In March 1987 Robert S. Danziger, MD 1980, endowed a fund in honor of his father Sigmund H. Danziger Jr., AB 1937, an inveterate reader and student of the classics. To this was added a gift from a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities with the object of bringing to campus “an established scholar of classical literature, who has made substantial contributions to the critical analysis of classical literature, or has been exceptionally skilled at inspiring an appreciation for classical literature.” Over the years the prestige of this annual event led to a widening interpretation of the term “classical literature” and while classicists such as Sir Kenneth Dover, Charles Segal and Simon Goldhill have numbered among the Danzigers, so have early modern scholars Natalie Zemon Davis, Joan DeJean, and Mary Poovey, Hindi literary specialist David Schulman, philosopher and historian of science Ian Hacking.
2023-2024 Sigmund H. Danziger Jr. Lecturer:
Barbara Graziosi
Ewing Professor of Greek Language and Literature.
Chair in the Department of Classics.
Princeton University
Previous Sigmund H. Danziger Jr. Lecturers:
- 2022-2023 David Wengrow
- 2021-2022 William A. Johnson
- 2020-2021 Judith Butler
- 2018-2019 Fiona Macintosh
- 2017-2018 Dame Marina Warner
- 2016-2017 Simon Schama
- 2015-2016 Daniel Boyarin
- 2014-2015 Stephen Greenblatt
- 2013-2014 John T. Hamilton
- 2012-2013 Julia Annas
- 2011-2012 C. Brian Rose
- 2010-2011 Anthony Grafton
- 2009-2010 Page duBois
- 2008-2009 Elaine Pagels
- 2007-2008 Mary Beard
- 2006-2007 Daniel Mendelsohn
- 2005-2006 Jacques Rancière
- 2004-2005 Andrew Ford
- 2003-2004 Steven Feld
- 2002-2003 Josiah Ober
- 2001-2002 Ian Hacking
- 2000-2001 Simon Goldhill
- 1999-2000 David Shulman
- 1998-1999 Joan E. DeJean
- 1997-1998 Mary Poovey
- 1996-1997 Peter Brown
- 1995-1996 Irene J. Winter
- 1994-1995 Charles Segal
- 1993-1994 Friedrich Kittler
- 1992-1993 Gary A. Tomlinson
- 1991-1992 Hazel Carby
- 1990-1991 Naomi Schor
- 1989-1990 Natalie Zemon Davis
- 1988-1989 Kenneth Dover
The Division of Humanities website contains further information about the lecture and a full listing of previous speakers.