Deborah
Lyons
Assistant Professor
lyonsd@muohio.edu
104 Irvin Hall
Phone: (513) 529-1487
Fax: (513) 529-1480
Fall Office Hours:
T 1-5:00pm
W 4-5:00pm
and by appointment
Special Interests:
Greek Poetry
Greek Religion
Mythology
Women’s and Gender Studies
Anthropology and Classics
Ancient and Modern Literary Theory
Education:
Princeton University -- M.A. 1983; Ph.D. 1989
University of Heidelberg, Seminar für Altphilologie --
1984-1985
American School of Classical Studies, Athens -- summer 1983
Wesleyan University -- B.A. magna cum
laude June 1976
Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, Rome --
spring 1975
Positions held:
Assistant Professor, Miami University, 2004-
Senior Lecturer, Johns Hopkins University, 2000-2004
Visiting Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University,
1999-2000
Visiting Associate Professor, University of Michigan,
1998-1999
Associate Professor, University of Rochester, 1996--1999
Assistant Professor, 1989--1996; Instructor, 1988
Visiting Research Fellow, Princeton University, 1987-88
Lecturer, Princeton University 1986-87
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Princeton University, 1984-86
Courses taught:
Greek: Elementary and Intermediate; Aeschylus;
Euripides; Herodotus; Homeric Hymns; Orators; Graduate
courses: Sophocles, Greek Lyric Poetry, Classics
Proseminar, Early Greek Laws and Lawgivers.
Latin: Elementary and Intermediate; Catullus; Roman
Elegy; Ovid; Roman Prose Fiction, Vergil’s
Eclogues.
Courses in Translation: Greek Religion; Classical
Mythology; Greek Tragedy; Sexuality and Gender in Classical
Antiquity; Family, Gender, and Sexuality in Classical
Greece; The Age of Pericles; Gender and the Gift: Ancient
Texts and Modern Ethnography; From Text to Hypertext: The
Medieval Book and Beyond; Myth and Ritual in Ancient Greece
and Mesopotamia
Books (Completed and in Progress)
Women and Property in Ancient Mediterranean and Near
Eastern Societies, co-edited with Raymond Westbrook,
Center for Hellenic Studies, 2005 www.chs.harvard.edu/activities_events.sec/conferences.ssp/conference_women_property.pg
Gender and Immortality: Heroines in
Ancient Greek Myth and Cult. Princeton University
Press (1997). www.pup.princeton.edu/books/lyons/
Dangerous Gifts: Ideologies of Gender and Exchange in
Ancient Greece (under contract with Princeton
University Press).
Articles
“When the Gift Gives itself
Away” solicited for inclusion in Beyond the Given
and the All
Giving: Women and the Gift, ed. Morny Joy (in
progress).
”The Scandal of Women’s Ritual,”
forthcoming in Finding Persephone:
Women’s Rituals in the Ancient
Mediterranean, ed. A. Tzanetou and M. Parca. (under
contract with Indiana University Press, in the process of
being edited).
”Dangerous Gifts: Ideologies of Marriage and Exchange
in Ancient Greece,” Classical Antiquity 22.1
(2003) 93-134.
“Manto and Manteia: Prophecy in the Myths
and Cults of Heroines,” in Sibille e linguaggi
oracolari, Ileana Chirassi Colombo and Tullio
Seppilli, eds. Pisa, 1998: 227-237.
“The Politics of Poetics: Northrop Frye’s
Rewriting of Aristotle,” Helios 24.2 (1997)
136-50.
Translations
A City of Images: iconography and
society in ancient Greece, J.-P. Vernant, C. Bérard,
et al. Princeton University Press, 1989.
“Between Shame and Glory: The Identity of the Young
Spartan Warrior” in Mortals and Immortals:
Collected Essays of J.-P. Vernant, Princeton
University Press, 1991.
“The Sexual Life of Satyrs” by F. Lissarrague
and “One, Two, Three...Eros” by J.-P. Vernant
in Before Sexuality, Princeton University Press,
1990.
Reviews
Exchange and the Maiden: Marriage in
Sophoclean Tragedy. Kirk Ormand. Bryn Mawr
Classical Review 2000 02.25.
Law, Violence and Community in Classical Athens. David
Cohen, and Greeks Bearing Gifts: the public use of
private relationships in the Greek world, 435-323 B.C.
Lynette G. Mitchell American Ethnologist 25.3
(1998) 539-540.
Mythes grecs au figuré. ed. Georgoudi and Vernant.
American Journal of Archaeology (spring 1998).
Athenian Religion. Robert Parker. New England
Classical Journal 24 (1997).
Worshipping Athena. Jenifer Neils. New England
Classical Journal 24 (1997).
Dangerous Voices: Women’s Laments and Greek
Literature. Gail Holst-Warhaft. International
Journal of the Classical Tradition. 3.4 (1997-8).
Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the
Developing City-State. Richard Seaford. New
England Classical Journal 23 (1995-6).
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. ed. Helene Foley.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64
(1996).
Religion in the Ancient Greek City. L. Bruit
Zaidman and P. Schmitt Pantel. Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 64 (1996).
Hekate Soteira: a study of Hekate’s roles in the
Chaldean Oracles and related literature.
Sarah Iles Johnston. Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 61 (1993).
Contributions to HarperCollins Dictionary of
Religion, San Francisco, 1995 (short entries on Greek
religion).
Presentations
“Arion and Dionysos Methymnaios: A
Reading of Herodotus 1.23-4,” CAMWS annual meeting,
Gainesville, April 2006.
Introduction to Panel on Age
Discrimination and the Classics Job Market, APA annual
meeting, Montreal, January 2006.
“The Scandal of Women’s
Ritual,” Ohio Classical Conference, October
2005.
“The Scandal of Women’s
Ritual,” keynote address at conference on
“Women’s Rituals in Context,” University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, October 2002.
”Knowing Women’s Ritual: An Antiquarian’s
Dilemma,” Ancient Studies Colloquium, Johns Hopkins
University, October 2000.
“Some Greek and Roman Answers: Looking at Plutarch
Looking at Greek Religion,” APA annual meeting,
Dallas, December 1999.
“Dangerous Gifts: Ideologies of Marriage and Exchange
in Ancient Greece,” University of Chicago and
University of Michigan, February 1999.
“A Family Romance: Sisters and Brothers in Greek Myth
and Tragedy,” Duke University, February 1998.
“The Trojan War, the Crisis of Reciprocity, and the
Traffic in Women,” University of Iowa, February 1998.
“Dangerous Gifts: Marriage, Agency, and Exchange in
Greek Myth,” University of North Carolina, Greensboro
and Chapel Hill, November 1997; UCLA, May 1998.
“Feminist Anthropology and Feminist Work in
Classics,” workshop at conference on “Feminism
and Classics: Framing the Research Agenda” at
Princeton University, November 1996.
“Antigone’s Choice: Sibling Alliances in Greek
Myth and Tragedy,” University of Buffalo, April,
1996.
“The Politics of Poetics: Northrop Frye’s
Rewriting of Aristotle,” American Philological
Association annual meeting, December 1993 and the
International Society for the Classical Tradition, Second
International Meeting, March 1995.
“Manto e le altre: le eroine mantiche,”
conference on “Sibille e linguaggi oracolari,”
University of Macerata, September 1994.
“Gunaion heineka doron: the Dangers of
‘Womanly Gifts’ in Homer and Hesiod,”
American Philological Association Annual Meeting, December
1992.
“Towards an Economics of Gender in Archaic
Greece,” Social Anthropology Seminar, Harvard
University, November, 1992.
“When the Gift Gives itself Away: the Economics of
Gender in Archaic Greece,” Amherst College, Wesleyan
University, the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies
(Harvard University), University of Buffalo, Union College,
and Rice University.
“The Naming of Heroines: Kleos and Gender in
Greek Myth,” American Philological Association annual
meeting, December 1990.
“Women and the Transfer of Kingship in Homeric
Epic,” conference on “Women and
Sovereignty,” St Andrews University, August 1990.
“From Heroine to Goddess: Apotheosis and Gender in
Greek Myth,” Classical Assoc. of the Atlantic States
conference, Fall 1989.
Professional Activities:
Member, Committee on the Status of Women and
Minority Groups, American Philological Association, 2005-
Task force on Age Discrimination, 2005-
Organizer, panel on “Age Discrimination in the
Classics Job Market,” APA annual meeting, Montreal,
January 2006..
Co-organizer, Center for Hellenic Studies Colloquium on
“Women and Property in Ancient Mediterranean and Near
Eastern Societies,” Washington , DC. August 2002.
Organizer, Ancient Studies Colloquium: “Gender and
Ritual Practice,” Departments of Classics and Near
Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University, October 2000.
Member of board of advisors (1997-8) and co-organizer
(1999) of American Philological Association three-year
panel on “Celebration and Contestation: Reading
Ancient Ritual”
Manuscript reviewer for University of Texas Press,
Cambridge University Press, University of California Press.
Referee for Classical Review, Journal of
American Academy of Religion, Journal of the
History of Ideas, Transactions and Proceedings of
the American Philological Association, Classical
Journal, Classical World.
Pearson Graduate Fellowship committee, American
Philological Association, 1994-9
Co-organizer of panel on “Immortal Mortals: Heroic
Ideology in Greek Myth and Cult,”
American Philological Association annual meeting, December
1990
University Activities:
Miami University:
Faculty Advisor to Undergraduate Classics Conference, held
March 2005
Johns Hopkins University:
Co-ordinator of the Undergraduate Language Program in
Classics, 2000-2004
Graduate Advisor, 2002-Spring 2003.
University of Rochester:
Director of Medieval House -- Spring semester 1996
Steering Committee, Susan B. Anthony Center for
Women’s Studies, 1993-96
University Committee on the Status of Women, 1993-95
Faculty Council (and steering committee), 1990-1991
Chair, Latinist Search Committee, 1989
Organization for Women Faculty, 1988-, Steering Committee,
1989-90
Awards and Honors:
Faculty Research Appointment, Miami University, summer
2005.
Fellowship, National Humanities Center, 1997-8
Fellowship, Center for Hellenic Studies, 1996-7
University of Rochester nomination for NEH summer stipend
(program suspended), 1995
University of Rochester Mellon Fellowship, Fall 1992
Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship in the Humanities,
Harvard University, 1991-92
American Association of University Women Dissertation
Fellowship, 1987-88
Josephine De Karman Graduate Fellowship, 1985-86
DAAD Fellowship for Study in Germany, Goethe Institute,
1984
Phi Beta Kappa, 1976