Roger S. Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University and professor of ancient history, has been named a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for 2007-2008. One of only thirteen top intellectuals in the country selected this year for the honor, he and his fellow honorees will travel to universities and colleges where Phi Beta Kappa chapters are located to meet and talk with undergraduates, participate in classroom lectures and seminars, and deliver a major address open to the entire academic community.
Professor Bagnall is the founding director of the ISAW at NYU, which was created by a $200 million gift from the Leon Levy Foundation. He specializes in the social and economic history of Hellenistic, Roman and Late Antique Egypt. He has held many leadership positions in the fields of classics and papyrology; he is co-founder of a six-university consortium creating the Advanced Papyrological Information System. Among his best-known works are Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993), The Demography of Roman Egypt (1994; with Bruce Frier), and Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History (1995). He directs Columbias excavation project at Amheida in the Dakhla Oasis in Egypt. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Académie Royale de Belgique, as well as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy. He received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.
ISAW is NYUs new center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education, intended to cultivate comparative and connective investigations of the ancient world. It will feature doctoral and postdoctoral programs, with the aim of training a new generation of scholars who will enter the global academic community and become intellectual leaders.
Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nations oldest academic honor society. It has chapters at 276 colleges and universities, including NYU, and 600,000 members. The Societys mission is to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences, to recognize academic excellence, and to foster freedom of thought and expression.