Professor Sharon James to speak at CNU
Inaugural Lecture of Elizabeth Frances Jones Lecture in Classical Studies Series

News Release - March 23, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact:
Carolyn Cuthrell
Office of Communications and Public Relations
carolyn.cuthrell@cnu.edu
(757) 594-7331

(NEWPORT NEWS, Va.) — Professor Sharon James, an associate professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will speak at Christopher Newport University on Monday, April 16 at 3 p.m. in the Alumni Room. There will be a reception immediately following the lecture. The event is free and open to the public.

Professor James’ lecture will be the first in an annual lecture series made possible by an endowment in honor of Professor Emerita Elizabeth Frances Jones. The anonymous endowment of $50,000 was made last year to the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at CNU and will provide for an annual lecture to be given on topics relating to Classical Studies.

Professor Jones received her Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and has studied in Rome as a Fulbright Fellow. She founded the programs in both Latin and Classical Studies at CNU, where she taught an impressive array of courses in Latin, classical drama, ancient history, mythology, and etymology. She has given numerous public lectures on the ancient world, and her publications include "The Commentary on the First Six Books of the Aeneid of Vergil Commonly Attributed to Bernardus Silvestris." Upon her retirement from CNU in 2002, Professor Jones was awarded emeritus status in recognition of her distinguished service to the University.

About the Speaker
Professor Sharon James is a Schwab Fellow in the Institute for Arts and Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her Ph.D. is in Comparative Literature (Latin, Greek, Italian) from the University of California at Berkeley. Her research interests include Latin poetry, Roman comedy, and gender in antiquity.

Professor James has published numerous articles on gender and Latin elegy. In 2003, she published the book "Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy." She has recently turned her attention to Roman comedy and is currently preparing multiple articles and a book, "Women in New Comedy," for publication.

For more information, contact Dr. Jana Adamitis at (757) 594-7020 or jadam@cnu.edu.