Join us in welcoming Brian Walters as the new editor of Illinois Classical Studies! His first issue, Volume 48, Issue 1-2, is out now, featuring a special section on “Political Crisis and Transitions in Roman Historiography of the Imperial Age.”
Founded in 1976, ICS publishes original research on a variety of topics related to the Classics, in all areas of Classical Philology and its ancillary disciplines, such as Greek and Latin literature, history, archaeology, epigraphy, papyrology, patristics, and beyond.
Incoming editor Dr. Brian Walters is an associate professor of classics and translation studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He specializes in Latin literature, with an emphasis on Cicero and the literature of the late republic and early empire. Brian recently published The Deaths of the Republic: Imagery of the Body Politic in Ciceronian Rome (Oxford, 2020) and is currently working on a book on Cicero’s poetry. He is also completing translations of Virgil’s Georgics and Lucretius’ The Nature of Things. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Read on to get to know Brian and his plans for the journal in this Q&A:
Q: What are you looking forward to as the editor of Illinois Classical Studies?
A: One of the most exciting aspects to me about becoming the editor of ICS is the opportunity that it will provide me to become acquainted with a range of new and important work from across the numerous fields and subdisciplines of Classics and to be able to play a part, however small, in bringing this work into print. I love learning new things, especially about the ancient world, but the reality of academic specialization means that most of the time the reading that I undertake for personal research is limited to a set and circumscribed number subjects. Being editor of ICS will by necessity broaden the scope of what I get to read.
Q: Are there any qualities you are looking for in articles you’ll publish in ICS? Or any topics/general subjects you’d like to see submissions addressing?
A: One of the things that continues to make research in the Classics so engaging is the amount of ground, so to speak, that the discipline covers and the ways in which this continues to grow and change. As long as the articles that we publish are of good quality and original and their contributions are worthwhile, I honestly don’t have strong feelings about specific topics that I want to see addressed. ICS has since its inception in 1976 accepted submissions on a broad range of subjects and I aim to continue this practice during my time as editor.
Q: Are there any articles that have been published in previous issues in ICS that you’ve enjoyed reading or that stand out to you?
A: There are so many throughout the years that it is hard to name just a few. Because of my current project on Cicero’s poetry I have found myself rereading in recent months almost the entirety of Volume 8, Issue 2, the special issue from Fall 1983 (“Hirsutae Coronae: Archaic Roman Poetry and its Meaning to Later Generations”), from which I especially enjoyed the pieces by D.R. Shackleton Bailey and James Zetzel. To pick something from a more recent volume, Ian Goh’s “It All Comes Out: Vomit as a Source of Comedy in Roman Moralizing Texts” (in Volume 43, Issue 2, Fall 2018) stands out as something that I remember being immediately great. In fact, I think the whole issue in which that piece was published (on the comic aspects of disease in antiquity, guest edited by George Kazantzidis and Natalia Tsoumpra) is really fascinating and enjoyable.
Q: Do you have any specific goals for your time as editor of ICS?
A: I have a number of ideas that I hope to try out eventually, but my first major goal is to get the journal back on its regular publication schedule after the delays caused by COVID-19. ICS will celebrate its fiftieth year during my term as editor, a birthday which I share with it, and I would like for the journal to meet this milestone on as firm a footing as possible.
Outgoing Editor
Angeliki Tzanetou was the editor of Illinois Classical Studies since fall of 2016 and worked on six volumes and eleven issues total. Some of the special issues published during her term as editor include “Ovid’s Heroides: New Approaches and Perspectives” (Volume 46, Issue 1-2), “Costume Change in the Comedies of Aristophanes” (Volume 45, Issue 2), “Undamning Domitian? Reassessing the Last Flavian princeps” (Volume 44, Issue 2), and a tribute to Luitpold Wallach (Volume 42, Issue 2). We thank her for her contributions to ICS!
Find Out More
- Listen to our podcast with former editor Dr. Angeliki Tzanetou, Dr. Isabel Ruffell, & Dr. Natalia Tsoumpra.
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