Princeton Classics

As a classics major at Princeton, Gabriel Duchovny spent years learning to read ancient texts slowly and carefully. As an investigator at Brooklyn Defender Services, he scoured the borough for evidence after alleged crimes occurred. And as a midfielder with Princeton Men's Soccer, his ability to connect play down the field helped make one of the most successful men’s soccer teams in Princeton history.

For Duchovny, all three pursuits drew on the intellectual habits he developed in classics: patience, thoroughness and attention to detail. These abilities and experiences would culminate in his thesis, “Ancient Roman Banditry: A Modern Criminological Analysis,” advised by Yelena Baraz, which earned him the classics department's John J. Keaney Prize for best senior thesis.

(Click below for more on Duchovny and his remarkable Princeton journey!)

Senior thesis spotlight: A classics major applies modern criminology to accounts of ancient Roman bandits Gabriel Duchovny, a midfielder on the Princeton men’s soccer team, has also tapped his facility with language to translate from Italian two scholarly papers about the strategic innovations of Tottenham Hotspur soccer coach Roberto De Zerbi.

Happy Publication to THE ANCIENT INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS: EARLY GREEK HERMENEUTICS AND ITS SOURCES by Prof. Mirjam E. Kotwick—available today from Princeton University Press!

Long before Freud, dreams and how to make sense of them fascinated ancient thinkers. In THE ANCIENT INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS, Mirjam Kotwick traces a continuous intellectual practice of dream interpretation across a range of ancient Greek texts, including those from Homer, Aeschylus, Herodotus, Antiphon, the Hippocratic doctors, Plato, and Aristotle.

Kotwick shows that ancient Greeks used their study of dreams to reflect on larger questions of interpretation, figurative language, and metaphor—before the concept of metaphor existed. Through the interpretation of dreams, Kotwick argues, we can see early Greek hermeneutic thought develop.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691263557/the-ancient-interpretation-of-dreams

We are overjoyed to announce the release of the new issue of PYRPHOROS, Princeton's Undergraduate Classics Journal—available now on our website!

"If you come away from this journal with a new idea, an impulse for collaboration, or a drive for connecting to the community of classicists both at Princeton and beyond, then we will have fulfilled our metaphorical mission—to uphold, in our small way, the gift of human art and ingenuity granted to us by our namesake rebel, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer."
—Jack Geld '26, Editor-in-Chief

https://classics.princeton.edu/research/bookshelf/pyrphoros-vol-2

We're proud to congratulate Prof. Jesse Lundquist on receiving the Arthur H. Scribner Bicentennial Preceptorship! This year, Lundquist is one of only five professors appointed as Bicentennial Preceptor, who serve a three-year term including a full year of research leave.

“I deeply appreciate this praeceptorship since it guarantees the chance to work and publish more especially in these critical pre-tenure years," said Prof. Lundquist. "This is the kind of opportunity that makes Princeton so great a place to work at.”

Read more now on our homepage!

Jesse Lundquist appointed Bicentennial Preceptor Princeton Classics is proud to congratulate Jesse Lundquist on receiving the Arthur H. Scribner Bicentennial Preceptorship. Established following Princeton’s bicentennial in 1946, Bicentennial Preceptorships extend for three years and support promising junior faculty in the humanities and social s...

Congratulations to our forty-one majors and minors of the great Class of 2026 on completing four spectacular years at Princeton!

Special shoutouts to Laurie Drayton, Gabriel Duchovny, and Jack Geld for winning the John J. Keaney Prize for best senior thesis, and to M.C. McCoy and Valarie Rubinstein for three years of outstanding work in the department office.

(Click below for more information on this amazing, prize-winning class.)

Miss you all and see you at Reunions!

Princeton Classics graduates 14 majors, 27 minors; Drayton, Duchovny, Geld share Keaney Prize The Department of Classics congratulates our fourteen majors of the Class of 2026, as well as our twenty-seven minors in ancient history and classical studies, on graduating today in Princeton University's 279th Commencement. As previously announced, department major Madeleine Murnick delivered the....

We are extremely proud to congratulate Nadia Makuc '26—classics major, honor committee chair, and manifold club president—on receiving the Harold Willis Dodds Award, one of Princeton's four university prizes for graduating seniors!

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2026/05/25/students-honored-leadership-and-service-class-day

As ever, a delight to welcome back generations of our department's Princeton Alumni for Princeton Reunions 2026—be well, keep in touch, and we'll see you again next year!

(feat. Andrew Feldherr '85 & Joan Breton Connelly '76)

A bittersweet occasion today as we celebrated the retirement of David T. Jenkins, who has served since 2009 as Princeton University Library's Librarian for Classics, Hellenic Studies, and Linguistics.

A brilliant librarian and Byzantinist, Dave has worked indefatigably, through periods of great technological change, to not only maintain our collections, but counsel our students, co-teach our classes, and singlehandedly maintain manuscript databases that have "transformed the study of Greek paleography" (to quote Prof. Emmanuel Bourbouhakis).

Thank you, Dave, for all you've done for our students, research, and community—and congratulations on a well-earned retirement!

Congratulations to announce Adriana Clark '27, winner of this year's Stinnecke Prize!

The Stinnecke Exam Prize is one of Princeton's oldest awards and is given to the sophomore or junior in any department who receives the highest marks on a three-hour examination involving translation of Greek and Latin passages as well as grammatical questions on both languages. The prize was established at Princeton in 1870 by the will of the late Henry A. Stinnecke, Class of 1861, and is judged by a national panel of classicists.

Adriana Clark '27 wins 2026 Stinnecke Prize The Department of Classics is delighted to announce Adriana Clark '27 as the winner of this year's Stinnecke Prize! One of the university's oldest awards, the Stinnecke Exam Prize comes with a one-time stipend of $3,000 and is given to the sophomore or junior in any department who receives the highe...

Shout-out to the amazing graduate students in Princeton Classics, Religion, Art and Archaeology, English, and the Center for Collaborative History who work tirelessly to organize Princeton’s Late Antique, Medieval, and Byzantine Workshop—a vital interdisciplinary forum for graduate research into the premodern world!

Check out these photos from LAMB’s final session of the year, led by Riccardo Brighenti, visiting student researcher at Princeton Classics from the Università degli Studi di Milano. See you next year!

LAMB Organizing Committee, 2025–26:
Maria-Claire Apostoli (Classics)
Melissa Yorio (Religion)
Jenica Brown (A&A)
Gabriel Medina (English)
Alice Morandy (History)