Dimitrios Yatromanolakis

B.A. University of Athens
M.St. University of Oxford
D.Phil. University of Oxford
Society of Fellows, Harvard University

Office: Gilman 104
Phone: 410-516-7557
E-mail: yatroman@fas.harvard.edu

Dimitrios Yatromanolakis holds joint appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Humanities Center. His publications and research center upon both technical and more cross-disciplinary fields: archaic and classical Greek literature and performance cultures, sociocultural history, vase-painting and vase-inscriptions; Greek papyrology and epigraphy; and historical and comparative anthropology. He studied Classics and Classical Archaeology at the University of Athens (B.A.) and at the University of Oxford (M.St. and D.Phil.). In Oxford he specialized in Greek Papyrology, studying with Professor Peter J. Parsons. His research interests further focus on ancient Greek dialectology; the Lydian language and Lydian culture; Presocratic philosophy; and Platonic philosophy.  Before coming to The Johns Hopkins University, he was a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University.

Professor Yatromanolakis is the author of the books Sappho in the Making: An Anthropology of Reception (2007), and Towards a Ritual Poetics (2003, co-author with Panagiotis Roilos; Greek edition of the book, trans. by Emmanuel Skouras and with a preface by Marcel Detienne, 2005; Italian and French editions forthcoming). He is also the author of the book Fragments of Sappho: A Commentary (forthcoming, HUP), a large-scale commentary based on a detailed examination of the original papyri and parchments. His major publications include the books Greek Ritual Poetics (co-editor, 2005) and An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Painting and Contemporary Methodologies(editor and author, 2009). He has been awarded numerous research fellowships and grants, including the William F. Milton Award, Harvard University, a National Humanities Center Fellowship, the Solmsen Fellowship, Institute for Research in the Humanities, and, more recently, the Berlin Prize at the American Academy in Berlin and a Forschungsstipendium für erfahrene Wissenschaftler from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is a Research Associate of Harvard University's Center for Hellenic Studies and one of the editors of the Center's electronic database Homer and the Papyri. In collaboration with P. Roilos, he has produced the revised English (2002) and the revised Greek edition (2002) of Margaret Alexiou's influential book The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (1974). His forthcoming publications include a chapter on "Symposia, Noses, Prosopa: A Kylix in the Company of Banqueters on the Ground" in An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Painting and Contemporary Methodologies (see above, 2009); a chapter on ancient Greek popular song and skolia and another chapter on Alcaeus and Sappho in the Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric (ed. F. Budelmann, 2009); an interdisciplinary volume on Music and Cultural Politics in Ancient Greek Societies (editor and author, 2011); and an entry on the Greek reception of Virgil in Richard Thomas and Jan M. Ziolkowski (eds.), The Virgil Encyclopedia (2011). Also forthcoming are articles on papyri and papyrology, and on Attic vase-inscriptions. He has been invited to write the annotated bibliographies on "Performance Culture" and on"Ancient Greek Symposia" for the international project Oxford Bibliographies Online. His current book-length projects are a study of performance cultures in the archaic, classical, and Hellenistic periods (with special emphasis on the institution of symposia), and a monograph on the sociocultural history of the institution of mousikoi agones (poetic and musical competitions) against the background of religious festivals in archaic, classical, and Hellenistic Greece.

At Johns Hopkins, Professor Yatromanolakis teaches courses on ancient Greek literature, Greek papyrology, epigraphy, ancient transmission of texts, and textual criticism; ancient Greek religion and ritual; oral poetry; reception studies; comparative poetics; and historical and comparative anthropology. He has conducted fieldwork on oral traditional poetry, song-making, and ritual in Southern Italy, Lesbos, and Crete.

He has participated in radio programs (National Public Radio) and television documentaries about ancient Greek performance cultures, and has been interviewed for articles on his research (The Atlantic Monthly; Harvard Gazette; Odyssey); the most recent discussion of his research has been published in G-Kathimerini (2009; link).   

He is on the Board of Directors of the Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, The Johns Hopkins University. He is Contributing Faculty of the Johns Hopkins Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology. He has co-founded and co-chairs the Research Program/Seminar "Cultural Politics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives" at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.

Professor Dimitrios Yatromanolakis is the Co-Editor of the Harvard Book Series "Cultural Politics, Socioaesthetics, Beginnings."

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