NANCY FELSON
Professor Emerita, University of Georgia
felsonnancy@gmail.com

PHONE: (706) 254-0424
255 Broadway, #5
Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522

INTERESTS:
Homeric Epic; Lyric (Pindar, Archilochus); Homeric Hymns; Greek Tragedy; Latin Poetry (Vergil, Elegiac, Horace); Gender Studies; Performance Theory; Myth Theory; Narratology; Semiotics

EDUCATION:
University of Cincinnati – B.A. (High Honors), 1964
Columbia University – M.A. 1965; Ph.D. 1972

DISSERTATION:
Thematic Structure and Figures of Speech in Pindar (with Howard N. Porter)

MASTER'S THESIS:
Pairing as a Structuring Device in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes (with Helen Bacon)

EMPLOYMENT:
Visiting Instructor, Bard Prison Initiative (Eastern Correctional Institution), Fall 2018
Whitehead Professor, American School for Classical Studies in Athens, 2010–2011
Professor Emerita, University of Georgia, 2010–
Professor of Classics, University of Georgia, 1993–2010
Director, "Reacting to the Past," 2000–2010
Associate Professor, 1981–1992
Assistant Professor, 1975–1981
Visiting Lecturer, 1974–1975
Associated Faculty, Department of Religion, 1984–2010
Graduate Coordinator, 2003–2006
Visiting Professor, Smith College, 1986–1987; Visiting Scholar, Fall 1987
Lecturer, Herbert H. Lehman College (CUNY), 1973–1974
Lecturer, Hunter College (CUNY), 1967; 1971–1972

BOOKS AND EDITED VOLUMES

Regarding Penelope: From Character to Poetics in Homer’s Odyssey, 2nd edition. Harvard University Press (2025);  orig. Princeton University Press (1994).

Co-Editor (with T. Falkner and D. Konstan), Contextualizing Classics: Ideology, Performance, Dialogue. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

Guest Editor, The Poetics of Deixis in Alcman, Pindar, and Other Lyric, Arethusa 47.3 (2004): 253–472.

Guest Editor, Semiotics & Classical Studies, Arethusa 16.1/2 (1983): 1–275.

Guest Editor, Symbols in Ancient Greek Poetry and Myth, Classical World 74.2 (1980): 1–144.

SELECTED ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

“Book 21: The Contest, the Nod, and Penelope’s Timely Departure,” forthcoming. In J. Christensen, Critical Essays on the Odyssey. Oxford UP.

Multi-layered Mentoring in the Odyssey. In Γέρα: Studies in honor of Professor Menelaos Christopoulos, eds. A. Papachrysostomou, A. P. Antonopoulos, A.-F. Mitsis, F. Papadimitriou, and P. Taktikou, special issue, Classics@ 25 (2023).

Exchanges in the Underworld, with L. M. Slatkin, 2020. In M. Christopoulos and M. Paizi-Apostolopoulou, eds., The Upper and the Under World in Homeric and Archaic Epic, Proceedings of the 13th International Symposium on the Odyssey (Ithaki: The Centre for Odyssean Studies), 263-77.

Eurycleia: the Odyssey’s Best Supporting Character, SKENÈ: Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies 8.2 (2022), 5-23.

Thebes, Akragas, and Syracuse in Two of Pindar's Sicilian Odes, Pindar in Sicily, eds. H. Reid and V. Lewis (Fonte Aretusa: 2021), 241-70.

with R. J. Parmentier. The ‘Savvy Interpreter’: Performance and Interpretation in Pindar’s Victory Odes, Signs and Society 3.2 (2015): 261-305, repr. In R. Parmentier, Signs and Society (Indiana UP 2016), 208-38.

with J. S. Klein. Deixis in Linguistics and Poetics.  In Encyclopedia of Greek Linguistics and Language Vol. 1, 429-33.

Children of Zeus in the Homeric Hymns: Generational Succession. In Andrew Faulkner, ed., The Homeric Hymns (Oxford UP 2011), 254-79.

Victory and Virility in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo: at whose expense? In P. Brillet et al., eds. Greek Hymns. (Lyon 2012), 269-74.

“Plot Structure and Semantic Resonances in Ancient Greek ‘Almost Incest’ Narratives,” In V. Ambros et al., eds., Structuralism Today (Legas Press 2009), 121-37.

with L. M. Slatkin, Nostos, Tisis, and Two Forms of Dialogism in Homer’s Odyssey, In Crime and Punishment in Homeric and Archaic Epic, Proceedings of the 12th Symposium on Revisiting the Odyssey (Ithaki 2014), 121-32.

The Partnership of Zeus and Gaia in Hesiod’s Theogony. In L. Athanassaki, C. Nappa and A. Vergados, eds., Gods and Mortals in Greek and Latin Poetry: Studies in Honor of Jenny Strauss Clay (Ariadne Supplement Series: Rethymnon 2018, 57-80.

Epicinian Apollo in Story Time.: Pythian 9, Olympian 6 and Pythian 3. In L. Athanassaki, V. Karasmanis, R. Martin, and J. Miller, eds. Apolline Politics and Poetics (European Cultural Centre of Delphi. Athens 2009), 149-68.

Epinician Ideology at the Phaeacian Games. Od. 8.97-265.” In D. Maronitis, ed. Contests and Rewards: Athla kai Epathla sta Omerika Epe (Ithaki 2007), 129-43.

The Poetics Effects of Deixis in Pindar’s Ninth Pythian Ode. In N. Felson, ed., The Poetics of Deixis in Alcman, Pindar, and Other Lyric, Arethusa 47.3 (2004), 365-89.

Introduction, Glossary and Bibliography In N. Felson, ed., The Poetics of Deixis in Alcman, Pindar, and Other Lyric, Arethusa 47.3 (2004), 253-66, 445-47, and 449-66.

with L. M. Slatkin, Gender and Homeric Epic, In Robert Fowler, ed., Cambridge Companion to Homer, Cambridge UP: 2004, 91-114 (nominated twice for outstanding feminist article of the year).

“Paradigmes de la paternité: pères, fils, et prouesses athlétiques / sexuelles dans l’Odyssée d’Homère.” In F. Létoublon, ed. Rechèrches Homerique (2002), 259-72.

“Reading and Teaching Classics after 9/11,” Outreach 2002: 6-7.

Threptra and ‘Invisible Hands’: The Father/Son Relation in Iliad 24. In Epos and Mythos, ed. C. Higbie and M. Malamud, Arethusa 35.1 (2002) 35-50 and 189-200.

Paradigms of Paternity: Fathers, Sons, and Athletic/Sexual Prowess in Homer's Odyssey,  In Euphrosyne: Studies in Ancient Epic and Its Legacy in Honor of Dimitris N. Maronitis, Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart (1999) 89-98.

Alienated Couples in Euripidean Tragedy: A Bakhtinian Analysis. In P. A. Miller, C. Platter et al., eds., Carnivalizing Difference: Bakhtin and the Other (Harwood Press 2000), 23-50.

Vicarious Transport in Pindar’s Pythian Four. HSCP 99 (1999) 1-31.

“Artful Manipulation: Od.10.203-60.” In F. Létoublon, ed., Hommage À Milman Parry (J. C. Gieben Press 1998), 283-91.

Signposts in Oral Epic: Metapragmatic and Metasemantic Signals. In C. Mihailescu, ed., Fictions Updated (Toronto UP 1997) 175-86.

“Bakhtinian Alterity, Homeric Rapport,” Arethusa 26.2 (1993) 159-71.

“‘Getting It’—A Response to G. Arnott.” In N. W. Slater and B. Zimmermann, eds., Intertextualität in der griechisch-römischen Komödie, special issue of Drama, Band 2 (1993) 33-38.

“Behind the Poet’s Back: Characters Who Scheme.” In B. Dauenhauer, ed., Textual Fidelity and Textual Disregard (Peter Lang 1990) 121-38 and 175-79.

“Classics in the Eighties: New Ways to Read Old Text,” New England Classical Newsletter 16.1 (1988) 15-22.

“Penelope's Perspective: Character from Plot.” In J.M. Bremer, I.J.F. de Jong, and J. Kalff, eds., Recent Trends in Homeric Interpretation (Amsterdam 1988) 61-83.

“Regarding Penelope.” In S.L. Schein, ed., Reading the Odyssey: Selected Interpretive Essays (Princeton UP 1996) 163-83.

“A Model for the Analysis of Character in Ancient Greek Lyric: The Poet Figure in Pindaric Odes.” In M. Herzfeld, ed., Semiotic Theory and Practice (de Gruyter 1987) 1065-71.

The Epinician Speaker in Pindar’s First Olympian: Toward a Model for Analyzing Character in Ancient Choral Lyric Poetics Today 5.2 (Fall 1984), 377-97.

with W. M. Sale. Meleager and the Motifemic Analysis of Myth: A Response, Arethusa 17.2 1984,  211-22.

with W. M. Sales, Meleager and Odysseus: A Structural and Cultural Study of the Greek Hunting-Maturation Myth, Arethusa 16,1/2 (1983) 137-71.

Radical Semantic Change in Archilochus, Classical Journal 77.1 (1981) 1-8.

with H. M. Deal. Some Functions of the Demophoon Episode in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica n.s. 5 (1980), 7-21, reprinted in H. Foley, ed., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Princeton UP 1993), 190-97.

Pindar’s Creation of Epinician Symbols, Classical World 74.2 (1980), 83-103.

with H. M. Deal, Many Meanings, One Formula, and the Myth of the Aloades, with Harriet M. Deal, Semiotica (YEAR) 29-1/2, 39-52,

Olympian 7: The Toast and the Future Prayer, Hermes 108. Bd. H. 2 (1980) 248-52

“Eco’s Semiotics: A Classicist’s Perspective,” Helios n.s. 6.2 (1978-79), 17-32.

Some Functions of the Enclosed Invective in Archilochus’ Erotic Fragment, Classical Journal 74.2 (1978-79), 136-41.

Narrative Structure in Pindar’s Ninth Pythian Ode. Classical World 71.6 (1978), 353-69.

“Why Classics and Semiotics?” Introduction to a special issue on Semiotics and Classical Studies, Arethusa 16 (1983), 15-33.

Introduction to “Symbols in Ancient Greek Poetry and Myth,” a special issue of Classical World 74.2 (1980), 65-67.

Entries in M. Finkelberg, ed., Blackwell’s Homer Encyclopedia. (Oxford 2011).

World Book Encyclopedia, 17 entries on mythology

AWARDS, GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS:

UGA Grant for “Performing Pindar,” Festival of the Arts, 2021

Margo Tytus Scholar, University of Cincinnati (fall 2011 and summer 2005)

Elizabeth A. Whitehead Visiting Professor at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2010-2011) 

Grant for Reacting to the Past pedagogy program (2005-2010, $15,000 annually)

Franklin College Nominee for Meigs Professorship for Excellence in Teaching (2007 and 2008) 

UGA Center for Humanities and Arts Collaborative Teaching Award (2004 and 2005)

UGA Humanities Center Grant (2002) - for Deixis and Pindar project

VPR, VPAA, IAPDF, and Greek Ministry of Culture Grants for “Deixis at Delphi” Conference (2000)

VPAA State of the Arts Grant (1997)

Humanities Center/Honors Program Interdisciplinary Teaching Award (1997)

Center for Hellenic Studies Summer Scholar Grant (1996)

Second Discipline Award (1995-96) to study anthropology at Emory U and UGA 

Honors Program Teaching Award (1994)

Sandy Beaver Teaching Award (1993)

UGA Humanities Center Grant for Olympia project (1991)

UGA Senior Faculty Research Grant for Olympia project (1991); for Penelope project (1988-89)

Women's Studies Curriculum Development Grant (1990).

Smith College Grant for Research (1986‑87)

Junior Fellow, Center for Hellenic Studies (1981‑82)

NEH Research Grant to organize Classics & Semiotics Colloquium at the 2nd International Summer Institute for Semiotic & Structural Studies, Nashville (1981)

Andrew Mellon Faculty Development Grant to conduct a seminar at the 2nd International Summer Institute for Semiotic and Structural Studies, Nashville: “Applications of Semiotics to Ancient Greek Texts” (1981)

UGA Summer Research Fellowships (1980, 1982)

NEH Fellowship to participate in a seminar on Modern Theories of Mythology at SUNY, Buffalo (1976)

Semple‑Taft Stipend at the University of Cincinnati (1962‑64)