RUBY BLONDELL

 

Professor of Classics (Adjunct in Women Studies; Faculty Member, Program in Theory and Criticism)

 

Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1984; BA Oxford University 1978

 

Areas of Interest

 

      Greek intellectual history; Plato; Greek tragedy

 

Professional Organizations

 

      Board of Directors, American Philological Association

 

      Listproc manager for the WomenÕs Classical Caucus list

            http://www.wccaucus.org/

 

      Treasurer of the Lambda Classical Caucus

            http://www.lambdacc.org/

 

Sample Publications

 

Books

 

The Play of Character in PlatoÕs Dialogues (Cambridge University Press 2002); named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2003; selected for ÒAuthor Meets CriticsÓ session at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meetings, Pasadena, March 2004

 

Helping Friends and Harming Enemies.  A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge University Press 1989); published under the name Mary Whitlock Blundell

 

Edited Volumes

 

Queer Icons from Greece and Rome (special issue of Helios, forthcoming)

 

Ancient Mediterranean Women in Modern Mass Media, co-edited with Mary-Kay Gamel = Helios 32.2 (2005)

 

Recent Articles

 

"Hercules Psychotherapist," 239-49 in Super/Heroes: From Hercules to Superman, ed. Wendy Haslem, Angela Ndalianis and Chris Mackie (New Academia Publishing, Washington DC 2007)

 

"Antigone," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, ed. Bonnie G. Smith (Oxford University Press 2007)

 

"Where is Socrates on the 'Ladder of Love'?" 147-78 in Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception, edd. James Lesher, Debra Nails and Frisbee Sheffield (Harvard University Press 2006)

 

"From Fleece to Fabric: Weaving Culture in Plato's Statesman," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 28 (2005) 23-75

 

"How to Kill an Amazon," 73-103 in Ancient Mediterranean Women in Modern Mass Media, edd. Ruby Blondell and Mary-Kay Gamel = Helios 32.2 (2005)

 

ÒAntigone: Introduction,Ó pp. 31-54 in R.C.Jebb, Sophocles: Plays, Antigone (Bristol Classical Press 2004)

 

ÒThe Man with No Name: Socrates and the Visitor From Elea,Ó in Plato as Author: The Rhetoric of Philosophy, ed. Ann N. Michelini (Brill 2003) 247-66

 

ÒLetting Plato Speak for Himself,Ó in Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, ed. Gerald A. Press (Rowman and Littlefield 2000) 127-46

 

ÒReproducing Socrates: Dramatic Form and Pedagogy in the Theaetetus,Ó Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 14 (1998) 213-38

 

Selected Older Articles (published under the name Mary Whitlock Blundell)

 

ÒWestern Values, or, The Peoples Homer: Unforgiven as a Reading of the IliadÓ (co-authored with Kirk Ormand), Poetics Today 18 (1997) 533-69

 

ÒSelf-Censorship in Plato's Republic,Ó in Virtue Love and Form: Essays in Memory of Gregory Vlastos, Apeiron 26 (1993), ed. T. Irwin and M.C. Nussbaum (Edmonton, Alberta 1993) 17-36

 

ÒThe Ideal of the Polis in Oedipus at Colonus,Ó Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis, edd. A.H. Sommerstein, S. Halliwell, J. Henderson and B. Zimmermann (Bari, Italy 1993) 287-306

 

ÒEthos and Dianoia  reconsidered,Ó Essays in Aristotle's Poetics, ed. A.O. Rorty (Princeton University Press 1992) 155-75

 

ÒCharacter and Meaning in PlatoÕs Hippias Minor,Ó Methods of Interpreting Plato and his Dialogues, ed. J.C. Klagge and N.D. Smith, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy supplementary volume (1992) 131-72

 

ÒParental Nature and Stoic OÞkeÛvsiw,Ó Ancient Philosophy  10 (1990) 221-42

 

ÒThe Phusis of Neoptolemus in Sophocles' Philoctetes,Ó Greece and Rome 35 (1988) 137-48; reprinted in Greece and Rome Studies II: Greek Tragedy, ed. Ian McAuslan and Peter Walcot (Oxford 1993), 104-115

 

ÒThe Moral Character of Odysseus in Philoctetes,Ó Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 28 (1987) 307-29

 

 

Translations

 

Sophocles: The Theban Plays, Antigone, King Oidipous, Oidipous at Colonus; Updated Translations with Introductory Essay and Notes (Focus Classical Library, Newburyport MA 2002)

 

Sophocles: King Oidipous, Translated with Introduction, Notes and Interpretive Essay (Focus Classical Library, Newburyport MA 2002)

 

Sophocles: Oidipous at Colonus, Translated with Introduction, Notes and Interpretive Essay (Revised Edition; Focus Classical Library, Newburyport MA 2002)

 

EuripidesÕ Medea, Translation with Introduction and Commentary, in Women on the Edge: Four Plays by Euripides, by Ruby Blondell, Bella Zweig, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Mary-Kay Gamel (Routledge 1999)

 

SophoclesÕ Antigone, Translated with Introduction, Notes and Interpretive Essay  (Focus Classical Library, Newburyport MA 1998)