Froma I. Zeitlin

Career Froma Zeitlin was born in New York, and grew up on the Upper West Side, where she was educated in a public girls' high school. In 1951, she began her studies at Radcliffe College (BA 1954) and at the Catholic University of America (MA 1965). After a nine-year break, she returned to graduate school, and was awarded her PhD by Columbia University in 1970.

During the final year of writing her dissertation, she started her first job at Brooklyn College. In 1965, during her time at Rutgers, she was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 1992 Zeitlin served as Ewing Professor of Greek Language and Literature, succeeding David J. Furley. In 1996, Zeitlin founded the Judaic Studies program at Princeton, and directed it until 2005. In 1995/6 she was the Sather Professor of Classical Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Among other honors, she has been Directeur d’Études Associé at both the Collège de France and the École Pratique des Hautes Études; she is an honorary fellow of Newnham College, and in 2001 was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She describes her interest in Gender Studies as being related to its value as a tool, through which the events of Greek Tragedy could be understood. She has written numerous essays and monographs dealing with overarching cultural themes, many of which have influenced the creation of significant new approaches or debates. Zeitlin has supervised PhD dissertations throughout her career, including the classicist Rosa Andújar.

Personal life Zeitlin is the mother of the economic historian Jonathan Zeitlin, the scholar of Chinese literature Judith Zeitlin and programming librarian Ariel Zeitlin. She is the mother-in-law of art historian Wu Hung. Her granddaughter is the media scholar Lida Zeitlin-Wu, and her nephew is the theoretical chemist David Tannor.

Selected works Single-authored books The Ritual World of Greek Tragedy. Ann Arbor 1973 Under the Sign of the Shield: Semiotics and Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. Lanham 1982. 2nd Ed, Lanham 2009. Playing the Other. Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago 1996. Co-edited volumes Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context. Princeton 1990. Jean-Pierre Vernant: Mortals and Immortals. Collected Essays. Princeton 1991. Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. Princeton 1991.