Adele Scafuro
Professor of Classics:
Wilbour Hall 104
Phone: +1 401 863 2999
Phone 2: +1 401 863 1267
Adele_Scafuro@brown.edu
Scafuro is broadly interested in Greek literature and history, especially in the intersections of law, civic institutions, social life, and performance. She has written on ancient law, Greek epigraphy, and literature (especially orators, drama, history).In 1997, her book, The Forensic Stage: Settling Disputes in Graeco-Roman New Comedy, appeared. More recently, she has written a translation of 11 speeches of Demosthenes (accompanied by 12 essays) for the University of Texas series.
Biography
Scafuro received her B.A. from Vassar College (English) and M.A. and Ph.D. (Classical Philology) from Yale University (thesis: 'Universal History and the Genres of Greek Historiography'). She has taught in the Classics Department at Brown University since 1983; before that, she taught for 3 years in the departments of Classics and English at Vassar College. She is broadly interested in Greek literature and history, especially in the intersections of law, civic institutions, social life, and performance. She teaches courses on ancient law, Greek epigraphy, and literature (especially orators, drama, history).
Interests
Scafuro has now been studying Athenian law for more than 25 years. In her book, The Forensic Stage: Settling Disputes in Graeco-Roman New Comedy, she compares the legal scenarios of New Comedy to those in the Attic orators and treats legal procedures both inside and outside the courtroom. She continues to be interested in the connections between law and drama and has written a number of essays over the last decade on the subject; (e.g., "The rigmarole of the parasite's contract for a prostitute in Asinaria: Legal documents in Plautus and his predecessors"; "When A Gesture Was Misinterpreted: DidÒnai tity‹on in Menander's Samia"). She is currently co-editing (with Mike Fontaine) The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy. Recent essays include 'Keeping Record, Making Public: the Epigraphy of Government,' Blackwell's Companion to Ancient Greek Government (forthcoming) and 'The Legal Horizon of Euripides' Ion: A Response to Delfim Leão,' Symposion 2011: Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (forthcoming).
In spending so much time studying Athenian law, she has become interested in many different and difficult problems (usually related to the fragmentary state of the sources). She has focused on two: the (in-?)authenticity of laws (some ascribed to Solon) that have been inserted into the manuscripts of Demosthenes and the role of the prosecutor in public procedures. She has published a number of essays on the first set of problems (e.g., "Finding the Kernel of Solonian Laws"). Right now she is finishing a study of the Athenian prosecutor called 'Justice and the polis: trials by decree in ancient Athens' for CUP. She believes she has demonstrated a greater flexibility than has hitherto been recognized in public procedure; in late 5th-century Athens, procedure is still developing, and some of the major public trials (the trials for impiety in 415, the non-trial of the Generals after Arginousai in 406, the trials against the "democratic conspirators" in 404) seem to shape investigative procedure in subsequent decades. Equally important, however, is the performative aspect that these trials exhibit in Athenian public and social discourse.
Two new projects are epigraphic: one, on the habit of crowning: honorary decrees and civic performance in Athens (and probably elsewhere); the other, a collaborative project with Dr. Andronike Makres, constructing an epigraphical corpus, 'Inscriptions of Messenia excluding Messene.'
Scafuro has been an International Guest at Leopold Wenger-Institut für antike Rechtsgeschichte und Papyrusforschung in Munich; a participant in meetings of Symposion zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte; and a frequent visitor to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (and Visiting Whitehead Professor in 2004-05). For spring 2012, she has been awarded a Loeb Classical Library Foundation fellowship.
Degrees
BA, Vassar College (English), MA and Ph.D., Yale University (Classical Philology)o
Awards
January 2012-June 2012: Loeb Classical Library Foundation Grant
Sept. 2004 – May 2005
Visiting Whitehead Professorship, American School of Classical Studies at Athens (funded by ASCSA and Arete Foundation)
July – Aug. 2004
Humboldt Stiftung, 'Resumed fellowship' (Leopold Wenger-Institut für antike Rechtsgeschichte und Papyrusforschung in Munich)
July 2003 – June 2004
ACLS (Leopold Wenger-Institut für antike Rechtsgeschichte und Papyrusforschung in Munich)
May 2001 – Aug. 2003
Salomon Faculty Award (Brown University)
May 1997 – Aug. 1998
Salomon Faculty Award (Brown University)
Jan. - Aug. 1989
Humboldt Fellowship (Technische Universität, Berlin)
1987-1988
Junior Fellow, Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D.C.
Summer 1987
Fulbright Fellowship, to participate in the summer seminar of the American Academy in Rome
Affiliations
Sept. 2004 - May 2005
Visiting Whitehead Professor, American School of Classical Studies at Athens
July 1992-present
Associate professor, Classics, Brown University
July 1983 - June 1992
Assistant professor, Classics, Brown University
Summer 1992
Instructor, Aegean Institute in Galatas, Greece
Jan. 1980 - June 1983
Various visiting instructor positions in Classics and English Departments at Vassar College
July 2003 - Sept. 2004; Dec. 18-29, 2005
International guest, Leopold Wenger-Institut für antike Rechtsgeschichte und Papyrusforschung, Munich
June-August 2005; June 2004; August 2003; June-July 2002; Jan. 10-23, 2001; June-August 2000; Jan. 6-22, 2000; June-August 1999; October 1997-Dec. 1998
Senior associate fellow, American School of Classical Studies at Athens
May - Oct. 1997
Visiting scholar, University of Crete at Rethymno
1997-
Managing Committee, American School of Classical Studies at Athens
1983-
Member, American Philological Association
Funded Research
Sept. 2004 – May 2005
Visiting Whitehead Professorship, American School of Classical Studies at Athens (funded by ASCSA and Arete Foundation)
July – Aug. 2004
Humboldt Stiftung, 'Resumed fellowship' (Munich)
July 2003 – June 2004
ACLS (Munich)
May 2001 – Aug. 2003
Salomon Faculty Award (Brown University)
May 1997 – Aug. 1998
Salomon Faculty Award (Brown University)
Jan. - Aug. 1989
Humboldt Fellowship (Technische Universität, Berlin)
1987-1988
Junior Fellow, Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D.C.
Summer 1987
Fulbright Fellowship, to participate in the summer seminar of the American Academy in Rome