Jacques A. Bromberg

Greek Literature (esp. drama and rhetoric)

Globalization Studies, Global Studies, Global Classics

Classical Receptions (esp. in Latin America)

Socrates and the Socratic Tradition

History and Philosophy of Sport (esp. sport and peace, sport and development, and Olympism)

My research takes place at the intersection of intellectual history and literary history, where authors and texts not generally assumed to be interested in systematizing and disseminating human knowledge in fact offer clues to the development of the earliest academic disciplines. The question that most animates my work is, "What roles do these literary genres play in the organization and circulation of knowledge?”  Because many individual disciplines began to emerge as coherent wholes in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. (e.g. astronomy and geometry, physics and medicine, law and rhetoric), my work asks what Greek tragedy and comedy, the most prominent literary genres to survive from this period, can teach us about the early shape of these disciplines. So far, a lot! But the study of Greek literature is far more than just a footnote to the history of science and philosophy; on the contrary, my questions derive also from a desire to understand the social and political context of Greek drama. These “plays” were serious business, drawing on highly advanced concepts from all corners of human knowledge to address pressing political and social issues; and today, Greek tragedies and comedies continue to be performed, translated, and adapted all around the world at moments of social, political, or cultural instability. My interest in ancient drama thus does not come to a halt with the end of greco-roman antiquity, and I am very excited to be a part of the interdisciplinary latticework of the Dietrich School at Pitt.