Robert A. Kaster

Professor of Classics; Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin Language and Literature. Kaster is a scholar's scholar, exemplary for combining the most rigorous philology with modern theoretical and anthropological approaches. He edited and commented on works that, though important for the understanding of classical antiquity, are generally considered to lie at the margins of the field's mainstream subjects of study. These include ancient grammatical and rhetorical treatises (e.g., Suetonius), works of learned table talk (Macrobius), manuscript traditions, and the like. Another side of his work focuses on ancient values and emotions in an effort to reconstruct how classical Roman concepts may have differed from our own. His book Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome (2005) is a case in point. To cite but a single example, it demonstrates that invidia or envy was actually a positive, not a negative, passion in most of its many recorded uses and thus challenges conventional understanding of this sentiment. He published a fine edition of a Cicero's speech Pro Sestio, here again illuminating the structure of the Roman value system. He is a past president of the American Philological Association and past recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation,  the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies.