Paul Christesen
Professor
Appointments
William R. Kenan Professor of Ancient Greek History
Life Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge
Area of Expertise
Ancient Sparta,
Greek athletics,
Greek history and historiography,
archaeological applications of Geographic Information Systems
Biography
Paul Christesen, William R. Kenan Professor of Ancient Greek History in the Department of Classics at Dartmouth College, is the author of Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds (Cambridge University Press, 2012), and A New Reading of the Damonon Stele (Histos Supplement 8, 2019). He is also co-editor, with Donald Kyle, of A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity (2014); co-editor, with Danielle Allen and Paul Millett, of How to Do Things with History (Oxford University Press, 2018); and author of more than 30 articles. He is currently working with Paul Cartledge of Cambridge University on the Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World. His areas of expertise include ancient Greek history (with a particular focus on Sparta), sport history (including the ancient Olympics), the relationship between sport and political systems, and the use of Geographic Information Systems to compile legacy archaeological data and study settlement organization. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Education
A.B. Dartmouth College
Lehman College, City University of New York
M.A. Columbia University
M. Phil. Columbia University
Ph.D. Columbia University
Taught Courses
Publications
The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Sport in Antiquity, co-edited with Charles Stocking, London: Bloomsbury, 2021.
A New Reading of the Damonon Stele, Histos Supplement 10, 2019
(available online at: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/histos/documents/SV10.ChristesenDamononStele.pdf)
How to Do Things with History, co-edited with Danielle Allen and Paul Millett, Oxford University Press, 2018.
A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity, co-edited with Donald Kyle, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
"Editors' Preface," co-authored with Paul Cartledge, in R. Osborne, Athens and Attica. (Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World, Volume 2), New York: Oxford University Press, 2023: pp. xxxi-xlvii.
"Luxury Lost in Translation: τρυφή in Plutarch's Sparta." In Luxury and Wealth in the Archaic to Hellenistic Peloponnese, edited by C. Gallou and S. Hodkinson, Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2022: 119-35.
"Introduction," in The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Sport in Antiquity, P. Christesen and C. Stocking (eds.), London: Bloomsbury, 2021: pp. 1-22.
"The Purpose of Sport," co-authored with Rose MacLean, in The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Sport in Antiquity, P. Christesen and C. Stocking (eds.), London: Bloomsbury, 2021: pp. 23-48.
"Theories of Greek and Roman Sport and Spectacle," in The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, A. Futrell and T. Scanlon (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021: pp. 14-26.
"Herodotus 9.85 and Spartan Burial Customs." Classica et Mediaevalia 69 (2020): 1-72.
"The Typology and Topography of Spartan Burials from the Protogeometric through Hellenistic Periods: Re-thinking Spartan Exceptionalism and the Ostensible Cessation of Adult Intramural Burials in the Greek World," Annual of the British School at Athens 113 (2018): 307-363 (plus an additional c. 20,000 words of supplementary information in the form of data tables available (only) online on the Cambridge University Press website).
"Athletics and Sparta," in A Companion to Sparta, A. Powell (ed.), Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2018, vol. 2: pp. 543-64.
"Xenophon on Sparta," in the Cambridge Companion to Xenophon, Michael Flower (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 376-400.
"Dreams of Democracy, or The Reasons for Hoosiers' Enduring Appeal," International Journal of the History of Sport 34 (2017): 1-41.
Essays in Brill's New Jacoby on Euhemeros of Messene, Myron of Priene, Euthymenes, and Baton of Sinope.
"Athletics and Social Order in Sparta in the Classical Period," Classical Antiquity 31 (2012), 193-255.
"Treatments of Spartan Land Tenure in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century France: From François Fénelon to Fustel de Coulanges," in Sparta in Modern Thought: Politics, History, and Culture, Stephen Hodkinson and Ian Macgregor Morris (eds.), Classical Press of Wales, 2012, pp. 165-230.
"Spartans and Scythians, A Meeting of Mirages: The Portrayal of the Lycurgan Politeia in Ephoros' Histories," in Sparta: The Body Politic, Anton Powell and Stephen Hodkinson (eds.), Classical Press of Wales, 2010, pp. 211-63.
"Kings Playing Politics: The Heroization of Chionis of Sparta," Historia (Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte) 59 (2010): 26-73.
"The Olympic Victor List of Eusebius: Background, Text, and Translation," co-authored with Zara Martirosova-Torlone, Traditio (Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion) 61 (2006): 31-93.
"Utopia on the Eurotas: Economic Aspects of the Spartan Mirage," in Spartan Society, Thomas Figueira (ed.), Classical Press of Wales, 2004, pp. 309-37.
"Economic Rationalism in Fourth-Century B.C. Athens," Greece and Rome 50 (2003):1-26.
"Athletics and Sparta," in A Companion to Sparta, A. Powell (ed.), Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2018, vol. 2: pp. 543-64.
"On the Meaning of γυμνάζω," Nikephoros (Zeitschrift für Sport und Kultur im Altertum) 15 (2002): 7-37.
"Ex omnibus in unum, nec hoc nec illud: Genre in Petronius," co-authored with Zara Torlone, Materiali e Discussioni 49 (2002): 1-38.
Works in Progress
The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World, co-edited with Paul Cartledge.
- a multi-volume series that will provide detailed studies of 22 sites in the Archaic period (c. 750-c. 480 BCE), all intended for a scholarly audience
- total expected length c. 1.5 million words
Spartan Origins, co-authored with Paul Cartledge.
- a detailed study of the history and archaeology of Sparta in the Archaic period
- will form one entire volume of the Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World
- completed manuscript will be delivered in December, 2024
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