Department of Classics
CB# 3145, 101 Howell Hall
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3145
Office: (919) 962-7649
Fax: (919) 962-4036
Electronic mail:  jimohara@unc.edu
Personal Home Page: http://www.unc.edu/~oharaj
Department Home Page: http://www.classics.unc.edu or http://www.classics.unc.edu/default.asp?p=5

Research and Teaching Interests:
1. Augustan Poetry, esp. Vergil
2. Greek and Roman Literature, esp. epic, Hellenistic, novel
3. Roman Civilization, incl. Roman Law

Education:
1977-1981: College of the Holy Cross, A.B. Classics, summa cum laude
1981-1986: University of Michigan, Ph.D. Classical Studies
Dissertation: "Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in the Aeneid"
Advisor: Professor David O. Ross, Jr.

Teaching:
The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:
                 George L. Paddison Professor of Latin, 2001-
Wesleyan University:
                 Visiting Assistant Professor 1986-87; Assistant Professor 1987-92;
                 Associate Professor 1992-97; Professor 1997- ; Chair of Department 1998-2000, SP 2001

Language Teaching:
Introductory Latin
Introductory Greek
Intermediate Greek: Three Versions of Socrates
Intermediate Latin: Catullus and Cicero; Ovid and Seneca; Ovid
Upper-level Latin: Vergil's Aeneid
                            Roman Elegy: Propertius & Tibullus;
                            Lucretius;
                            Roman Novel: Petronius & Apuleius;
                            Neoteric & Pastoral (Catullus 61-68 and Vergil)
                            UNC: Tacitus and Pliny's Letter
Upper-level Greek: Euripides
                            Sophocles
                            Homer's Iliad

Classical Civilization:
Humanities 101: Touchstones of Western Values (frosh)
CCIV 274/HIST 274/COL 279: Last Days of the Roman Republic (seminar)
                a.k.a. CCIV 116/HIST 126 History & Literature of the Roman Revolution (frosh)
CCIV 327/HIST 373: Roman Law & Society (seminar)
CCIV 203/HUM 203: Latin Literature in English Translation (lecture)
CCIV 325: Roman Epic (seminar)
UNC: CLAS 35: The Age of Augustus

Tutorials: Latin Composition; Introductory Greek; Vergil: Eclogues & Georgics; Aeneid; Juvenal: Satires; Tacitus: Dialogus; Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus; Philoctetes; Catullus & Vergil (Ford Fellow); Gospel of John in Greek and Latin; Catullus & Cicero.

Senior Honors Theses/Essays; M.A. Theses: The Wounded Lion: Turnus in Book 12 of the Aeneid (Bailey); Difficult Simplicity: Textual Resistance in Tibullus 1.1 & 2.2 (Cahill); Cicero's De Legibus Book 1: Introduction & Commentary (Pezzulo, M.A.); Reading Vergil's Poetic Descriptions of Works of Art (Mackta); Ira Iovis: Jupiter & Augustus in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Damon); The Construction of Sexuality in Petronius (Milnor); Inspiration, Identity, & the Idea of Order: The Homeric Poems as a Cultural System (Nelson); Ovid: Advanced Placement Selections from the Metamorphoses with Questions for Guided Reading & Commentary (Jestin, M.A.); Late Latin Epithlamia (Morini, acting advisor one term); Cavere, Agere, Respondere: The Role of the Roman Jurists in the Development of Law from Scaevola to Hadrian (Vance); A Multimedia Review of Vergil’s Eclogue One (Kercheval); Epicurean Ethics in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (Staats)

Publications:
Books:
Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil's Aeneid (Princeton 1990) ISBN 0-691-06815-1

Reviewed by: R. Jenkyns, Times Literary Supplement (Nov. 23-29, 1990) 1268; J. Farrell, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 1 (1990) 62-68; J. Rexine, Choice (Dec. 1990) 211; W.W. Briggs, New England Classical Newsletter & Journal 18.4 (1991) 40-41; N.M. Horsfall, Vergilius 36 (1990) 133-34; D. Fowler, Greece & Rome 38 (1991) 241-42; J.P. Holoka, Classical World 85 (1991) 128; S.J. Harrison, Classical Review 41 (1991) 327-28; "F.-L. L.," Les Études Classiques 59 (1991) 297; A. Novara, Revue des Études Latines 69 (1991) 251-52; L. Voit, Gymnasium 99 (1992) 175-77; B.W. Boyd, American Journal of Philology 113 (1992) 467-70; M. Geymonat, Gnomon 64 (1992) 721-22; P.-J. Dehon, L' Antiquité Classique 61 (1992) 378-80; A. Schiesaro, Classical Philology 88 (1993) 258-65; R. Lesueur, Latomus 52 (1993) 429-31; F. Gasti, Athenaeum 81 (1993) 341-43

Reviewed by: H.W. Stubbs, Vergilius 42 (1996) 136-40; R.J. Schork, New England Classical Journal 25 (1997) 20-21; R. Cormier, Choice 34.5 (1997); J. Wills, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 97.12.17; S.J. Harrison, Echoes du Monde Classique/Classical Views 16 (1997) 521-23, A. Sharrock, Greece & Rome 42 (1997) 223ff.; J. Van Sickle, Classical Journal 93 (1998) 211-16 (a copy online here); P. Bleisch, AJP 119 (1998) 300-303 (limited online access); L. Morgan, Classical Review 48 (1998) 27-29, P. Hardie, Intl. Journal of the Classical Tradition 6 (1999) 284-86, W. Kissel, Gnomon 72 (2000) 455-457, R. Cormier, Latomus 60 (2001) 195-96.

Articles, Notes, and Chapters:
"Fragment of a Homer-Hypothesis with no Gods." Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 56 (1984) 1-9

"The Homer-Hypothesis P. Oxy. 574 verso: An Acknowledgement." ZPE 59 (1985) 35

"Somnia ficta in Lucretius and Lucilius." Classical Quarterly 37 (1987) 517-19

"Messapus, Cycnus, and the Alphabetical Order of Vergil's Catalogue of Latin Forces." Phoenix 43 (1989) 35-38

"The New Gallus and the Alternae Voces of Propertius 1.10.10." CQ 39 (1989) 561-62

"The Significance of Vergil's Acidalia mater, and Venus Erycina in Catullus and Ovid." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 93 (1990) 335-42

"Homer, Hesiod, Apollonius, and Neritos ardua at Aeneid 3.271." Vergilius 36 (1990) 31-34

"Etymological Wordplay in Apollonius of Rhodes, Aeneid 3, and Georgics 1." Phoenix 44 (1990) 370-76

"Vergilian Similes, 'Trespass,' and the Order of Aeneid 10.707-18." Classical Journal 87 (1991) 3-10

"Naming the Stars at Georgics 1.137-38 and Fasti 5.163-82." American Journal of Philology 113 (1992) 47-61

"Dido as 'Interpreting Character' in Aeneid 4.56-66." Arethusa 26 (1993) 99-114

"Medicine for the Madness of Dido and Gallus: Tentative Suggestions on Aeneid 4." Vergilius 39 (1993) 12-24

"A Neglected Conjecture at Aeneid 12.882." Rheinisches Museum 136 (1993) 371-74

"Temporal Distortions, 'Fatal' Ambiguity, and Iulius Caesar at Aeneid 1.286-96." Symbolae Osloenses 69 (1994) 72-82

"They Might Be Giants: Inconsistency and Indeterminacy in Vergil's War in Italy." In Studies in Roman Epic, edd. H. Roisman and J. Roisman, Colby Quarterly 30 (1994) 206-32 (write to me if you can't find this journal)

"Vergil's Best Reader? Ovidian Commentary on Vergilian Etymological Wordplay." CJ 91 (1996) 255-76

"Sostratus, Suppl. Hell. 733: A Lost, Possibly Catullan-Era Elegy on the Six Sex Changes of Tiresias." Transactions of the American Philological Association 124 (1996) 173-219 (abstract)

"An Unconvincing Etymological Argument about Aeneas and the Gates of Sleep." Phoenix 50 (1996) 331-34

"Virgil's Style." Chapter 16 (pp. 241-58) in The Cambridge Campanion to Virgil, ed. C. Martindale (Cambridge 1997)

"Venus or the Muse as 'Ally' (Lucr. 1.24, Simon. Frag. Eleg. 11.20-22 W)." Classical Philology 93 (1998) 69-74

Brief contribution (pp. 23-24) to Judith Hallett, Joseph Farrell, Richard Thomas et al, "The Future of Latin Literary and Roman Cultural Studies," New England Classical Journal 26 (1998) 13-31

"Callimachean Influence on Vergilian Etymological Wordplay." CJ 96 (2001) 369-400

"'Some God... or his own Heart': Contradictory Epic Motivation in the Proem to Ovid’s Metamorphoses" (under review)

Book Reviews:
M. Owen Lee, Death and Rebirth in Virgil's Arcadia. Classical World 84 (1991) 241

Barbara Pavlock, Eros, Imitation, and the Epic Tradition. CW 84 (1991) 398

Susan Scheinberg Kristol, "Labor" and "Fortuna" in Virgil's "Aeneid." CW 84 (1991) 503

Bernard Frischer, Shifting Paradigms: New Approaches to Horace's Ars Poetica. CW 86 (1992) 57-58

"Truth and Allusion: Two Studies of the Georgics." Rev. of Joseph Farrell, Vergil's "Georgics" and the Traditions of Ancient Epic: The Art of Allusion in Literary History, and Christine Perkell, The Poet's Truth: A Study of the Poet in Virgil's "Georgics." CJ 88 (1992) 77-84

S.J. Harrison, Vergil: Aeneid 10. CW 86 (1993) 246-47

Jamie Masters, Poetry and Civil War in Lucan's "Bellum Civile." CJ 89 (1993) 83-86

D.C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition. Vergilius 39 (1993) 87-96

E. Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets. Classical Philology 89 (1994) 384-91

Olga Tellegen-Couperus, A Short History of Roman Law. CW 88 (1995) 222-23

Philip Hardie, Virgil: Aeneid Book IX. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 6 (1995) 408-16

W. Clausen, Virgil: Eclogues. AJP 117 (1996) 332-35

D. Obbink, ed., Philodemus and Poetry: Poetic Theory and Practice in Lucretius, Philodemus, and Horace. New England Classical Journal 24 (1996) 76-77

F. Ahl & H. Roisman, The Odyssey Re-Formed. BMCR 7 (1996)

Peter E. Knox, Ovid: Heroides: Select Epistles (Cambridge 1995) and E.J. Kenney, Ovid: Heroides XVI-XXI (Cambridge 1996). NECJ 25 (1997) 22-23

Jeffrey Wills, Repetition in Latin Poetry: Figures of Allusion (Oxford 1996). Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998) 197

Matthew Leigh, Lucan: spectacle and engagement (Oxford 1997). CJ 94 (1999) 200-203

Stephen Hinds, Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge 1998). Classical Review 49 (1999) 97-98

P. Hardie, A. Barchiesi, S. Hinds, edd. Ovidian Transformations: Essays on the Metamorphoses and its Reception. (Cambridge 1999) BMCR 11 (2000)

S. J. Harrison, ed., Oxford Readings in the Roman Novel (Oxford, 1999) NECJ 27 (2000) 163-65

Llewelyn Morgan, Patterns of Redemption in Virgil’s Georgics (Cambridge, 1999), JRS 90 (2000) 238-39

Monica Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius, and the Didactic Tradition (Cambridge, 2000), forthcoming in CJ

Don Fowler, Roman Constructions: Readings in Postmodern Latin (Oxford 2000), forthcoming in NECJ
 

World-Wide-Web:
Co-creator (with Debra Hamel) of website aiming to list all summer courses in Classics: Summer Classics

Lectures:
"Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in the Aeneid." College of the Holy Cross, 1/86; Vanderbilt University, 2/86; Bowdoin College, 2/86; Classical Association of Atlantic States, 9/87

"God, Mortal, and Reader in the Aeneid." Vergilian Society panel at 1/89 meeting of the American Philological Association; College of the Holy Cross, 4/89; Milton Academy, 4/89

"Carl Yastrzemski and the Study of Etymological Wordplay in Vergil." Symposium on "Poetry and Scholarship in the Tradition of Vergil," at University of Pennsylvania, 11/89

"Typical Features of Etymological Wordplay in Vergil." Seminar Lecture, Princeton University, 3/90

"I Wish I Could Love the Country: Optimism, Pessimism, and Vergil's Hopes at Georgics 2.458-542." Classical Association of Atlantic States, Princeton, 10/90

"Dido as 'Interpreting Character' in Aeneid 4." University of Cincinnati, 2/91

"Portals of Discovery: Inconsistency and the Start of Poems by Catullus, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, and Lucan." University of Virginia, 3/92, Wesleyan Classics Department, 4/92, Wesleyan Center for Humanities noon talks, 4/93, Rutgers University, 4/93

"Classics as a Profession." College of the Holy Cross, 5/93

"The Interpretation of Inconsistencies in Roman Epic." Harvard University, 12/93; Classical Association of Connecticut, 10/94; College of the Holy Cross, 3/96; Boston University, 3/96; University of Michigan, 10/97; University of Chicago 11/97; Brown University, 10/99; University Center of Georgia Classics Lectures, Agnes Scott College and University of Georgia, 3/00

"Catullus 63 and the the Six Sex Changes of Tiresias in Sostratus." 12/93 meeting of the American Philological Association

"Vergil's Best Reader? Ovidian Commentary on Vergilian Etymological Wordplay." Part of panel on "Ovidian Wordplay" at 12/94 meeting of American Philological Association

"Teaching Roman Law as a Non-Specialist." Panel on Teaching of Roman Law at 4/96 meeting of Classical Association of the Middle West and South; Law & Literature Conference, Brown University, 4/99

"Callimachus and Vergilian Etymologies," Leeds International Latin Seminar, 11/96; Boston Area Roman Studies Conference, Boston University, 4/97; University of Michigan, 10/97; University Center of Georgia Classics Lectures, Emory University and University of Georgia, 3/00

"Thoughts on Aeneid 1 and Beyond." Boston College High School, 12/96

"True Names."  Informal roundtable discussion, graduate student workshop, Harvard, 4/97

Participant in round-table-discussion, “The Future of Latin Literary and Cultural Studies.” Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of New England, Fairfield, CT, 3/98

"Beginning to Understand Ovidian Epic," "Aspects of Epic" Colloquium, Yale University, 4/00

Respondent, panel on "Virgil as a Hellenistic Poet: Aspects of Intertextuality," at 1/01 meeting of American Philological Association

"Contradiction, Inconsistency and Authority in Ovid’s Metamorphoses." University of Michigan, 1/01, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2/01

"Lucan and the Interpretation of Inconsistencies in Roman Epic." Seminar with graduate class, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
 

Honors and Fellowships:

Holy Cross:
National Merit Scholar
Henry Bean four-year full-tuition Classics Scholarship
Philip A. Conniff Classics Prize
Valedictorian

Michigan:
College of Literature, Science & Arts First-year Fellowship
Department of Classical Studies Dissertation Fellowship
Horace H. Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship

Wesleyan:
National Endowment for the Humanities Rome Prize Fellowship for 1989-90 (declined)
Project Grants, 1990-91, 1993-94: True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay
Keck Grant for use of Information Technology in Teaching, 1998-99

Professional Service:

Wesleyan:
Elected to Advisory Committee of the Academic Council (voting on tenure and promotion), 1988-89
Search Committee for Vice President for Academic Affairs, 1989
Searches for new appointment in Classics, 1987-88, 1990-91
Freshman Advisor, 1988-89, 1990-92, 1994-96
Steering Committee, Junior Faculty Organization, 1990-92
Task Force on Administration of Research Programs and Graduate Programs, 1991
Advisory Board, Center for the Humanities, 1991-93
Fayerweather (Gymnasium) Program Committee, 1993
Chair, Search Committee for Humanities Computing Coordinator, 1995-96
Humanities Computing Committee, 1998-2000
Mentor, University Scholarship Program, 1999-2001
Department Chair, 1998-2000, Spring 2001
Academic Technology Advisory Council, Spring 2001

UNC:
 Chair, Visiting Lecturers Committee
 Admissions Committee

Other:
Member, American Philological Association, Classical Association of New England, Classical Association of Connecticut, Vergilian Society, Women's Classical Caucus

Manuscript Referee, Transactions of the American Philological Association, Classical Antiquity, Classical Journal, Classical Philology, Classical World, Vergilius, Phoenix, American Journal of Philology, Princeton University Press, University of Oklahoma Press, University of Michigan Press, Cornell University Press, Modern Language Association, Blackwell Publishers

Candidate for election to the Nominating Committee of the American Philological Association (1995)

Chaired paper session on Vergil at 12/95 meeting of American Philological Association

External referee, tenure/promotion evaluations, several colleges and universities

Chaired panel on "Callimachus and Roman Poetry" at conference on "Cameron and his Critics," Oxford University, 10/26/96

Program Committee of the American Philological Association (elected, 1997-2000)

External Review Committee, Department of Classics, Union College, 2/99
 

References:
Available on request.