Stanley Lombardo
Stanley Lombardo
Program Scholar for the Lawrence Public Library
Stanley Lombardo, Professor of Classics at the University of Kansas, is a native of New Orleans. He has a B.A. from Loyola University in New Orleans, an M.A. from Tulane University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas (1976). In 1976 he joined the faculty at the University of Kansas, where he served as department chair for fifteen years and teaches Greek and Latin at all levels, as well as general courses on Greek literature and culture. He was awarded a Kemper Teaching Fellowship by the university and a Mortar Board Teaching Award. He is currently director of the University Honors Program.
Professor Lombardo’s publications are primarily literary translations of Greek poetry, including Homer’s Iliad (Hackett, 1997; reviewed in the New York Times, 7/20/97; recipient of the Byron Caldwell Book Award; performed by Aquila Theatre Company at Lincoln Center, 1999); Homer’s Odyssey (Hackett, 2000, a New York Times Book of the Year); and translations of Plato, Hesiod, Callimachus, and of Sappho, which was a finalist for the 2003 Pen Literary Award for translation; and most recently Virgil’s Aeneid, also a finalist for a Pen award and reviewed in the New York Review of Books (April, 2007). He also maintains an interest in Asian philosophy and has co-authored a translation of Tao Te Ching and co-edited an anthology of classical Zen texts His translation of Dante’s Inferno will appear in 2009.
Professor Lombardo has given dramatic readings of his translations on campuses throughout the country, as well as at such venues as the Smithsonian Institution, the Chicago Humanities Festival and on C-SPAN and National Public Radio. He has recorded and released award-winning audio books (Parmenides Press) of his Homer translations.
