North American Scholar

MINAR, Edwin Leroy, Jr

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  • Date of Birth (YYYY-MM-DD): 1915-04-17
  • Born City: Portland
  • Born State/Country: OR
  • Parents: Edwin Leroy & Alma Inez Jackson M.
  • Date of Death (YYYY-MM-DD): 1985-09-04
  • Death City: Greencastle
  • Death State/Country: IN
  • Married: Louise Padberg, 1937; Anne Marie Kelley, 1950.
  • Education:

    A.B. Reed Coll., 1936; Ph.D. U. Wisconsin, 1940.
  • Professional Experience:

    Asst. prof. for. langs. Dakota Wesleyan U., 1939-40; asso. to asso. prof, class. Connecticut Coll., 1940-51; asso. prof, class, langs. & lit. DePauw U. (Greencastle, IN), 1951-4; prof, class, langs., 1954-80; head dept., 1951-78; vis. prof. Indiana U., 1961; pres. Soc. Anc. Gk. Philos., 1966-8.
  • Dissertation:

    "Early Pythagorean Politics in Practice and Theory" (Wisconsin, 1940); printed in revised form (Baltimore, 1942; repr. 1979).
  • Publications:

    "Pythagorean Communism," TAPA 75 (1944) 34-46; "Selections from Aristotle" (trans.) in Classics in Translation, 1:351-93; Plutarch Table-Talk Books VII & VIII (trans.), LCL (Cambridge & London, 1961); "Cosmic Periods in the Philosophy of Empedocles," Phronesis 8 (1963) 127-45; reprinted in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, ed. J. P. Anton & G. L. Kustas (Albany, 1971) 39-58; "Pre-Socratic Studies, 1953-1966," CW 60 (1966-7) 143-63; Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (trans.) (Cambridge, 1972).
  • Notes:

    Edwin Minar was a professor of classical languages for 41 years. At DePauw he devoted a great deal of his time to further strengthening the strong classics collection in the library developed by one of his predecessors, Edwin Post, so that DePauw has an extraordinarily strong collection for a school of its size. His Early Pythagorean Politics is a standard work in the field and he made the most important work on Pythagoreanism available to the English-speaking world through his translation of Burkert's Lore and Science. Active in the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy, he produced several important articles on the Presocratics and an important survey of Presocratic studies for CW, as well as some 50 book reviews.
  • Sources:

    WhWh 1982-3:2328-9.
  • Author: Carl Huffman