All Scholars
LOWENSTAM, Steven Daniel
- Date of Birth: December 14, 1945
- Born City: Springfield
- Born State/Country: IL
- Parents: Heinz & Lise Weil L.
- Date of Death: December 12, 2003
- Death City: Eugene
- Death State/Country: Or
- Married: Chaya Harriet Rubin, 19 December 2002.
- Education:
B.A. U. Chicago, 1967; M.A. Harvard, 1969; Ph.D., 1975.
- Dissertation:
“The Typological Death of Patroclus” (Harvard, 1975).
- Professional Experience:
Asst. prof. Classics, U. Oregon, 1975-81; assoc. prof. 1981-93; prof. 1993-2003; chair, Classics Dept., 1982-83, 1985-87; Dir. Hum. Prog., 1980-83; 1984-87; first prize, Am. Acad. Poets, 1965; pres. CAPN, 1985-86.
- Publications:
“Patroclus' Death in the Iliad and the Inheritance of an Indo-European Myth,” ArchN VI (1977) 72-76; “The Meaning of IE *dhal-,” TAPA CIX (1979) 125-35; The Death of Patroklos; A Study in Typology, Beitr. zur Klass. Philol. CXXXIII (Königstein: Hain, 1981); “Paradoxes in Plato's Symposium,” Ramus XIV (1985) 85-104; “Aristophanes' Hiccups,” GRBS XXVII (1986) 43-56; The Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cyrene. Final Reports, III:1: Scarabs, Inscribed Gems and Engraved Finger Rings, (ed.) 2: Attic Black-Figure and Black-Glazed Pottery, ed. Mary B. Moore; 3: Hellenistic and Roman Fine Wares ed. Philip M. Kenrick; 4: Conservation of Objects ed. Tamsin Fuller, Univ. Mus. Monogr. 66 (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1987) REVIEWS: RA 1989 384-385 Metzger | AJA XCIII 1989 476-477 Matheson | LibStud XIX 1988 154 Fulford | AC LX 1991 650-651 R. Laffineurä; “Antilochos' Quarrels,” AAPhA (1988) 106; “The Uses of Vase-Depictions in Homeric Studies,” TAPA CXXII (1992) 165-98; The Scepter and the Spear: Studies on Forms of Repetition in the Homeric Poems (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993) REVIEWS: BMCR 1995 6 (1) : 43-48 Andrew Sprague Becker | CJ 1995-1996 91 (1): 89-92 Mark W. Edwards | CR 1995 45 (1): 4-5 John Bryan Hainsworth | CW 1996-1997 90 (5) : 376-377 James H. Dee | EMC 1997 N. S. 16 (2): 325-327 Egbert J. Bakker | LEC 1997 65 (1): 78-79 Marcel Delaunois | NECN 1994-1995 22 (3): 130-131 Maria C. Pantelia | Phoenix 1995 49 (2) : 163-166 Ingrid Elisabeth Holmberg; “Is Literary Criticism an Illegitimate Discipline?: A Fallacious Argument in Plato's Ion,” Ramus 22 (1993) 19-32; “The Arming of Achilleus on Early Greek Vases,” ClAnt 12 (1993) 199-218; “The Pictures on Juno's Temple in the Aeneid,” CW 87 (1993-1994) 37-49; “The Sources of the Odyssey Landscapes,” EMC 39 (1995) 193-226; “Talking Vases: The Relationship Between the Homeric Poems and Archaic Representations of Epic Myth,” TAPA 127 (1997) 21-76; “The Shroud of Laertes and Penelope's Guile,” CJ 95 (1999-2000) 333-348; As Witnessed by Images: The Trojan War Tradition in Greek and Etruscan Art (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) REVIEWS: BMCR 2009 (4): n.p. Todd Clary | CR 2009 N. S. 59 (2): 585-587 Barry B. Powell | JRA 2009 22 (2): 447-449 Jocelyn Penny Small | Anabases 2010 N° 11: 271-273 Carlamaria Lucci;“Seneca's Epistle Sixty-Five,” MAAR no. 43-44 (1998-1999) 63-78; Yearning for the Infinite: Desire and Possession in Three Platonic Dialogues (Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University Press, 2007).
- Notes:
Educated at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, where he studied under Cedric Whitman, Steven contributed significant scholarship to the field of Homeric studies. He is the author of a number of books and numerous journal articles. At the end of his life his work challenged the traditional dating of Homer, as well as previous ideas about the influence between epic and visual representations of the Odyssean and Iliadic stories. His evaluation of mythic images on archaic Greek vases yielded the important conclusion that other oral traditions were competing with the versions preserved in the Homeric poems and that artists drew and interpreted material from a variety of sources. Steven's interests also extended to the dialogues of Plato. His book Yearning for the Infinite: Desire and Possession in Three Platonic Dialogues appeared posthumously from the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University Press, in 2007. Steven was deeply engaged in scholarship to the end of his life and he never shied away from asking difficult questions about texts and their established interpretations. APA members will recall the many papers he presented at the organization's annual meetings.Steven was also instrumental in establishing the Humanities program at the University of Oregon and the Sienna exchange program through the Northwest Council for Study Abroad. He served as head of the U. of O. Classics Department and as President of the Eugene Chapter of the AIA and President of CAPN. He traveled extensively for his research and taught on educational exchange programs in several cities. For his work on images of the Trojan War in Greek and Etruscan art he received an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship for 2001-2002 and a Loeb Classical Library Fellowship for 2003-2004. For twenty-nine years a beloved teacher at the University of Oregon, he was known for combining rigorous expectations of, and compassion towards, his students. He courageously continued to teach, write, and meet all his responsibilities with great fortitude and equanimity, in spite of the uncertainty of his battle with brain cancer, until just a few months before his death at the age of 57.
- Sources:
APA Newsletter (August 2004) 19.
- Author: Mary Jaeger & Lowell Bowditch