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Marcel Detienne

Marcel Detienne

Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics
Doctorat en sciences religieuses, École des Hautes Études, 1960
Doctorat en philosophie et lettres,Université de Liège, 1965

Office: 121 Gilman Hall
Phone: 410-516-6069
E-mail: dyono@jhu.edu

Marcel Detienne has published extensively in the fields of Greek mythology and religion; social and cultural history of Archaic and Classical Greece; and on anthropological and comparative approaches to Classical civilization. Many of his books have now appeared in English translations: The Gardens of Adonis (1977; 2nd ed. 1994); Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society (with Jean-Pierre Vernant, 1978); Dionysos Slain (1979); The Creation of Mythology (1986); Dionysos at Large (1989); The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks (with Jean-Pierre Vernant et al., 1989); and The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece (1996).

His other books include: Homère, Hésiode et Pythagore: poésie et philosophic dans le pythagorisme ancien (1962); Crise agraire et attitude religieuse chez Hésiode (1963); De la pensée religieuse à la pensée philosophique (1963); L' écriture d' Orphée (1989); La vie quotidienne des dieux grecs (with Giulia Sissa, 1989). His most recent book, published in 1998, is Apollon le couteau à la main . He has also edited or co-edited several volumes of essays, including Les savoirs de l' écriture en Grèce ancienne (1992), Transcrire les mythologies: tradition, écriture, historicité (1994), and Destin de Meurtriers (1996). His current projects include an edited volume of essays on the comparative method: Comparer l' incomparable: pour uncomparatisme constructif entre historiens et anthropologues and a book in progress on The Gods of Politics in Ancient Greece.

Before coming to Johns Hopkins in 1992, Marcel Detienne was co-founder of the Centre de reserches comparées sur le Sociétés anciennes in Paris, and until 1998 he taught at the École pratique des hautes Études.