Elaine Fantham is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 classicist

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

. She was Giger Professor of Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 from 1986 to 1999. She was chair of the Department of Classics at Princeton from 1989 to 1992 and the president of the American Philological Association

American Philological Association

The American Philological Association , founded in 1869, is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization...

 for 2004.

Fantham is an expert on Latin literature

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...

, especially comedy, epic poetry and rhetoric, and Roman religion and the social history of Roman women. She is classics commentator on NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

's Weekend Edition

Weekend Edition

Weekend Edition is the name given to a set of American radio news magazines produced and distributed by National Public Radio . It is the weekend counterpart to Morning Edition. It consists of Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday , each of which airs for two hours, from 8 a.m. to 10...

.

Career

Fantham studied classics at Oxford University and then proceeded to the University of Liverpool

University of Liverpool

The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university in the city of Liverpool, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration. Founded in 1881 , it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic...

 where she received her doctorate in 1962. For some time, she taught classics at Indiana University

Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...

. From 1968 to 1986 Fantham was professor of classics at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. In 1986 she joined the classics department at Princeton University, where she taught until her retirement in 1999.

Fantham is part of the advisory boards of different scientific periodicals, amongst others Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici

Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici

Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici is an Italian periodical within the realm of classical philology founded in 1978....

.

Awards

• On January 5, 2008 Fantham was given the Distinguished Service Award of the American Philological Association.

Books

• Latin Poets & Italian Gods, Toronto 2009, ISBN 978-1-4426-4059-7
• Julia Augusti. The Emperor's Daughter, London 2006, ISBN 0-415-33146-3.
• Ovid's Metamorphoses, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0195154096.
• The Roman World of Cicero's De Oratore, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-926315-9. (Review)
• Roman Literary Culture. From Cicero to Apuleius, Baltimore 1995, ISBN 0-8018-5204-8.
• Women in the Classical World: Image and Text, New York u.a. 1995, ISBN 0-19-506727-4.
• Comparative Studies in Republican Latin Imagery, Toronto 1972

Commentaries

• Ovid, Fasti IV (1998)
• Lucan, De Bello Civili Book II (1992)
• Seneca, Troades (1982)