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Jan Ziolkowski Elected to the American Philosophical Society

Posted On July 05, 2017 | 11:49 am | by Press | Permalink

Jan Ziolkowski, director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection and Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society. The oldest learned society in the United States, it was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” The Society has inducted 5,573 members since its inception.

Jan Ziolkowski (AB Princeton University, PhD University of Cambridge) has focused his research and teaching on the literature of the Latin Middle Ages. Within medieval literature his special interests have included the classical tradition, the grammatical and rhetorical tradition, the appropriation of folktales into Latin, and Germanic epic in Latin language. More comparatively, he has developed broad interests in medieval revivalism down to the present day. At Harvard he has chaired the Department of Comparative Literature, the Committee on Medieval Studies, and (fleetingly) the Department of the Classics. He founded the Medieval Studies Seminar, which continues to hold regular meetings open to the public in the Barker Center. Ziolkowski teaches courses mainly in classics (medieval Latin) and medieval studies. He also currently directs Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, a Harvard center in Washington, DC, with programs in Byzantine studies, Pre-Columbian studies, and garden and landscape studies.