News and Events

PEA Hosts Princeton University Classics Professor Joshua T. Katz

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Exeter, NH (February 14, 2011)—Phillips Exeter Academy's Classical Languages Department will host Princeton University linguist, classicist and comparative philologist, Professor Joshua T. Katz, as a Visiting Scholar from February 13–25, 2011. Katz, a linguist, leads seminars on writing and "wordplay," and writes a regular column, "My Word!" for The Daily Princetonian.

During his Exeter residency, Katz is scheduled to present two evening talks, inviting audience interaction. The talks will begin at 7 p.m., and are free and open to the PEA community and the general public. He will work with students and faculty in two lunchtime symposia, one on linguistics and the other on the development of Latin. During his visit, Katz will also participate in classes in the department of classical languages.

On Wednesday, February 16, Katz's talk "Ancient Egypt and its Hieroglyphs," will explore the language of ancient Egypt—the land of mummies, pharaohs, pyramids and sphinxes. Fascinating to outsiders for more than a millennium, the secrets of this culture were not revealed until the 19th century, when the hieroglyphic system of writing was deciphered. Audience members can learn to 'read and write like an Egyptian' from this presentation. The talk will be held at 7 p.m. in the Phelps Academy Center's Forum, Tan Lane in Exeter.

On Wednesday, February 23, Katz will lead a conversation on "The English Language: What It Is; How It Got This Way; Where It Is Going," examining the complexity of the English language and illustrating various forms of today's written and spoken English. A few examples he will provide are:


-   itjmhoF oj ofuujsx tj fdofuoft tjiU                           -   We synt gumcynnes Geata leode


-   I shall not want                                                      -   All mimsy were the borogoves

                                                           
                                                            -   i <3 u

Katz's examination will cover differences and commonalities in our language in 2011, which are different from the commonalities of 1911, 1811 and 1011. He hopes to discuss freely with his audience the state of English and bring participants to a better understanding of how and why it is spoken and written today. The talk will be held at 7 p.m., in the Phelps Academy Center's Forum, Tan Lane in Exeter.

A prolific author and researcher, Katz is widely published in the languages, literature and cultures of the ancient world, from India to Ireland via Greece, Rome and the Near East. His numerous articles examine literary, linguistic and cultural subjects from Hesiod to Catullus, Tocharian phonology to Hittite morphology and Greek badgers. One of his latest interests is wordplay, a subject on which he has published several papers and recently taught a freshman seminar entitled, "Wordplay: A Wry Plod from Babel to Scrabble."

A native of New York, Katz earned his undergraduate degree in linguistics from Yale University in 1991, a master's degree from Oxford University in 1993; and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1998. He is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation. Since joining the faculty at Princeton in 1998, Katz has been awarded the President's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003 and the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award in 2008. In 2010, he was awarded a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Last fall, he served as a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College in Oxford, United Kingdom, and this spring will serve a term as a Directeur d'études invité at the École pratique des Hautes Études in Paris.

This event is hosted and managed by the Department of Classical Languages, with funding from the Behr Fund. For further information, contact the Department of Classical Languages at 603-777-3485, or visit the Academy's website at www.exeter.edu. You may also call the PEA public events line at 603-777-4309. Directions to the Academy are available at 603-777-4330.

—Famebridge Witherspoon