The Catholic University of America

Dr. Sarah Brown Ferrario 

Dr. Sarah Ferrario, Department of Greek and Latin  

Sarah Brown Ferrario (email; BSOF, Indiana, 1996; MPhil, Oxford, 1998; MA, Princeton, 2001; PhD, Princeton, 2006), assistant professor of Greek and Latin, is a specialist in Greek history and literature, particularly of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. For the academic year 2009-10, she was a residential Junior Fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, DC), where she continued work on her book, Historical Agency and the 'Great Man' in Classical Greece (under contract with Cambridge University Press), for which she was also awarded a Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in 2008. Her recent and forthcoming publications include projects on image-making in fourth-century Greece; on historical agency in Xenophon, on the relationships between Sophoclean tragedy and Athenian history, and on perceptions of internal politics in Thucydides; her future projects include book chapters on Aeschylean reception and on Xenophon's political thought.  Dr. Ferrario was the translator and librettist for The Oresteia Project, which set all three dramas of Aeschylus' Oresteia as new one-act operas in English (performed at CUA in 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2006). She has been a Marshall Scholar at Oxford (1996-98), a Fulbright Scholar in Greece as a Regular Member of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2001-02), a Graduate Prize Fellow of the University Center for Human Values at Princeton (2003-04), and a Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fellow (2004-05). During the fall semester of 2012, she served as a faculty member on CUA's study abroad program in Rome. She has taught courses in ancient languages and literatures at CUA since 2002, was named visiting assistant professor in 2005, and was appointed assistant professor in fall 2006.

courses taught and upcoming

Spring 2013
  • GR 104, Intermediate Greek II
  • GR 502, Graduate Level Elementary Greek II

Sample past courses

  • GR 101-102, Elementary Greek I-II
  • GR 103-104, Intermediate Greek I-II
  • GR 104, Intermediate Greek II
  • GR 201, Introduction to New Testament Greek
  • GR 465, Advanced Greek Seminar
  • GR 509, Intensive Elementary Greek
  • GR 534, Greek Historical Writing (team-taught with L. Neville)
  • GR 553, Greek Oratory
  • GR 587, The Athenian Empire
  • GR 613, Introduction to Greek Papyrology (team-taught with F. Gignac)
  • GR 655, Survey of Greek Literature
  • LAT 101-102, Elementary Latin I-II
  • LAT 103-104, Intermediate Latin I-II
  • LAT 104, Intermediate Latin II
  • LAT 515, Roman Historiography: Tacitus' Annals
  • LAT 535, Latin Epic
  • LAT 655, Survey of Roman Literature
  • CLAS 206R, History of Rome
  • CLAS 300/MUS 300, Greek Tragedy and Opera (team-taught with A. Simpson)
  • CLAS 301/MUS 301, Roman History and Opera (team-taught with A. Simpson)
  • CLAS 312, Greek Literature in Translation
  • CLAS 313, Roman Literature in Translation

responsibilities within the department

Undergraduate adviser

I am always glad to meet with current or prospective students who are interested in applying to CUA, majoring in our department, or learning more about our programs!  I keep an appointment sheet on my office door inside McMahon 308, but you can also email me to set up a meeting.

Greek language placement

I evaluate placement exam results for students at all levels and ensure that they are directed to the appropriate courses.

 

 

Selected recent Publications

  • "Historical Agency and Self-Awareness in Xenophon's Hellenica and Anabasis," in Fiona Hobden and Christopher Tuplin, eds., Xenophon: Ethical Principle and Historical Enquiry (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 341-76.
  • "'Reading' Athens: Foreign Perceptions of the Political Roles of Athenian Leaders in Thucydides," in Antonis Tsakmakis and Melina Tamiolaki, eds., Thucycides' Techniques: Between Historical Research and Literary Representation (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 181-97.
  • "Political Tragedy: Sophocles and Athenian History," in Andreas Markantonatos, ed., Brill’s Companion to Sophocles (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 447-70.
  • "Replaying Antigone: Changing Patterns of Public and Private Commemoration at Athens c. 440-350," in Cynthia Patterson, ed., Antigone’s Answer: Essays on Death and Burial, Family and State in Classical Athens = Helios 33S (2006), 79-117. 
  • "Aeschylean Structure and Text in New Opera: The Oresteia Project," with Andrew Earle Simpson, Didaskalia 6.3 (2006).
  • "Greek Tragedy and Opera: An Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Seminar," Classical World 99.1 (2005), 51-66.

Selected recent Conference Presentations

  • "Focalization in Thucydides 1.127," at the Classical Association of the Atlantic States Conference, Newark, NJ (2010).
  • "The Isolation of Alcibiades autokratôr: Leader and dêmos in Xenophon’s Hellenica," at the American Philological Association (APA) Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL (2008).
  • "The Tools of Memory: Crafting Historical Legacy in Fourth-Century Greece," at "Greek Historiography in the Fourth Century BCE: Problems and Perspectives," Università degli Studi di Bologna and Harvard University, Bologna, Italy (2007).

 

Dr. Sarah Ferrario, Department of Greek and Latin

At the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, Greece