Nigel Nicholson
Walter Mintz Professor of Classics
Greek and Latin literature, critical theory.
nigel.nicholson@reed.edu
Education and Employment
Courses Taught
Research and Current Projects
Outreach Programs
Study Abroad in Sicily Blog
Publications and Papers
Books, Edited Volumes
The Rhetoric of Medicine: Lessons on Professionalism from Ancient Greece (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2019), jointly authored with Prof. Nathan Selden of Oregon Health & Science University
The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West: Epinician, Oral Tradition and the Deinomenid Empire (Oxford University Press, 2016)
(Editor) Literary Theory in Graduate and Undergraduate Classics Curricula, Paedagogus Special Section, Classical World 108.2 (2015), 157-279
Aristocracy and Athletics in Archaic and Classical Greece (Cambridge University Press, 2005); paperback edition (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
Journal Articles, Book Chapters
“Commemorating the Athlete,” A Companion to Greek Lyric, ed. Laura Swift (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), 47-61
“Greek Hippic Contests,” The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, eds. Alison Futrell and Thomas Scanlon (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021)
“Between Physician and Athlete: The Idea of the Trainer in Epinician Poetry,” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, Special section: Ancient Philosophy of Sport, 47.3 (2020): 377-90
“When Athletic Victory and Fatherhood did Mix: The Commemoration of Diagoras of Rhodes,” Sport and Social Identity in Classical Antiquity, eds. Sinclair Bell and Pauline Ripat, special issue, Bulletin for the Institute of Classical Studies 61.1 (2018): 42-63
“Four Reasons not to have an Epinician,” Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 16 (2016): 3-38
“The Athlete’s Body and the Rhetoric of Injury,” Classics@ 13 (2015), Greek Poetry and Sport,ed. Thomas Scanlon, http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6055
“ICCS Sicily,” The Centro at Fifty: The History of the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, 1965-2015, eds. Mary Boatwright, Michael Maas and Corb Smith (Centro Press, 2015), 109-14
“Literary Theory Survey Classes for Classics Undergraduates,” Paedagogus Special Section, Classical World 108.2 (2015): 164-82
“Introduction: Literary Theory and Graduate and Undergraduate Classics Curricula,” Paedagogus Special Section, Classical World, 108.2 (2015): 157-63
“Doctors, Trainers and Athletes in Bacchylides Ode 1 ,” Nikephoros 25 (2012) [2014]: 79-114, jointly authored with Arien Gutierrez (a Reed undergraduate)
“Cultural Studies, Oral Tradition, & the Promise of Intertextuality,” in special issue of American Journal of Philology, entitled Intertextuality,eds. Yelena Baraz and Christopher van den Berg, 134 (2013): 9-21
“Writing Greek Sport: Contests and Athletes in Greek Literature,” A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity, eds. Paul Christesen and Donald Kyle (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 68-80
“Aging, Athletics And Epinician ,” Nikephoros 23 (2010) [2012], 105-38, jointly authored with Elizabeth Heintges (a Reed undergraduate)
“Pindar’s Olympian 4, Psaumis and Camarina after the Deinomenids,” Classical Philology 106 (2011): 93-114
“Poets, Doctors and the Rhetoric of Money,” Neurosurgery 64.1 (2009): 179-88, jointly authored with Prof. Nathan Selden (Oregon Health & Science University)
“A Century of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest,” Classical Journal 104.2 (2008/09): 164-75
“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), 101-28
"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
"Bodies Without Names, Names Without Bodies: Propertius 1.21-22," Classical Journal 94 (1999): 143-61
Invited Lectures / Public Engagements (since 2010)
Prolo Lecture, Western Neurological Society Annual Meeting, Hawaii, September 2022
“Physicians, Payment and Community,” Center for Ethics in Health Care lecture series: “Trust in the ruins: in the wake of a global pandemic, can we reimagine health and rebuild trust in the field and practice of medicine?,” June 2022 (with Nathan Selden)
“Physicians, Epidemics and Burnout,” UC Irvine, Department of Neurological Surgery, October 2021 (with Nathan Selden)
“Physicians, Epidemics and Burnout,” Mayo Clinic, February 2021 (with Nathan Selden)
“Physicians, Epidemics and Burnout,” Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Department of Neurosurgery, January 2021 (with Nathan Selden)
“Physicians, Epidemics and Burnout,” Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Department of Pathology, January 2021 (with Nathan Selden)
“Between Physician and Athlete: The Idea of the Trainer in Epinician Poetry,” University of Southern California, March 2020
“Physicians, Money and Burnout,” OHSU, Department of Medicine, January 2020 (with Nathan Selden)
“Medicine and Regulation in Ancient Greece,” Oregon Medical Board, Portland, October 2019
“The Rhetoric of Medicine: Lessons on Professionalism from Ancient Greece,” with Nathan Selden, American Academy of Neurological Surgery, Rome, September 2019
“Doctors and Money in Late Archaic and Early Classical Greece,” Amherst College, February 2019
“Deinomenid Innovations in Form,” Florida State University, February 2017
“Athletics, Oral Tradition and the Greek West,” Columbia University, October 2016
“When is a Doctor not a Doctor? The Rhetoric of Healthcare in Fifth-Century Greece,” Oberlin, September 2014
“Epinician vs. Oral Tradition in the Greek West,’” New York University, May 2014
“How to tell a doctor from a quack in 5th-century Greece,” Gonzaga University, March 2014
“Epinician and Oral Tradition: Pindar’s Olympian 10 and the ‘Hero of Temesa,’” Florida State University, November 2013
“Epinician and Oral Tradition: Pindar’s Olympian 10 and the ‘Hero of Temesa,’” Berkeley, April 2013
“Art and Athletics in Ancient Greece,” Portland Art Museum, October 2012
“Intertextuality: What it is and what it can do for Classical Studies,” Wellesley College, April 2012
“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
“The Ancient Olympic Mule-Cart Race,” Parlitalia Lecture Series, University of Vancouver, B.C., January 2010
Recent Conference Papers (since 2012)
“The Politics of Epinician Time,” Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN), Salem, March 2022
“A Deinomenid Time to Fit Deinomenid Space,” Ancient Temporalities Conference, Wellesley College, October 2021
“Between Doctor and Athlete: The Idea of the Trainer in Epinician Poetry,” Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN), Eugene, March 2019
“Doctors without Borders,” CAPN, Spokane, April 2019
“Socially Peripheral, Symbolically Central: The Doctor in Fifth-Century Greece,” CAPN, Tacoma, March 2018
“A Liberal Art for the Future,” on panel entitled “The Future of Classical Education: A Dialogue,” Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS), San Francisco, January 2016
“Four Reasons not to have an Epinician,” CAPN, Portland, March 2015
“Is There a Doctor in the Ode? Pantheides in Bacchylides 1,” Annual Meeting of the (UK) Classical Association (CA), Reading, UK, April 2013
With Arien Gutierrez, a Reed undergraduate, “Doctors, Trainers and Athletes in Bacchylides Ode 1,” CAPN, Eugene, March 2013
“Literary Theory Survey Classes for Classics Undergraduates,” on panel entitled “Literary Theory in Graduate and Undergraduate Classics Curricula,” SCS, Seattle, January 2013
“Athlete Legends and Epinician in Western Locri,” CA, Exeter, UK, April 2012.
With Elizabeth Heintges (a Reed undergraduate), “Aging, Athletics and Epinician,” CAPN, Salem, March 2012
“Cultural Studies, Anecdotes and the Problems of Intertextuality,” on panel entitled “Intertextuality and its Discontents,” American Philological Association (APA, now the SCS), Philadelphia, January 2012.