Packer, James E. 1937-

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Packer, James E. 1937-

PERSONAL:

Born December 25, 1937. Education: Attended University of California at Los Angeles, 1955-57; University of California at Berkeley. B.A. (highest honors), 1959, M.A., 1960, Ph.D., 1964.

ADDRESSES:

Home—San Francisco, CA; fax: 415-621-0961. Office—Northwestern University, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Classics, Kresge Hall 1-535, 1880 Campus Dr., Evanston, IL 60208-2600. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Historian, educator, and writer. University of California, Berkeley, teaching assistant 1960-62; California State University at Northridge, Department of History, assistant professor, 1964-66; Northwestern University, Department of Classics, assistant professor, 1966-71, associate professor, 1971-1991, professor, 1991-2002, professor emeritus, 2002—.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation traveling fellowship, 1962-63; Department of History fellowship, 1962-63; Woodrow Wilson Grant-in-Aid, 1962-63; American Academy in Rome fellowship, 1963-64; Society for the History of Technology prize, 1970, for best article or other work published by the Society in the preceding three calendar years; recipient of numerous research grants, including grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Getty Research Institute, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and Northwestern University.

WRITINGS:

The Insulae of Imperial Ostia, American Academy in Rome (Rome, Italy), 1971.

The Forum of Trajan in Rome: A Study of the Monuments, three volumes, architectural reconstructions by Kevin Lee Sarring and James E. Packer, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1997, abridged version published as The Forum of Trajan in Rome: A Study of the Monuments in Brief, 2001.

Contributor to numerous books, including Coins, Culture and History in the Ancient World: Numismatic and Other Studies in Honor of Bluma Trell, edited by L. Casson, and M. Price, Wayne State University Press (Detroit, MI), 1981; Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean, I, edited by M. Grant, Scribner (New York, NY), 1988; Eius Virtutis Studiosi, Classical and Post-classical Studies in Memory of Frank Edward Brown, 1908-1988, edited by R.T. Scott, National Gallery of Art (London, England), 1993; and Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, edited by A. Boyle and W.J. Dominik, E.J. Brill (Leiden, Netherlands), 2002. Contributor to professional journals and periodicals, including American Journal of Archeology, Journal of Roman Studies, Technology and Culture, Maryland Historian, Inland Architect, Journal of Roman Archaeology, and Archeo. The Forum of Trajan in Rome: A Study of the Monuments in Brief has been published in Italian.

SIDELIGHTS:

James E. Packer is a historian with a special interest in Roman imperial architecture, city planning, archaeology, and history. In his three-volume book The Forum of Trajan in Rome: A Study of the Monuments, which is a culmination of twenty-five years of study by Packer, the author examines what was probably the most impressive and the last of the early imperial forums. The Forum of Trajan was widely recognized as the showplace of ancient Rome, and the author focuses the site's history and previous scholarship. He also presents a modern reconstruction of the forum in architectural renderings. The book includes numerous illustrations documenting architectural elements and the modern state of the site. Historical photographs are also presented, including pictures of past archeological excavations. Writing in Interior Design, Stanley Abercrombie commented that the book presents "classical architecture at its most extraordinary." In a review of the abridged version of the three-volume edition titled The Forum of Trajan in Rome: A Study of the Monuments in Brief, a contributor to the Architectural Science Review noted that the book "omits all the scholarly apparatus of the original treatise." The reviewer went on to write: "It has, however, the entire story, most of the illustrations, a six-page bibliography, and a good index."