USC.edu

Daniel Richter

Associate Professor of Classics
Email drichter@usc.edu Office PED 130N Office Phone (213) 740-3682

Research & Practice Areas

Literature and Cultural History of the Hellenistic and Early Roman Empires

Center, Institute & Lab Affiliations

  • Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, Fellow

Education

  • Ph.D. Classical Languages and Literatures, The University of Chicago, 2001
  • M.A. History of Religion, Columbia University, 1994
  • B.A. Latin, Vassar College, 1992

  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Associate Professor of Classics, University of Southern California, 2011-2012
    • Visiting Assistant Professor, Northwestern University, 06/01/2002 – 06/30/2005
    • Lecturer, Princeton University, 09/01/2001 – 06/30/2002

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Post-classical Mediterranean world with a particular focus on how ideas about ethnicity and cosmopolitanism; historiography of ancient Greek and Roman Slavery in the antebellum American south

    Detailed Statement of Research Interests

     Professor Richter received his PhD in Classical Languages and Literatures from the University of Chicago, an MA in the History of Religion from Columbia University, and a BA in Latin from Vassar College.  He is a scholar of the post-classical Mediterranean world with a particular focus on how ideas about ethnicity and cosmopolitanism shaped intellectual, religious, and political life in the early Roman empire.  Prof. Richter has explored these issues in several articles and in his first book, Cosmopolis: Imagining Community in Post-Classical Athens and the Early Roman Empire (Oxford 2011).  Richter also co-edited with William Johnson, The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic (Oxford 2017).  More recently, Prof. Richter has been writing about how ideas about ethnicity and diversity determined the historiography of ancient Greek and Roman Slavery in the antebellum American south, The Battle for Aristotle: Views of Ancient Slavery in the Antebellum South.

  • Book

    • Richter, Daniel Sam & Johnson, William A. (Ed.). (2017). Oxford Handbook for the Second Sophistic. New York and London: Oxford University Press.
    • Richter, D. S. (2011). Cosmopolis: Imagining Community in Late Classical Athens and the Early Roman Empire. New York and London: Oxford University Press.

    Book Chapters

    • Richter, D. S. (2011). “How not to Translate: Lucian’s Games with the Names of the Syrian Goddess,” in A Sea of Languages: Complicating the History of Western Translation (St. James Press 2011).

    Book Review

    • Richter, D. S. (2008). Review of Maria Pretzler, “Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece,” in Journal of Hellenic Studies (129) 2009. Journal of Hellenic Studies.

    Journal Article

    • Richter, D. S. (2006). Review of Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton 2004). Classical Philology/University of Chicago Press. Vol. NA
    • Richter, D. S. (2005). Lives and Afterlives of Lucian of Samosata. Arion. Vol. 13.1, pp. pp. 75-99.
    • Richter, D. S. (2001). Plutarch on Isis and Osiris: Text, Cult, and Cultural Identity. Transactions of the American Philological Association/Johns Hopkins University Press. Vol. #131, pp. 191-216.
    • General Education Teaching Prize, USC, Spring 2011
    • Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington DC, Spring 2009