Daniel Mendelsohn

Daniel Mendelsohn is an inter­nationally bestselling author, translator, and award-winning critic who is currently Editor-at-Large of the New York Review of Books. With a PhD in Classics from Princeton, Daniel is renowned for his inter­pretations of Greek and Roman classics for main­stream audiences. He has authored 11 books, including the bestselling memoir, An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic, which recounts his travels around the Mediterranean with his late father while reading Homer’s Odyssey. His book about relatives who perished in the Holocaust, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, won the National Jewish Book Award and was featured in Ken Burns’ 2022 documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust.

His translation of the complete works of the Alexandrian Greek poet C. P. Cavafy—the first English translation to include the poet’s “Unfinished Poems”—was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. In 2024, Mr. Mendelsohn will publish a new translation of Homer’s Odyssey. Among his many other honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Critics Circle prize for Memoir, the George Jean Nathan Prize for Drama Criticism, and Italy’s Malaparte Prize. In 2022 the French government named him a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. Daniel lives in the Hudson Valley and teaches literature at Bard College.

Nina Papathanasopoulou

Nina Papathanasopoulou is a Professor of Classical Studies specializing in Greek drama, mythology, and their reception. She earned her BA from the University of Athens in 2003 and her PhD from Columbia University in 2013. From 2013 to 2019 she was Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Connecticut College, where she taught Greek, Latin, Classics and Theater courses and was deeply involved in outreach programming for Classics. In January 2020 she joined the Classics faculty at College Year in Athens, where she teaches Ancient Greek mythology, religion, and literature courses and runs field trips all over Greece for US students who are studying abroad. Since January 2019 Nina also serves as the Public Engagement Coordinator for the Society for Classical Studies. There she oversees their initiative, “Ancient Worlds, Modern Communities”, which supports interdisciplinary and public-facing projects related to the ancient Mediterranean. A captivating speaker and passionate traveler, Nina leads field trips for many institutions and organizations, and has given lectures at numerous conferences and public venues in the USA, Greece, the UK, France, and Portugal.

Nina’s current research explores the role of Greek myth and tragedy in the work of the revolutionary 20th century dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham. As part of her effort to make the study of the Ancient Greek World accessible and relevant to the broad public, Nina created “Martha Graham and Greek Myth,” a project combining classical philology and live dance to explore Martha Graham’s use of Ancient Greek mythology in her work. The project highlights the immense influence of the Ancient Greeks on American culture and the arts. More information can be found on her website at ninapapathanasopoulou.com

Sanjaya Thakur

Sanjaya Thakur is professor of Classics at Colorado College, where he also holds the Judson Bemis Professorship in the Humanities.  Professor Thakur earned a B.S. from UCLA, double-majoring in Biology and Latin, two Master's degrees (Classical Studies and Classical Art/Archaeology) and a PhD from the University of Michigan.  He has led many study tours through Greece, Italy, and Spain and is an avid traveler.  He has held a number of national leadership positions in the field of Classical Studies, including chairmanship of the Committee on Diversity in the Profession for the Society for Classical Studies.

Professor Thakur has served as the Director of the Classical Summer School at the American Academy in Rome (2021-23) and Elizabeth A. Whitehead Scholar at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (2022-23).  He has published numerous articles, primarily on the literature and history of the age of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor. He teaches a wide range of courses on Greek and Roman history, Latin language and literature, ancient athletics, gender and sexuality in the ancient world, and Greek and Roman art and archaeology. He has also co-directed and organized an Associated Colleges of the Midwest seminar in advanced interdisciplinary learning (SAIL), entitled Mediterranean Trivium, based in Italy.

Stephanie Larson

Stephanie Larson is associate professor of classics at Bucknell University who received her Ph.D in classics from the University of Texas at Austin. Her expertise is in the modern histories of both Greece and Turkey, particularly in the rise of the nation-state and its use of the past in creating the present, and currently codirects a new archaeological excavation in Thebes, Greece, at the sanctuary of Apollo.

Elizabeth Molacek

Dr. Elizabeth Molacek is an art historian whose research, teaching, and curatorial work centers on the art and architecture of Greek and Roman worlds as well as the history of excavating and collecting in the U.S. and Europe. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Virginia, a B.A. from Rice University, and completed her postdoctoral training at the Harvard Art Museums. Elizabeth is a specialist in Roman wall paintings (c. 100 BCE-200 CE) as well as Hellenistic and Roman mosaics, namely from Antioch and the environs.  Elizabeth is currently affiliated with the University of Texas Dallas and worked previously at museums including the Harvard Art Museums and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. In addition to her curatorial work, Elizabeth has worked in university administration and taught both traditional (classroom) and on-site (study abroad) courses in which she always prioritizes close encounters with objects.