Classics Department
Nigel Nicholson
Walter Mintz Professor of Classics
Greek and Latin literature, critical theory.
nigel.nicholson@reed.edu
Education
Courses Taught
Projects
Outreach Programs
Publications and Papers
Book
Aristocracy and Athletics in Archaic and Classical Greece (Cambridge, 2005)
Articles
"Greek Hippic Contests," The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, eds. Allison Futrell and Thomas Scanlon (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
"Representations of Sport and Spectacle in Greek Literature," A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity, eds. Paul Christesen and Donald Kyle (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming)
"Pindar’s Olympian 4, Psaumis and Camarina after the Deinomenids," Classical Philology 106 (2011): 93-114
"A Century of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest," Classical Journal 104.2 (2008/09): 164-75
"Poets, Doctors and the Rhetoric of Money," Neurosurgery 64.1 (2009): 179-88; jointly authored with Dr. Nathan Selden of OHSU.
"Pindar, History and Historicism," (review article) Classical Philology, 102 (2007): 208-27
"Aristocratic Victory Memorials and the Absent Charioteer," in The Cultures within Greek Culture: Contact, Conflict, Collaboration, eds. L. Kurke and C. Dougherty (Cambridge, 2003)
"Pindar Ne. 4.57-58 and the Arts of Poets, Trainers and Wrestlers," Arethusa 34 (2001): 31-59.
"Polysemy and Ideology in Pindar Pythian 4.229-230," Phoenix 54 (2001), 191-202.
"Victory without Defeat? Carnival Laughter and its Appropriation in Pindar's Victory Odes," in Carnivalizing Difference: Bakhtin and the Other, eds. P. Barta, P. A. Miller, C. Platter and D. Shepherd (Routledge, 2001), 79-98.
"Pederastic Poets and Adult Patrons in Late Archaic Lyric," Classical World 93 (2000): 235-59.
"Bodies Without Names, Names Without Bodies: Propertius 1.21-22," Classical Journal 94 (1999): 143-61.
"The Truth of Pederasty: A Supplement to Foucault's Genealogy of the Relation between Truth and Desire in Ancient Greece," Intertexts 2.1 (1998): 26-45.
Also: "The Emperor’s Apothecary: Galen’s Apotheke and the Origin of the Word "Apothecary,"" Apothecary 2002: 24-27.
Translations
Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents in Translation, ed. T. K. Hubbard (California, 2003): Xenophon’s Symposium (pp.207-21) Epictetus’ Discourses (p.462) and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (p.469).
Reviews
Recent reviews include Mark Golden, Greek Sport and Social Status (Texas, 2008), Journal of Hellenic Studies 130 (2010): 239-40, and James Wells, Pindar’s Verbal Art: An Ethnographic Study of Epinician Style (Washington, 2010) Gnomon, forthcoming
You can also see my review of Charles Segal, Aglaia: The Poetry of Alcman, Sappho, Pindar, Bacchylides, and Corinna (Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), for BMCR (July, 1998), at gopher://gopher.lib.virginia.edu:70/00/alpha/bmcr/v98/98-7-12.Papers
"Cultural Studies, Anecdotes and the Problems of Intertextuality," on panel entitled “Intertextuality and its Discontents,” Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association (APA), Philadelphia, January 2012.
"Injury in Epinician," Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN), Spokane, March 2011
"A Brief History of CAPN," Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN), Spokane, March 2011
"Pindar Olympian 4: Mercenaries, Sicels and Post-Deinomenid Sicily," Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association (APA), San Diego, January 2010.
"Allowed Fools? Four Models of the Role of Comedy in the Politics of Democratic Athens," a lecture as part of a week-long commentary on a performance of Aristophanes Lysistrata, "Conflict and Controversy in Ancient Greek Comedy," sponsored by Humanities Washington, Gonzaga University, March 2010.
"Glaucus and Carystus: Reclaiming and Reframing an Expatriate Victor," Joint Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN) and the Classical Association of the Canadian West (CACW), Seattle, March 2010.
"The Ancient Olympic Mule-Cart Race," for the Parlitalia Lecture Series of the University of Vancouver, B.C., January 2010.
"Nuance, New Historicism, and Olympian 6," Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN), University of Puget Sound, March 2008.
"Athletes, Anecdotes, and Civic Identity," Duke University, January, 2007.
"Commemorating Victory, Chariot Races, and Charioteers in Ancient Greece," Calgary Society for Mediterranean Studies, September, 2006.
"Athletes, Anecdotes, and Civic Identity" University of Calgary, September 2006
With Rachel Preminger (a Reed undergraduate), "Athletes, Anecdotes, and the Projection of Civic Identity," Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN), Reed College, March 2006.
"A Century of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest," Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (CAAS), Wilmington, October, 2005.
"Psaumis, Camarina, and the Rhetoric of Foundation" Joint Annual Meeting of CAPN and the Classical Association of the Canadian West (CACW),Victoria, BC, February, 2005.
"Where are the Teachers? Late Archaic and Early Classical Memorials for Musical Victories," CAPN, Seattle, April 3, 2004.
"Vases and Victories: Copenhagen 109," CAPN/CACW, Calgary, March 2003.
"Bride of Quietness: Copenhagen 109 and the Commemoration of Chariot Victories," on panel "Leisure in Practice: Text and Art at the Crossroads of Cultural Studies," Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association (APA), Philadelphia, January 2002.
"A Properly Aristocratic Victory: The Charioteer in Pindar Pythian 5," APA, San Diego, January 2001.
"Charioteers, Victors and Victory Memorials," University of Washington, Seattle,
October 2000. 
"Of Mules and Mule-Drivers," CAPN/CACW, Victoria, BC, March 2000
"The Figure of the Trainer in Pindar's Odes," APA, Dallas, December, 1999
"The Arts of Poets, Trainers and Wrestlers, and Pindar's Nemean 4," CAPN, Spokane, March 1999
"A Charioteer for Hire: Nicomachus in Pindar's Isthmian 2.19-28," APA, Washington D.C., December 1998
"The Engue: A Case Study in the Contestation of Aristocratic Ideology in Pindar's Epinicians," on panel session "Ideology and Poetic Form," APA, Chicago, December 1997
"Pederastic Poets and Adult Patrons: Maintaining Authority in Commissioned Poetry," University of Oregon, Eugene, March 1997
"Pederastic Poets and Adult Patrons: Maintaining Authority in Commissioned Poetry," on panel entitled "Cultural Transactions: Economies of Art and Text," APA, New York, December 1996
"Gallan Multiplication in Propertius' Monobiblos," APA, San Diego, December 1995
"Nemean 4.57-8: Ambiguity, Parallel Narratives and the Representation of Character in Pindar's Odes," session on voice and persona, APA, Atlanta, December 1994
"A Crown of Horns: The Comic Side of Pindar's Odes," Bakhtin Symposium, Texas Tech University, January 1994
"Love of Truth: the Memories and 'Non-forgettings' of Pindar and Sappho," Foucault Symposium, Texas Tech University, April 1993