Champion, Craige B. 1956–

views updated

Champion, Craige B. 1956–

PERSONAL:

Born June 30, 1956. Education: College of New Jersey, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1984; Princeton University, M.A., 1989, Ph.D., 1993; attended City University of New York, 1984 and 1986.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Syracuse University, 145 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244-1020. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Academic. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, lecturer in classics, 1990, 1992; College of New Jersey, Trenton, adjunct professor of history, 1991-92; Lewis School and Diagnostic Center of Princeton, Princeton, NJ, instructor, 1992-93; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, lecturer in classics, 1993; Reed College, Portland, OR, visiting assistant professor of classics and humanities, 1993-95; Allegheny College, Meadville, PA, assistant professor of ancient history and classical languages, 1995-2001; Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, assistant professor, 2001-03, associate professor of ancient history, 2003—, department chair, 2006—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Thoburn Foundation Award, Allegheny College, 2000, for innovative course development and general teaching excellence; Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award, Syracuse University, 2004, for general excellence as a teacher and scholar.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources, Blackwell Publishers (Malden, MA), 2004.

Cultural Politics in Polybius's "Histories," University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2004.

Contributor of twelve articles to Brill's New Jacoby Online; contributor of articles to various encyclopedias. Contributor to periodicals and journals, including Transactions of the American Philological Association, Histos, Historia, American Journal of Philology, Phoenix, American Journal of Ancient History, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, and Classical Philology. Contributor of book reviews to numerous periodicals and journals, including Scholia Reviews, Classical Outlook, Polis: The Journal of the Society for Greek Political Thought, Classical Review, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Classical World, Review of Communication, and Bryn Mawr Classical Review. General editor of the Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Wiley-Blackwell (Hoboken, NJ).

SIDELIGHTS:

Craige B. Champion is an academic and historian. Born on June 30, 1956, Champion earned a bachelor of arts degree from the College of New Jersey, graduating summa cum laude, in 1984. He then earned a master of arts degree from Princeton University in 1989, and completed a Ph.D. at that institution in 1993. Additionally, Champion studied Greek and Latin at the City University of New York's Summer Latin/Greek Institute.

Champion earned his first job in academia as a lecturer in classics at Princeton University in 1990. He returned to his other alma mater, the College of New Jersey, in 1991 and 1992 to work as an adjunct professor of history. The following academic year, Champion served as an instructor at the Lewis School and Diagnostic Center of Princeton in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1993, he worked as a lecturer in classics at Rutgers University. Moving across the country, Champion acted as a visiting assistant professor of classics and humanities from 1993 to 1995 at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Back in the eastern states in 1995, Champion served as assistant professor of ancient history and classical languages at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, until 2001. Champion then accepted the position of assistant professor of ancient history at Syracuse University. In 2003, he was promoted to associate professor of ancient history and became department chair in 2006. In 2004, Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs gave Champion the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for general excellence as a teacher and scholar.

Champion's academic interests include ancient Greek and Roman history, ethnic identity formation in classical antiquity, Greek and Roman historiography, Greek democracy and republican Rome, politics of culture in ancient Greece and Rome, and imperialism in classical antiquity. On these topics and others, Champion has contributed articles to a number of scholarly journals and periodicals, including the Transactions of the American Philological Association, Historia, American Journal of Philology, Phoenix, American Journal of Ancient History, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, and Classical Philology. Champion also reviews academic books in a number of scholarly journals, including Scholia Reviews, Classical Philology, Classical Outlook, Polis: The Journal of the Society for Greek Political Thought, Classical Review, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Classical World, Review of Communication, and Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Champion has contributed entries to a range of encyclopedias as well.

Champion edited his first book, Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources, in 2003. The book incorporates modern scholarship on imperialism with the history of ancient Rome. Tom Stevenson, writing in Scholia Reviews, summarized: "We have a solid production that would serve as a good textbook for an introductory, semester-long course on Roman imperialism. Its usefulness as a teaching resource is enhanced by the presence of a glossary … and a very full index." Stevenson noted that "a consolidated bibliography might have had some advantages, but it is plain that the book has numerous positive features. Many will no doubt see it as a convenient collection of important articles and sources. On the other hand, there are not too many articles and they are by no means inaccessible in their original locations to serious tertiary students." Stevenson appended that "the editor has done a good job in juggling difficult considerations. Kagan, for instance, served up articles without footnotes. Champion, commendably, has preserved the integrity of the original works by retaining their footnotes, though all are reproduced here as endnotes. This has obviously lengthened the book as a whole and it may have meant dropping some articles that might otherwise have been included. It must have been difficult to balance factors such as length, readability, affordability, appropriate methodology and useful pedagogy. No one could have produced a mix that would please everyone." Stevenson concluded generally that Roman Imperialism "deserves to do well, not just because of the efforts of the editor but above all because of the nature of current world tensions. Echoes of the Roman experience seem to blanket our newspapers and TV screens at the moment. Analysis of Roman imperialism under these circumstances is very much a contemporary and valuable exercise."

Lee L. Brice, writing in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, found that Roman Imperialism "provides a useful survey of current scholarship on a number of vital issues connected with Roman imperialism." Brice explained that "in addition to the modern discussions, and equally important, are the primary source selections at the end of each chapter. The passages are well-chosen and well-translated and represent a variety of sources and viewpoints," adding that "the primary sources are a necessary, well-integrated component of the book, not simply window dressing." Brice proposed that "there are only a couple points in which one might detect opportunities to improve future editions. Firstly, the title of chapter three, ‘Ideology and Government of Empire,’ is confusing. The reader expecting to find a selection focused on administration will be disappointed. Finally, instead of providing often repetitive reference lists at the end of some selections, it might be much more useful for the reader to provide one inclusive reference list for the entire book." Brice concluded that the author's "textbook is a useful work that brings together some of the most important modern discussions on Roman imperialism with primary sources in translation. In addition to its other assets noted previously, it is (in the context of general textbooks) affordable in its paperback edition. While it cannot possibly cover every aspect of imperialism, given the limitations of space and cost, [Champion] has struck a reasonable balance."

In 2004, Champion published Cultural Politics in Polybius's "Histories." The account looks at the Greek historian Polybius and his most famous book, which deals with his interpretation of the history of the Mediterranean world from the years 220 to 146 BCE.

In particular, Champion focuses on the position of the Romans between barbarism and Hellenism, the issue of Polybius's multiple readerships, and the idea of a deterioration of societies.

Annelies Cazemier, writing in Scholia Reviews, remarked that "the novelty of Champion's work lies in its approach to the historian as someone who ‘ingeniously manipulated the politico-cultural language of Hellenism’ throughout his work." Cazemier appended that the book "deserves praise for offering an interpretation of the Histories as a whole and for appreciating the work within its Greek and Roman contexts. In a book which promises to redress the lack of attention to Polybius' actual narration, more quotations of relevant passages throughout the book (rather than in the appendices) might have been welcome, especially for readers who are not very familiar with the text of the Histories." Cazemier conceded, however, that the author's "argument is well formulated and easy to follow." Cazemier concluded: "My reservations are subordinate to my overall appreciation of Champion's book as a stimulating impulse to the discussion of Polybius' attitudes to Rome. Cultural Politics will be of interest not only to students and scholars of the Histories, but also to those working on the concepts of Hellenism," ancient historiography, and barbarism.

Paul Burton, writing in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, commented that the author's "study is an invaluable literary appreciation of Polybius' Histories—a work that can sit comfortably alongside A.M. Eckstein's modern classic Moral Vision in the Histories of Polybius (1995). In addition to giving Roman historians of the Republic (and scholars of Greek literature, of course) a new way to appreciate a familiar work, [Champion] has also come up with perhaps the most convincing means of untangling some of the more notorious cruces of Polybius' work." Burton pointed out that his "only reservation about [Champion's] ‘cultural politics’ reading, in fact, is that he does not take it far enough." Burton concluded that the author's "study is a truly original and interesting reading of an under-appreciated work of historical literature. It will be of interest not just to Roman historians and cultural critics, but also to those interested in Greek history and historiography, race and ethnicity in antiquity, and the fruitful but often profoundly troubling intersection of culture and politics in the ancient world."

In a Canadian Journal of History review, Vernon Provencal said that "it is a most remarkable achievement that Champion is able to offer, as a clear response to the old question of whether Polybius was pro- or anti-Roman." Provencal concluded that "the enormous accomplishment of Champion's contribution to Greek historiography is to bring the profound complexity of Polybius's discourse as a Greek captive writing the first history of Rome into the foreground of our study of the Histories."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, July 6, 2004, Lee L. Brice, review of Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources; November 27, 2004, Paul Burton, review of Cultural Politics in Polybius's "Histories."

Canadian Journal of History, March 22, 2006, Vernon Provencal, review of Cultural Politics in Polybius's "Histories," p. 99.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, April, 2005, J.A.S. Evans, review of Cultural Politics in Polybius's "Histories," p. 1452.

Classical Journal, October 1, 2005, Michael D. Dixon, review of Cultural Politics in Polybius's "Histories," p. 105.

Classical Review, April, 2006, Dexter Hoyos, review of Cultural Politics in Polybius's "Histories," p. 69.

Scholia Reviews, 2004, Tom Stevenson, review of Roman Imperialism; 2006, Annelies Cazemier, review of Cultural Politics in Polybius's "Histories."