Joseph A. Farrell Jr., a noted classical studies scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, will be at UGA Oct. 3-4 to deliver a lecture and visit with students and faculty as part of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program.
Farrell is one of 13 distinguished scholars who will visit 100 colleges and universities with chapters of Phi Beta Kappa under the Visiting Scholar Program, which is beginning its 50th year.
His lecture Oct. 3 at 4 p.m. in the UGA Chapel is titled “Literature and Society in the First Modern Period, 321 BC-AD 235.” He will argue in the talk that essential conditions cultural historians view as symptoms of modern times actually existed more than 2,000 years ago in Greek and Roman cultures.
Both the lecture and a reception afterward in the Peabody Board Room in the Administration Building are open free to the public. While on campus Farrell also will visit classes in the classics department and meet with students and faculty.
Farrell holds the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Chair in Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania and is professor of classical studies. An authority on Latin and Greek literature and Roman culture and society, he is author of two books and numerous book chapters, articles and book reviews.
The Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program was created to fuel the intellectual life of a college or university through exchange of ideas between the visiting scholar and resident faculty and students. Scholars visit only institutions that have Phi Beta Kappa chapters.