The American Philological Association (APA), founded in 1869, is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek

History of Greece

The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern state of Greece, as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they ruled historically. The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied much through the ages, and, as a result, the history of Greece is similarly...

 and Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 civilization. It is the preeminent association in the field, and publishes a journal, Transactions of the American Philological Association

Transactions of the American Philological Association

Transactions of the American Philological Association is an academic journal established in 1869 and the official publication of the American Philological Association. It uses a wide range of approaches to explore pertinent issues in the history, culture, and language of ancient Greek and Roman...

(TAPA).
The APA is currently based at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

, in Philadelphia.

History

The APA was inaugurated by William D. Whitney, of Yale

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, at Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1869 as an outgrowth of the Classical Section of the Oriental Society. Originally its members studied a great variety of texts and languages, but as disciplines such as linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 and modern languages have created their own societies, the APA has come to be concerned with classical antiquity and fields closely related to the study of antiquity, while the definition of "philology" has broadened to include many approaches to understanding the ancient world.

Convention

The Association holds its annual convention in January, meeting jointly with the Archaeological Institute of America

Archaeological Institute of America

The Archaeological Institute of America is a North American nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion of public interest in archaeology, and the preservation of archaeological sites. It has offices on the campus of Boston University and in New York City.The institute was founded in 1879,...

. About 400 scholarly papers are delivered at the APA meeting, which is also the site for interviewing for college and university positions and for the meetings of the many committees and affiliated groups. It is also the occasion for the presentation of APA awards http://www.apaclassics.org/Administration/awards.html for teaching at both pre-collegiate and collegiate level, for projects that bring classics to a wider public (outreach), and of the Goodwin Award of Merit, which recognizes a recently published book.

At every meeting, the Outreach Division conducts two events that are open to the general public. One is a special panel that is of interest to non-specialists. Topics have included the movie Troy, Classics and Contemporary Fiction and the HBO series Rome and Classics and Comics. The second is the staged reading of a classical or classically-themed play, by the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance. The productions have been: The Invention of Love

The Invention of Love

The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories towards the end of his life and contains many...

(Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

, directed by Mary-Kay Gamel, produced by Judith Hallett), The Heavensgate Deposition (based on Apocolocyntosis by Seneca the Younger

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

, directed by Amy R. Cohen, produced by Thomas Jenkins), The Golden Age (by Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.-Early years:...

, directed by C. W. Marshall), Iran Man (based on Persa by Plautus

Plautus

Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...

, directed by Mary-Kay Gamel), Thespis

Thespis

Thespis of Icaria , according to certain Ancient Greek sources and especially Aristotle, was the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in a play...

(by W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

 and A. S. Sullivan, with new music by Alan Riley Jones, directed by John Starks, produced by John Given), The Birds

The Birds (play)

The Birds is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BCE at the City Dionysia where it won second prize. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs...

(by Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

, directed by Thomas Talboy), Cyclops

Cyclops

A cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...

(by Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

, directed by Laura Lippman and Mike Lippman) and Thersites

Thersites

In Greek mythology, Thersites was a soldier of the Greek army during the Trojan War. In the Iliad, he does not have a father's name, which may suggest that he should be viewed as a commoner rather than an aristocratic hero...

(perhaps by Nicholas Udall

Nicholas Udall

Nicholas Udall was an English playwright, cleric, pederast and schoolmaster, the author of Ralph Roister Doister, generally regarded as the first comedy written in the English language.-Biography:...

, directed by C. W. Marshall).

Activities

Through its divisions of Research, Education, Publications, Professional Matters, and Program, the APA conducts a variety of activities to support and disseminate knowledge of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. For example, it operates a Placement Service, gathers statistical information about the demographics of classicists, hears complaints of violations of professional ethics, provides advice and funding for major research projects (such as the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World is a large-format English language atlas of ancient Europe, Asia, and North Africa, edited by Richard Talbert. The time period depicted is roughly from archaic Greek civilization through Late Antiquity . The atlas was published by Princeton...

), and publishes monographs, textbooks and software. The Outreach Division produces a newsletter, Amphora, http://www.apaclassics.org/outreach/amphora/TOCAmphora.html, for non-specialists, and the electronic newsletter The Dionysiac http://www.apaclassics.org/Classics/PublicClassics.html, which gives information about performances of classical plays and other events related to ancient performance.

Scholars

Many notable scholars have served as executives of the APA, including Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve

Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve

Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve , was an American classical scholar.-Biography:He was born in Charleston, South Carolina to Emma Louisa Lanneau and Benjamin Gildersleeve...

, William Watson Goodwin

William Watson Goodwin

William Watson Goodwin , American classical scholar, was born in Concord, Massachusetts - son of Hersey Bradford Goodwin and Lucrettia Watson....

, Herbert Weir Smyth

Herbert Weir Smyth

Herbert Weir Smyth was an American classical scholar. His comprehensive grammar of ancient Greek has become a standard reference on the subject in English, comparable to William Watson Goodwin's, whom he succeeded as Eliott Professor of Greek Literature at Harvard University.He was educated at...

, Paul Shorey

Paul Shorey

Paul Shorey, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. was an American classical scholar, born at Davenport, Iowa After graduating from Harvard in 1878 he studied in Europe at Leipzig, Bonn, Athens, and Munich . He was a professor at several institutions from 1885 onward...

, Lily Ross Taylor

Lily Ross Taylor

Lily Ross Taylor is an American academic and author, who in 1917 became the first female Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.-Biography:...

, Berthold Ullman

Berthold Ullman

Berthold Louis Ullman was an American Classical scholar.Ullman was born in Chicago and educated at the University of Chicago . He joined the faculty at Chicago and also taught at the University of Pittsburgh and Iowa State University before moving to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill...

, Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton

Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton

Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton was a Canadian classical scholar and leading Latin prosopographer of the twentieth century. He is especially noted for his definitive three-volume work, Magistrates of the Roman Republic ....

, Gerald Else, Helen North, Bernard Knox

Bernard Knox

Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox was an English classicist, author, and critic who became an American citizen. He was the first director of the Center for Hellenic Studies. In 1992 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Knox for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S...

, Charles Segal, and Emily Vermeule

Emily Vermeule

Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule was an American classical scholar and archaeologist.-Biography:She was born on August 11, 1928 in New York City. She earned an undergraduate degree at Bryn Mawr College in 1950, and earned a master's degree from Radcliffe College in 1954, and a Ph.D. from Bryn...

. Adam Blistein is the present Executive Director of the APA.

The APA is currently based at the University of Pennsylvania.

External links

• American Philological Association. Official site.
• Comics at the APA Conference Comic Books at the APA Conference - article by Columbia University's Karen Green at ComiXology