All Scholars

IRWIN, Marjorie Eleanor

  • IRWIN, Marjorie Eleanor
  • Date of Birth: April 29, 1937
  • Born City: Toronto, Ontario
  • Born State/Country: Canada
  • Parents: Joseph Everard and Gladys Malcolm Gray.
  • Date of Death: January 9, 2025
  • Death City: Toronto, Ontario
  • Death State/Country: Canada
  • Married: Dr. John Wesley Irwin, December 30, 1961
  • Education:

    Ph.D., U. of Toronto, 1967.
  • Dissertation:

    “Colour Terms in Greek Poetry from Homer to the End of the Fifth Century” (Toronto, 1967). 
  • Professional Experience:

    Asst. prof. to associate. prof., University of Toronto Scarborough, 1969-2001; Dean's Designate for the Administration of the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters at the University of Toronto Scarborough for nine years (see interview), and was affiliated with the "Academic Integrity Matters" team at UTSC as late as 2015; Ralph Campbell Award, 1984, 2015; University of Toronto Arbor Award, 2013. 
  • Publications:

    “Colourful Sheep in the Golden Age. Vergil, Eclogues 4.42-45,” LEC 33 (1969) 23-37; Colour Terms in Greek Poetry from Homer to the End of the Fifth Century (Toronto: Hakkert, 1974); Victor Hammer Buffalo, NY: Hillside Press, 1982); “Odysseus' ‘Hyacinthine Hair’ in Odyssey 6.231,” Phoenix 44 (1990) 205-18; “Roses and the Bodies of Beautiful Women in Greek Poetry,” LEC 38 (1994) 1-13; “Clement of Alexandria: Instructions on How Women Should Live,” in Hellenization Revisited: Shaping a Christian Response within the Greco-Roman World, ed. Wendy Elgersma Helleman (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994) 395-407; “Evadne, Iamos and Violets in Pindar's Sixth Olympian,” Hermes 124 (1996) 385-95; “Flowers in the Landscape of Greek Epic,” LEC n.s. 16 (1997) 375-90; “Gender, Status and Identity in a North African Martyrdom,” in Gli imperatori Severi: storia, archeologia, religione, ed. Enrico Dal Covolo & Giancarlo Rinaldi (Rome: LAS, 1999) 251-60; “Winter Flowers and Green Thumbs in Classical Greece,” Mouseion  3 (2003) 295-311; “Venturing Where Vine and Olive Don't Grow: Diet and Cultural Diversity,” SyllClass 14 (2003) 83-99; “Kathleen Freeman: A Bibliography of Her Publications,” QS 30 (2004) 247-59; “Flower Power in Medicine and Magic: Theophrastus' Response to the Rootcutters,” Mouseion 6 (2006) 425-37; “An Unconventional Classicist: The Work and Life of Kathleen Freeman,” in Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly, ed. Rosie Wyles & Edith Hall (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2016) 313-34.
  • Publications (2):

    Asst. prof. to assoc. prof., University of Toronto Scarborough, 1969-2001; 
  • Notes:

    Eleanor Irwin is best remembered for her book, Colour Terms in Greek Poetry, developed from  her dissertation, which was supervised by Doreen C. Innes. In it Irwin states the importance of intensity, degrees of light and dark, as more essential to Greeks' understanding of color than was spectrum and hue. An avid gardener, she also published on ancient Greek plant names.  Her work on the multifaceted Austrian-American artist Victor Hammer (1882-1967), who designed five typefaces, including the popular Hammer Uncial.   Later in life Irwin became interested in the overlooked lives of Canadian women classicists such as Mary Macdonnell of Queen's University, Mary Craig Needler and Frances Norwood of University College Toronto, and J. Winifred Alston of Brock University.Though she retired in 2001, she went on to serve as the Dean's Designate for the Administration of the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters at the University of Toronto Scarborough for nine years (see interview), and served the University on the "Academic Integrity Matters" team at UTSC as late as 2015. She was married for 63 years.
  • Sources:

    Interview: https://stories.digital.utsc.utoronto.ca/61220/utsc10735; https://www.classics.utoronto.ca/news/memoriam.
  • Author: Ward Briggs