All Scholars

KATZ, Phyllis Caroline Beck

  • KATZ, Phyllis Caroline Beck
  • Date of Birth: May 23, 1936
  • Born City: New Haven
  • Born State/Country: CT
  • Parents: Frederick John, Jr., professor of electrical engineering at Yale, & Edna Russell Eccles Beck, a premier dancer.
  • Date of Death: September 5, 2025
  • Death City: Northampton
  • Death State/Country: MA
  • Married: Arnold Martin Katz, April 18, 1959, chief of cardiology, U. of Connecticut School of Medicine.
  • Education:

    B.A. (English) Wellesley, 1958; M.A. (Greek) UCLA, 1963; Ph.D., Columbia, 1969. 
  • Dissertation:

    “The Nature and Function of Pindar's Poetic Persona in Nemean VII and Pythian II,” (Columbia, 1969).
  • Professional Experience:

    Lectr., Mt. St. Mary’s College, 1962-3; Barnard, 1965-6; asst. prof. U. of Illinois, Chicago Circle, 1968-9; asst. prof., 1969; instr. CUNY, City College, 1971-2; vis. asst. prof., College of New Rochelle, 1974; vis. asst. prof., State U. of New York, Purchase, 1974-5; lectr., 1976; teacher, Miss Porter’s School, (Farmington, CT), 1977-83; lectr. and faculty member, CANE Summer Inst., summers 1987-97; vis. lectr., U. Mass, 1993; vis. scholar, Dartmouth, 1990-2007; vis. lectr., Grad Liberal Studies Program, Wesleyan (CT), 1992; president, CANE, 1989; exec. sec., 1998-2003; Barlow-Beach Award, CANE, 1997; Oberon Poetry Prize for “Emily Dickinson’s Gorgeous Nothings,” 2014; Barlow-Beach Awd, Classical Assoc of New England, 1997; Reader's Digest Teacher Scholar, 1990-1; NEH Faculty Adviser, Younger Scholar Awd, Summer 1989; NEH Council for Basic Education Fellowship for Independent Study in the Humanities Summer 1988; Miss Porter's School, Craven Summer Sabbatical, Columbia University, Summer 1987; Columbia University, Woodbridge Honorary Fellowship, 1965.
  • Publications:

    “The Myth of Psyche, a Definition of the Nature of the Feminine?,” Arethusa 9 (1976) 111-18; “Sappho and the Self: Writing Women's Lives,” NECN 18 (1990-1) 21-5; “The Sortes Vergilianae: Fact and Fiction,” CML 14 (1993-4) 245-58; “Hill-Stead 46.1.95: a ‘Lost’  Work of the Painter of Athens 931,” BABesch 72 (1997) 1-20;  “Io in the Prometheus Bound: A Coming of Age Paradigm for the Athenian Community,” in Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, Religion, Society, ed. Mark William Padilla (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell U. Press, 1999) 129-47; Selections from Ovid: Amores, Metamorphoses with Charbra Adams Jestin, 2nd ed., (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazi-Carducci, 2000); An Ovid Workbook (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 2006)  “Educating Paula: A Proposed Curriculum for Raising a 4th-Century Christian Infant,” in Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy, ed. Ada Cohen & Jeremy B. Rutter (Princeton: ASCSA, 2007) 115-27; All Roads Go Where They Will (Simsbury, CT: Antrim House 2010) Migrations (Simsbury, CT: Antrim House, 2013); Finding Ithaca (poems) (Loveland, OH: Dos Madres, 2018); Ghost Orchids (poems) ( Loveland, OH: Dos Madres Press,   2020).
  • Sources:

    Christa Whitney, “Oral History Interview with Edward Katz and Phyllis Katz 2013 May 26,” Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project (Amherst: Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project. 2013).