Paula Debnar

Associate Professor of Classics

Specialization
Greek and Roman rhetoric and historiography; ancient ethnicity; Greek tragedy

Paula Debnar's recent book, Speaking the Same Language: Speech and Audience in Thucydides' Spartan Debates, focuses on political speeches in the History of the Peloponnesian War, with special attention paid to the role of rhetoric in creating a sense of ethnic identity. Her analysis of speeches also traces the gradual collapse of the antithesis between Athenians and Spartans with which Thucydides structures his account of the lengthy conflict. Her article "Fifth-Century Athenian History and Greek Tragedy" has just appeared in Blackwell's Companion to Greek Tragedy (2005). She has also co-authored an article on "Sparta and the Spartans in Thucydides" for the forthcoming Brill's Companion to Thucydides. Debnar is currently working on an article about Aeschylus' Cassandra and a textbook on Homeric Greek.

In addition to teaching Greek and Latin language and literature at all levels, Debnar offers a variety of courses on the ancient Mediterranean taught in English, including "Gods and Mortals: Myth in Ancient Art and Literature," cotaught with Professor Bettina Bergmann (art history), and and first-year seminars on the ancient Greek world (e.g., "Homer's Iliad: A Big Fat Ancient Greek War?" and "Voyages to the Past: Real and Imaginary Visions of Ancient Greece").

Debnar is a member of the American Philological Association (APA) and Pioneer Valley Classical Association.

"First-Year Seminars," Vista, spring 2003