133–138|doi=10.1353/syl.1989.0012|issn=2160-5157}} as well as an honorary A.M. from Amherst College in 2004.
Damon taught at Harvard University as Assistant Professor from 1990-1995, at Amherst College as Assistant Professor and Professor 1995-2007, and moved to the University of Pennsylvania as Professor of Classical Studies in 2007.{{Cite web|url=https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/cynthia-damon/33564/|title=Cynthia Damon|website=www.penguin.co.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-07-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180730141124/https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/cynthia-damon/33564/|archive-date=2018-07-30|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.classics.upenn.edu/sites/www.classics.upenn.edu/files/damoncvupdatedfeb2018.pdf|title=Cynthia Damon CV|date=2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180730170605/https://www.classics.upenn.edu/sites/www.classics.upenn.edu/files/damoncvupdatedfeb2018.pdf|archive-date=30 July 2018|access-date=30 July 2018|url-status=dead}} In 2015 Damon was awarded the College of Liberal and Professional Studies Distinguished Teaching Award for Standing Faculty.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/lps/students/current/graduation/faculty-awards-2015|title=Faculty Awards for 2015 {{!}} The College of Liberal and Professional Studies (LPS)|website=www.sas.upenn.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-07-30}}
Damon was the editor of Transactions of the American Philological Association from 2001 to 2005[https://gustavus.edu/classics/cam/10-06CAMnewsletter.pdf Classical Association of Minnesota newsletter, 2006] and member of the board of directors of the American Philological Association from 2007 to 2010.[https://classicalstudies.org/publications-and-research/newsletter/spring-2010-newsletter APA newsletter, Spring 2010] Damon is part of Bryn Mawr Classical Review
In 1997 Damon published The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage based on her doctoral thesis.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mEJ-aA_XQQQC&q=%22Cynthia+Damon%22+dissertation+stanford+university&pg=PR4|title=The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage|last1=Damon|first1=Cynthia|last2=Damon|first2=Professor of Classical Studies Cynthia|date=1997|publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=0472107607|language=en}} Since 1997 Damon has focused on the translation of and commentaries on key classical texts including works by Augustus, Nepos, Tacitus, and Caesar. Damon was awarded a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship in 2013/14 to work on a new translation of Caesar's Civil War, which was published in 2016 replacing the 1914 version by A. G. Peskett.{{Cite news|url=https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL039/2016/volume.xml|title=Caesar, Civil War {{!}} Loeb Classical Library|work=Loeb Classical Library|access-date=2018-07-30|language=en}} She is currently focusing on Pliny's Natural History and its reception and delivered a keynote address Plinian layers: On editing the reception of Pliny’s planetary theory in 2016 at the conference The Arts of Editing: Past, Present and Future (17–19 August 2016) at Stockholm University.{{Cite web|url=http://www.arsedendi.org/?page_id=1777|title=− Conference August 2016|website=www.arsedendi.org|language=en-US|access-date=2018-07-30}}
Damon has been praised for her meticulous approach to texts. For example, Antonio Moreno Hernández commented on Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum civile:
This excellent edition makes serious contributions to the reconstruction of the text, and its careful and deep reading of the text of BC and the close study of its textural tradition is accompanied by an insightful commentary on troublesome passages that brings to light the enormous complexity of a text that has been transmitted in such a deficient way, offering suggestive new proposals that will encourage reflection on the reading and interpretation of the work of Caesar.{{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/studies-on-the-text-of-caesars-bellum-civile-9780198724063?cc=us&lang=en&|title=Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum civile|date=2015-11-24|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198724063|location=Oxford, New York}}{{Cite journal|last=Hernández|first=Antonio Moreno|date=2018|title=Review of: C. Iuli Caesaris Commentariorum Libri III De Bello Ciuili. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit C. D., Studies on the Text of Caesar's 'Bellum civile'|url=http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2018/2018-01-45.html|journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review|issn=1055-7660}}In 2016/17 Damon was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in the Price Lab for Digital Humanities to work on the Bellum Alexandrinum project. This project is a pilot to test the new Digital Latin Library editing platform and has included input from high school to graduate students to serve as a precedent for collaborative editions of classical texts and an example of how one might include text editing in classicists' training.{{Cite web|url=https://pricelab.sas.upenn.edu/fellows/damon-cynthia|title=Price Lab for Digital Humanities|website=pricelab.sas.upenn.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-07-30}}
Selected works
- Caesar, Civil War (edition and translation, Loeb Classical Library, 2016) {{ISBN|9780674997035}}
- C. Iuli Caesaris Commentariorum libri III de bello civili (Oxford Classical Texts, 2015). {{ISBN|9780199659746}}
- Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum Civile (Oxford, 2015) {{ISBN|9780198724063}}
- Tacitus, Annals (Penguin Classics, 2012) {{ISBN|9780140455649}}{{Cite journal|last=Pagán|first=Victoria E.|date=2014|title=Review of: Tacitus: Annals. Penguin Classics|url=http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2014/2014-05-56.html|journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review|issn=1055-7660}}
- with Brian Breed and Andreola Rossi Citizens of Discord: Rome and its Civil Wars (Oxford University Press, 2010) {{ISBN|9780195389579}}{{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/citizens-of-discord-9780195389579?cc=us&lang=en&#|title=Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars|date=2010-08-26|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195389579|location=Oxford, New York}}
- with William Batstone Caesar's Civil War (Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature, 2006) {{ISBN|9780195165104}}
- Tacitus, Histories, Book I (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, 2003) {{ISBN|9780521578226}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n02/mary-beard/four-day-caesar|title=Four-Day Caesar|last=Beard|first=Mary|date=2004-01-22|work=London Review of Books|access-date=2018-07-30|pages=16–18|issn=0260-9592}}
- The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage (University of Michigan Press, 1997) {{ISBN|9780472107605}}{{Cite journal|last=Tylawsky|first=Elizabeth|date=1999|title=Review of: The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage|url=http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1999/1999-04-22.html|journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review|issn=1055-7660}}
References
{{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Damon, Cynthia}}
Category:American classical scholars
Category:Stanford University alumni
Category:Women scholars and academics
Category:Place of birth missing (living people)