The Society of Fellows extends a warm welcome to Yelena Baraz, the Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin Language and Literature and Professor of Classics, who has been appointed as its new faculty director for a four-year term, beginning July 1, 2023. She succeeds Michael D. Gordin, Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, who led the Society from 2017 to 2023.

Baraz’s scholarship focuses on Latin literature, Roman cultural history, ancient philosophy, translation theory and practice, and the history of ideas. She is the author of numerous articles and two monographs, Written Republic: The Cultural Politics of Cicero's Philosophy (2012) and Reading Roman Pride (Emotions of the Past, 2020). At present, she is working on a study of post-Vergilian pastoral, an introduction to Cicero’s corpus, and, in a collaboration with the writer Jhumpa Lahiri, on a new translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Baraz is a recipient of Princeton’s Distinguished Teaching Award (2013).

As a former faculty fellow and acting director of the Society (2019-20), she is deeply familiar with its interdisciplinary community and mission, and she has mentored numerous postdoctoral fellows during her affiliation with the Society and beyond. Please join us in congratulating her on this new role!