Thomas G Palaima
Ph.D. 1980, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Professor: Robert M. Armstrong Centennial Professor and Director, Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP)

Contact
- E-mail: tpalaima@austin.utexas.edu
- Phone: 512-471-5742 or 512-471-8837
- Office: WAG 14AA WAG 123B
- Campus Mail Code: C3400
Interests
Aegean scripts & prehistory, Greek language, war & violence studies, public intellectual writing, music as social criticism, Dylanology
Biography
Tom Palaima, a MacArthur fellow for his work in Aegean prehistory and early Greek language and culture, is director of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP: https://sites.utexas.edu/scripts/about-pasp/).
For some of the PASP archives on-line, thanks to the recent hard work of School of Information graduate Garrett R. Bruner (and his predecessors as archivists, Sarah Buchanan, Christie Costlow Moilanen and Sue Trombley) see: https://sites.utexas.edu/scripts/about-pasp/pasp-archives-and-finding-aids/
During 2016-2017, the PASP team of Cassandra Donnelly, Caolan Mac An Aircinn and Tom Palaima completed a painstaking review of the submitted manuscript of José L. Melena, Knossos Tablets 6, checking the readings and transcriptions of each of over 3,000 tablets against archival photographs, earlier editions, and the archived notes and papers and drawings of Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. and Alice E. Kober for INSTAP Academic Press.
He has held Fulbright fellowships/professorships in Greece (79-80), Austria (92-93), and Spain (2007) and has been a fellow of the University of Wisconsin Humanities Institute (1983) and the University of Texas Humanities Institute (2002, 2010). In 2007, he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London. For his public commentaries and service within the University, he was chosen one of three honorable mentions for Longhorn of the Year, Daily Texan, December 2010.
He is honored to have given the memorial lecture in honor of his good friend Kevin Herbert at Washington University St. Louis October 23, 2015 http://classics.artsci.wustl.edu/events/255 and to have later had a written version of that lecture published in the journal Arion:
“War Stories Told, Untold and Retold from Troy to Tinian to Fort Campbell,” Arion 23:3 (2016) 1-33.
In 2016-17, Tom was scholarly adviser for one of three national nodes of the NEH-Aquila-Theatre-funded Warrior Chorus project working with Austin-area US military veterans (pre-Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq) to craft and then present their stories.
See: http://lifeandletters.la.utexas.edu/2016/11/the-untold-stories-of-modern-warriors/.
http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/public-affairs/events/2506
Performances included:
1. Austin History Center Performance March 5, 2017
http://austin.eventful.com/events/our-warrior-chorus-community-discussion-/E0-001-100668185-0
2.-3. The Trojan War: Our Warrior Chorus Aquila Theatre Performance at McCullough Theatre with Pre-Performance and Post-Performance Talks and Talk-Backs March 22-23 2017
http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/public-affairs/events/2506
4. Performance at Safe Haven Veterans Shelter (ATCIC) May 20, 2017
In March 2017, in collaboration with Gavin Garcia (TODO Austin and UT Graduate Studies) and Dave Junker (Communications), under the auspices of CoLA and Undergraduate Studies, and conected with his UGS 302 class Bob Dylan: History and Imagination, Tom organized:
WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AClQVnnkVE&feature=youtu.be
http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/public-affairs/events/2538
Bob Dylan: The Next Generation Undergraduate Lecture Series March 20 & 21, 2017
“Don’t Look Back”: 50th Anniversary viewing of the legendary D.A. Pennebaker documentary
Q&A with Michael Chaiken, Curator of Bob Dylan Archive and Looking Forward by Looking Back, a ULS panel on the cultural meaning of the new Bob Dylan Archives
Michael Chaiken, Curator of Bob Dylan Archive
Thomas Staley, Former Director, Harry Ransom Center
Thomas Palaima, Classics Prof. and Dylan Scholar
Caroline Frick, RTF Prof. and Director of Texas Archive of the Moving Image
On March 25, 2017, he gave the key-note lecture in the 14th Annual Graduate Studies Conference at Ohio State University on What Does Evil Look Like?
https://classics.osu.edu/events/14th-annual-graduate-colloquium-classics
He has lectured, written and taught extensively on the subjects of ancient writing systems, the reconstruction of ancient culture, decipherment theory, Greek language, war and violence studies, ancient religion, ethnicity, feasting ritual, kingship ideology and practice, ethics and leadership, song as an important means of communicating social criticism, poetry and song, intertexuality and Dylanology.
He is a regular commentary writer for the Austin American-Statesman and a regular reviewer and occasional feature writer for the Times Higher Education. He has also written for The Texas Observer, Michigan War Studies Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Los Angeles Times, the Jerusalem Post, the Dallas Morning News and the Sacramento Bee. He has appeared on NPR (national, Austin and and Boston) and on Wisconsin Public Radio.
Watch, Read, and/or Listen to:
Aquila Conference on Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks
National Hellenic Museum on the meaning of Homer's Iliad (as Broneer lecturer of the Arcaheaological Institute of America)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDBUxnAsF74
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIR1nGRxCR8
Bob Dylan and England (UT British Studies seminar)
http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/britishstudies/Lectures/Audio-Recordings.php
Boston University World of Ideas Dept. of Classical Studies “Personal Agency and the Big Switch 1962-64: Thucydides, Bob Dylan and Stanley Kubrick” (WBUR Boston) http://www.wbur.org/worldofideas/2017/03/05/palaima
"In Perspective: How Grief, Technology & Storytelling Help Us Remember Tragedy." KUT-FM October 17, 2014
http://kut.org/post/perspective-how-grief-technology-storytelling-help-us-remember-tragedy
HRC Poetry on the Plaza Reading from Homeric passages (from Lombardo, Oswald, Peterson-O’Hare)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cd_gTOspjA&feature=youtu.be
He received the UT Alumni/ae Association's Jean Holloway Award for Excellence in Teaching for academic year 2003-2004 and the Plan II Chad Oliver Teaching Award in 2004-2005. He has taught in the Free Minds Program for poverty-level adults, the Telluride Program summer seminars, the Odyssey program (one of UT's outreach programs), and many times at UT's annual open house (Explore UT) and in the summer Honors Colloquium.
He taught UT's Summer Intensive Greek program most years 1997-2011:
http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/greek/index.html.
With Sara Kimball, he has taught for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and for Undergraduate Studies (UGS 302), courses on how to reconstruct Anatolian Hittite and Aegean Mycenaean cultures through textual, archaeological, art historical and traditional literary sources.
He also has strong interest in ancient religion and how it is reconstructed and interpreted. His course "Placing Ourselves" (UGS 303) uses ancient and modern creative works of all kinds to raise questions about ethics, leadership and human behavior and moral systems throughout human lifetimes.
Most recently he has developed and taught a UGS 302 seminar: Bob Dylan: History and Socio-historical Imagination.
In public service, he has given seminars on the experience of warfare, ancient and modern, at the Smithsonian Institute, the USMA West Point, the Texas Foreign Service Group, the National Hellenic Museum, the USAF ROTC at UT Austin, as a Phi Beta Kappa National Traveling Lecturer, and at conferences on war trauma, the many faces of war, polemos in Aegean prehistory, and Achilles in Iraq (and Afghanistan).
He has given seminars on the decipherment of Linear B at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, MD and at the Smithsonian Institute.
He has taught in outreach programs about youth and violence. And he has done readings and lectured in the Aquila Theater/NEH program Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives in New York city, Austin and Los Angeles.
Tom serves on the editorial advisory board for Texas Studies in Language and Literature (2010- ), on the Consejo Científico, Minos, Revista de Filología Egea y del Epos Arcaico, (2012-), as US representative on the UNESCO-affiliated International Committee for Mycenaean Studies (CIPEM) since 1995, and for a long tme on the advisory committee of the University of Missouri-St. Louis archaeological survey and excavation project at ancient Iklaina. He also has been involved long-term in the development and support of documentary films on war by UT Austin film-makers Nancy Schiesari (Canine Soldiers) and Ricardo Ainslie (The Mark of Wa).
From 2008-2011, he was UT representative on the national Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics. His COIA reports for 2009, 2010 and 2011 once could be found by searching the UT Faculty Council Web site. But these have been disappeared along with much other valuable historical on-line records of the Faculty Council.
His article in the March 22, 2010 The Texas Observer surveys the entire history of the harmful effects on higher education of big-time sports and its supporters. http://www.texasobserver.org/the-golden-football/
For a recent retrospective see: http://lifeandletters.la.utexas.edu/2017/08/the-unfreakingbelievable-world-of-college-football/ (also in print Monday Dallas Morning News)
Other presentations of note:
HRC Poetry on the Plaza Reading from Homeric passages (from Lombardo, Oswald, Peterson-O’Hare)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cd_gTOspjA&feature=youtu.be
British Studies Seminar UT Austin “Bob Dylan and England” January 20, 2017
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/britishstudies/Lectures/Audio-Recordings.php
British Studies Seminar UT Austin “Round Table Discussion on the Question of Racial and Social Prejudice in British and American Universities,” Discussant with Roger Louis and Two Other Discussants April 17, 2015 http://dase.laits.utexas.edu/media/bsls/mp3/100521204.mp3
Senior Fellows Honors, College of Communications “War Poems and War Songs Old and New” Feb 10, 2015 http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2015/02/11/lecturer-discusses-role-of-poetry-and-music-in-wartime
Senior Fellows Honors, College of Communications “Second Last Thoughts on Bob Dylan’s ‘Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie’” November 13, 2012
British Studies Seminar UT Austin “The War Poetry of Robert Graves,” September 7, 2012
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/progs/britishstudies/Lectures/Audio-Recordings.php
audio: https://dase.laits.utexas.edu/media/bsls/mp3/12-09-07_-_BSLS_mp3.mp3
His more recent publications include:
with Christopher McDonough,“Two Linear B Traveling Inscriptions from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and the Impact of the Decipherment of Linear B on the Scholarly and Public Imagination,” in J. Driessen ed., RA-PI-NE-U Studies on the Mycenaean World Offered to Robert Laffineur for his 70th Birthday (Aegis 10, Louvain-la-Neuve 2016) 233-244.
https://www.i6doc.com/en/book/?GCOI=28001100488710
“The Ideology of the Ruler in Mycenaean Prehistory: Twenty Years after the Missing Ruler.” in Robert Koehl ed., Studies in Aegean Art and Culture: A New York Aegean Bronze Age Colloquium in Memory of Ellen N. Davis (INSTAP Academic Press 2016) ISBN 9781931534864.
Review: http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2017/2017-06-28.html
—“The Metaphysical Mind in Mycenaean Times and Homer ,” in E. Alram-Stern, F. Blakolmer, S. Deger-Jalkotzy, R. Laffineur & J. Weilhartner (eds), Metaphysis. Ritual, Myth and Symbolism in the Aegean Bronze Age (Aegaeum 39: 2016) 479-484
— “The Sorrowful History of The Half-Life of War” on-line essay on the documentary film by Kyle Henry, The Half-Life of War, information on the film and pdf of essay viewable and downloadable at: http://halflifeofwar.com; direct access to pdf at: http://halflifeofwar.com/essay.html .
— “Robert Graves at Troy, Marathon, and the End of Sandy Road: War Poems at a Classical Distance?” in A.G.G. Gibson, ed., Robert Graves and the Classical Tradition (Oxford University Press July 2015) 233-254
— “The Mobilization of Labor in Mycenaean Palatial Territories,” in Piotr Steinkeller and Michael Hudson, eds., Labor in the Ancient World (ISLET-Verlag, Dresden 2015) 617-648
— “Harnessing phusis: The ideology of control and exploitation of the natural world as reflected in terminology in the Linear B texts derived from Indo-European *bheh2u- ‘grow, arise, be’ and * h2eg-ro- ‘the uncultivated wild field’ and other roots related to the natural environs,” PHYSIS, (Aegaeum 37, Leuven 2014) 93-99
— “The Foundations of Violence in Ancient Greek Literature” in S. Peebles, ed., Critical Insights: Violence in Literature (Salem Press 2014) 3-22
— “When War Is Performed, What Do Soldiers and Veterans Want to Hear and See and Why?” in P. Meineck and D. Konstan eds. Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks (Palgrave MacMillan 2014) 261-285
— with William Bibee, “Scribes, Mycenaean” in Emilio Crespo et al., ed., Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics = EAGLL (Brill) vol. 3, pp. 265-272
— with William Bibee, “Linear A” in EAGLL vol. 2, pp. 353-355
— “Pylos Tablet Vn 130 and the Pylos Perfume Industry,” in D. Nakassis et al. eds., KE-RA-ME-JA. Studies Presented to Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (INSTAP Press: Philadelphia 2014) 83-90
— “The reception of Aura Jorro’s Diccionario Micénico in Mycenaean studies,” in Alberto Bernabé & Eugenio R. Luján
eds., Donum Mycenologicum, BCILL 131 (Peeters, Louvain-la-Neuve 2014) 87-94.
—with Larry Trittle, “The Legacy of War in the Classical World,” in Brian Campbell and Larry Tritle eds. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World (OUP 2013) 726-742
— “Songs of the ‘Hard Traveler’ from Odysseus to the Never-Ending Tourist,” Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 26-27 (2010/2011 [2012]) 189-207
—"Security and Insecurity as Tools of Power in Mycenaean Palatial Kingdoms," Études mycéniennes 2010, édités par Pierre Carlier, Charles De Lamberterie, Markus Egetmeyer, Nicole Guilleux, Françoise Rougemont, Julien Zurbach (Pasiphae; Pisa-Rome, 2012) 345-356
—"Scribes, Scribal Hands and Palaeography," in Y. Duhoux and A. Morpurgo Davies eds., A Companion to Linear B Texts (Bibliothèque des Cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 127:2; Peeters: Louvain-la-Neuve, 2011) 33-136
— “The Lost Art of Listening,” Times Higher Education September 11, 2014 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/the-lost-art-of-listening/2015604.fullarticle
– “Tom Palaima on the Power of Mentors,” Times Higher Education November 14, 2013 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/tom-palaima-on-the-power-of-mentors/2008911.article
– “Enforcing the ‘Double Standard’: Major college sports insanity is entrenched at UT-Austin,” The Austin Chronicle 09/27/13 http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2013-09-27/enforcing-the-double-standard/
—“The Ongoing War in Our Time and in Aristophanes’,” AAS June 25, 2012
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/the-ongoing-war-in-our-time-and-in-aristophanes/nRpjL/
—“The First Casualty” Times Higher Education December 20/27, 2012
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/the-first-casualty/422152.article
—“Time the Revelator” Times Higher Education May 17, 2012
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/419920.article
Courses
UGS 302 • Bob Dylan/Socio Hist Imagtn-Wb
61645 • Spring 2021
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM
Internet; Synchronous
Wr
ID
C C 383 • Mycenaean And Later Greece-Wb
33030 • Fall 2020
Meets W 2:30PM-5:30PM
Internet; Synchronous
T C 358 • Myths Of War And Violence-Wb
41169 • Fall 2020
Meets TH 2:00PM-5:00PM
Internet; Synchronous
UGS 302 • Bob Dylan/Socio Hist Imaginatn
59520 • Spring 2020
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM MAI 220D
CDWr
ID
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythology
32925 • Fall 2019
Meets MWF 12:00PM-1:00PM JGB 2.324
GC
VP
GK 311 • Intermediate Greek I
33080 • Fall 2019
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM WAG 112
T C 358 • Myths Of War And Violence
42315 • Spring 2019
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM CRD 007A
UGS 302 • Bob Dylan/Socio Hist Imaginatn
61220 • Spring 2019
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM MAI 220D
CDWr
ID
GK 390 • War/Viol: Anc Grk/Mod West Exp
33350 • Fall 2017
Meets W 2:00PM-5:00PM WAG 10
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythol-Hon
33020 • Spring 2017
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM WAG 208
GC
VP
UGS 302 • Bob Dylan/Socio Hist Imaginatn
62495 • Spring 2017
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM WAG 208
CDWr
ID
AHC 325 • Archaic/Classical Greece
32820-32830 • Fall 2016
Meets MW 10:00AM-11:00AM WAG 214
(also listed as CTI 375, HIS 354E)
UGS 303 • Placing Ourselves
63276-63278 • Fall 2016
Meets MW 8:00AM-9:00AM CLA 1.104
E
ID
C C 380 • Mycenaean Culture & Soc His
32315 • Spring 2016
Meets M 3:00PM-6:00PM WAG 10
T C 357 • Myths Of War And Violence
42090 • Spring 2016
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM CRD 007A
AHC 325 • Hist Grc To End Pelopon War
32045-32050 • Fall 2015
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:00PM CLA 0.126
GC
(also listed as C C 354C, CTI 375, HIS 354C)
UGS 302 • Greeks, Hittites, And Us
61205 • Fall 2015
Meets MWF 3:00PM-4:00PM CAL 22
Wr
ID
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythology
32340 • Spring 2015
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM WCH 1.120
GC
UGS 303 • Placing Ourselves
63005-63020 • Spring 2015
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM WAG 201
EWr
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythol-Hon
33200 • Fall 2014
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM WAG 112
GC
GK 506 • First-Year Greek I
33465 • Fall 2014
Meets MTWTHF 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 10
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythology
33595 • Spring 2014
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM WEL 1.316
GC
T C 357 • Myths Of War And Violence
43775 • Spring 2014
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM CRD 007A
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythology
33127 • Spring 2013
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM WAG 112
GC
UGS 303 • Homer's Banquet
64586-64589 • Spring 2013
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM ART 1.120
EWr
GK 311 • Intermediate Greek I
33232 • Fall 2012
Meets MWF 10:00AM-11:00AM WAG 312
GK 390 • War/Viol: Anc Grk/Mod West Exp
33295 • Fall 2012
Meets TH 2:00PM-5:00PM WAG 10
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythology
33035 • Spring 2012
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM WEL 1.308
GC
T C 357 • Myths Of War And Violence
42970 • Spring 2012
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM CRD 007A
AHC 378 • Aegean Prehistory
32815 • Fall 2011
Meets MWF 1:00PM-2:00PM CAL 323
Wr
C2
(also listed as HIS 350L)
GK 506 • First-Year Greek I
33100 • Fall 2011
Meets MTWTHF 9:00AM-10:00AM WAG 10
GK S324 • Greeks On War
82850 • Summer 2011
Meets MTWTHF 2:30PM-4:00PM SAC 5.102
(also listed as GK S385)
GK 312K • Intermediate Greek II
33500 • Spring 2011
Meets MWF 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 112
GK 390 • Mycenaean Greek: Linear B
33540 • Spring 2011
Meets M 2:00PM-5:00PM WAG 10
AHC 325 • Hist Grc To End Pelopon War
32085-32100 • Fall 2010
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 101
GC
(also listed as C C 354C, CTI 375, HIS 354C)
GK 322 • Advanced Greek I
32393 • Fall 2010
Meets MWF 10:00AM-11:00AM GAR 3.116
GK 324 • Herodotus
32725 • Spring 2010
Meets MWF 1:00PM-2:00PM GAR 2.124
AHC 378 • Aegean Prehistory-W
32548 • Fall 2009
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM WAG 112
C2
(also listed as HIS 350L)
GK 506 • First-Year Greek I
32830 • Fall 2009
Meets MTWTHF 11:00AM-12:00PM WAG 10
GK W412 • Intensive First-Year Greek
82105 • Summer 2009
Meets MTWTHF 8:30AM-11:00AM WAG 10
(also listed as GK W804)
UGS 302 • Hittite/Mycen Cul Thru Texts-W
63625 • Spring 2009
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM MAI 220B
C1
AHC 325 • Hist Grc To End Pelopon War
32670-32685 • Fall 2008
Meets MW 10:00AM-11:00AM WAG 201
(also listed as C C 354C, HIS 354C)
GK 390 • Mycenaean Documents
33060 • Fall 2008
Meets M 2:00PM-5:00PM WAG 10
GK W804 • Intensive First-Year Greek
83485 • Summer 2008
Meets MTWTHF 8:30AM-11:00AM WAG 10
GK W412 • Intensive Greek
83495 • Summer 2008
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythology
32625 • Spring 2008
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM WAG 101
AHC 325 • Hist Grc To End Pelopon War
32965-32980 • Fall 2007
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 201
(also listed as C C 354C, HIS 354C)
GK 506 • First-Year Greek I
33310 • Fall 2007
Meets MTWTHF 11:00AM-12:00PM WAG 10
AHC 325 • Hist Grc To End Pelopon War
32515-32530 • Fall 2006
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 201
(also listed as C C 354C, HIS 354C)
GK W412 • Intensive Greek
83435 • Summer 2006
C C 348 • Reconstruc Anc Greek Relig-Hon
31075 • Spring 2006
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM CRD 007B
AHC 325 • Hist Grc To End Pelopon War
30395-30410 • Fall 2005
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 201
(also listed as C C 354C, HIS 354C)
C C 383 • Linear B: Religion And Society
30660 • Fall 2005
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM WAG 10
(also listed as GK 390)
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythology
29640 • Spring 2005
Meets MWF 12:00PM-1:00PM MEZ 1.306
GK W804 • Intensive First-Year Greek
82870 • Summer 2004
Meets MTWTHF 8:30AM-11:00AM WAG 10
GK W412 • Intensive Greek
82880 • Summer 2004
C C 303 • Intro To Classical Mythology
28405 • Spring 2004
Meets MWF 12:00PM-1:00PM BAT 7
C C 348 • Hittite/Mycenaean Socty-Hon-W
28475 • Spring 2004
Meets MWF 10:00AM-11:00AM WAG 112
C2
C C 354C • Hist Greece To End Pelopon War
28860-28875 • Fall 2003
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 201
(also listed as HIS 354C)
GK 324 • Herodotus
29000 • Fall 2003
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM WAG 112
GK W804 • Intensive First-Year Greek
83020 • Summer 2003
Meets MTWTHF 8:30AM-11:00AM WAG 10
C C 354C • Hist Greece To End Pelopon War
28620-28635 • Fall 2002
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 201
(also listed as HIS 354C)
C C 383 • Mycenaean And Later Greece
28670 • Fall 2002
Meets W 3:30PM-6:30PM WAG 10
(also listed as GK 390)
C C 303 • Classical Mythology
28115 • Spring 2002
Meets MWF 12:00PM-1:00PM WEL 1.316
GK 390 • Linear A
28820 • Spring 2001
Meets W 3:30PM-6:30PM WAG 10
C C 354C • Hist Greece To End Pelopon War
29090-29105 • Fall 2000
Meets MW 10:00AM-11:00AM WAG 101
(also listed as HIS 354C)
C C 348 • Stories Of War-Honors
27945 • Spring 2000
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM JES A303A
GK 507 • First-Year Greek II
28130 • Spring 2000
Meets MTWTHF 9:00AM-10:00AM WAG 10
Publications
[This article shows how budgetary practices within the NCAA sports program at the University of Texas at Austin, the self-declared Jonese of big-time college sports, have set trends that have had harmful effects upon NCAA programs nationwide. It provides some historical perspective and examples of uncontrolled expenditures that are at odds with the critical educational and cultural missions of a state flagship research university.]
"UT's Byzantine Budget: On $5 Million Coaches and Laid-Off Lecturers," The Texas Observer January 6, 2010.
http://www.texasobserver.org/archives/item/15900-uts-byzantine-budget-on-5-million-coaches-and-laid-off-lecturers
[This article provides a full analysis of the University of Texas at Austin budget and its funding sources. State appropriations have increased well under the rate of inflation over the last twenty years. Tuition increases have been capped. Now the Available University (endowment) Fund payouts are down. The amount coming to the University from state appropriations and the permanent endowment fund is well below what faculty and programs bring in in research grants and service fees. This explodes the myth of 'lazy liberal faculty living off the public dole'.
At this juncture, with major layoffs of lecturers and graduate assistants, firing of staff, and cutting back on advising and other student services, the University regents and president approved a $2 million increase for head football coach Mack Brown.
We dismantle the ludicrous arguments advanced by President Powers and Athletics Director DeLoss Dodds that Mack Brown deserves this level of compensation. Consider:
A prime argument in support of Brown's pay raise cited by Powers and Dodds is the upswing in football revenues from $21.3 million in 1997 when Brown was hired to now $87.5 million, a 410 percent increase. Even if Brown were responsible for this, a 410-percent increase in his 1997 salary would bring it to $3,081,000, right where it was before December's $2 million increase.
Also in 2008, Wayne H. Pace, CFO of Time Warner, Inc., earned $5 million. His company was ranked 49th in the Fortune 500. It had revenues of $26.6 billion dollars and $133.8 billion in assets. At the same salary, Mack Brown is the head football coach and public face of Longhorns Inc. In 2008, his company had $138 million in total revenues.
Worse still the University allows the sports programs to use 90% of trademark and royalty revenues that could and should be supporting academics.
Bottom line, Longhorns Inc. as the sports program is called, exists for the entertainment of skybox renters, club seat purchasers and the general television and sports-addicted public. Graduation rates and dismissal rates show that, as Prof. of Law Lino Graglia stated long ago, the program is run as a 'fraudulent enterprise'.]
For a video of a debate between Palaima and Graglia, about the viability and value of big-time college football, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_766YDSMWvE.
"Our Wounds, Our Duty" (co-authored with Steve Sonnenberg), Austin American Statesman Insight Section, December 6, 2009 http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/publications/editorials/06dec09.html
[In this article Dr. Sonneberg and I argue that there is a serious need within our culture to communalize the experience and effects of violence in truly sympathetic ways that acknowledge the pain and trauma experienced by those who fight our wars and those who share in and absorb their pain. We stress that the effects of war radiate out from each individual exposed in primary or secondary ways to the violence and dangers and horrors of war. We cite ancient Athenian practice as a good example of making clear to soldiers and others who have been in the sphere of combat that all members of society are making serious efforts to learn and understand what they have done and will come to terms with the effects of their experience collectively, responsibly and sympathetically.]
The Great Debate: Thomas Palaima and Lino Graglia square off over football Octobr 28, 2009
UT KNOW TRANSCRIPT
http://www.utexas.edu/know/2010/01/06/debate-college-football/
“1984: It’s Coming,” Times Higher Education September 3, 2009. [In this article, I discuss the ways in which American society resembles Orwell's vision of society in 1984, only twenty-five years later.]
“Continuity from the Mycenaean Period in an historical Boeotian Cult of Poseidon (and Erinys)” in D. Danielidou ed., Doron: Timetikos Tomos gia ton Kathegete Spyro Iakobide (Academy of Athens Center for Research in Antiquity Monograph 6: Athens 2009) 527-536 [This paper examines odd features of local Boeotian cults to Poseidon as documented in early Greek poetry and traces them to elements of Mycenaean ritual.]
"The Tools of Power" Times Higher Education (2 April 2009) 32-39. [This article discusses Barack Obama's rhetorical skills and the rhetorical presentation of the Obama inauguration ceremony from an ancient and moden historical perspective. It makes clear that Obama has been influenced not only by Cato and Martin Luther King, but also by Big Bill Broonzy, folk and blues and Sunday church preaching.]
“The Significance of Mycenaean Words Relating to Meals, Meal Rituals, and Food,” in Louise A. Hitchcock, Robert Laffineur and Janice Crowley eds., DAIS. The Aegean Feast. Proceedings of the 12th International Aegean Conference University of Melbourne, Centre for Classics and Archaeology, 25-29 March 2008. Aegaeum 29, Liège and Austin: 2008, pp. 383-389.
[Here I examine the vocabulary for meals in the Mycenaean texts and in early (especially Homeric) and later Greek. It is clear that the control of food production (esepcially high-end meat protien) and banqueting (and associated rituals) was one way the central palace's elites created a sense of palatial beneficence and benevolence. Interesting is that the palace officials who saw to the activities of the 16 different counties or second-order territories within the two provinces of late Bronze Age Messenia were called 'agents of satiety' and 'assistant agents of satiety'. These palatial coinings disappeared from the later Greek lexicon, but combined with another such term (da-mo-ko-ro or 'he who sates the people') form a conscious self-presentation that, in realtive historical terms, was not far from the truth. The Mycenaean palatial period brought stability, protection, a rise in imports, and a higher standrad of living for many.]
“ Mycenaean Religion,” in C.W. Shelmerdine, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (CUP 2008) 342- 355, 358-361. [Here I provide a concise handbook overview of the challenges of reconstructing protohistoric religion from the evidence of material culture, iconography, architecture, clay economic records, regional survey, later traditions, and comparative anthropology.]
"Civilian Knowledge of War and Violence in Ancient Athens and Modern America." In M. Cosmopoulos (Ed.), Experiencing War: Trauma and Society from Ancient Greece to the Iraq War (pp.9-34). Chicago:2007.
[In this paper I analyze how governments and the military have from World War I to the present made successful efforts to keep knowledge of what is really happening in places where wars are being fought and all related effects away from their civilian populations. I then describe, historically, the costs this has had for societies as a whole and individuals in them. I use as a test case from the congressionally authorized presidential use of preemptive force in Iraq, media coverage of the death of Shane Childers, which was inaccurately reported by imbedded reported Gordon Dillow and then led to the heroization or haigiographizing of 2nd Lt. Childers (especially through coverage of his funeral by Rinker Buck. I contrast our situation with that of the ancient Athenians who expressly held public funerary services to communalize grief, had what we would call a full draft, and who created a mechyanism for adult citizen soldiers to re-witness and come to terms with the terrible things they did and experienced while fighting for Athens. Other topics covered: Homer's Iliad, embedded reporting,WW I poets (Sassoon, Owen, Graves) post traumatic stress, and Cpl. Jesse Odom who held Childers as he died and has now written a firsthand account: Through Our Eyes. This article is dedicate to Col. Ted Westhusing, a former student and colse friend, who died as a conmtractor base camp outside Baghdad on June 5, 2005, after bringing to light serious problkems with contractors and with the security of Iraqi security forces. See T. Christian Miller's book Blood Money.]
Palaima, T. (2007) "Ilios, Tros and Tlos: Continuing Problems with to-ro, to-ro-o, to-ro-wo, to-ro-ja, wi-ro and a-si-wi-ja/a-si-wi-jo. In F. Lang, C. Reiholdt & J. Weilhartner (Eds.), STEFANOS ARISTEIOS Festschrift fur Stefan Hille zum 65. Geburtstager (pp.197-204). Phoibos Verlag Vienna. [here I survey the words in the Linear B corpus that have been linked to Troy, Ilion and Assuwa (Asia) and show how problematical they are.]
"The Missing Entries from 'A Gaza Diary'," Jerusalem Post 09/25/03
[In this article, I demonstrate how Chris Hedges, then an award-winning war reporter for the New York Times, by his own admission fails to use the high standards of fact-checking, confirming or refuting of hearsay, and corroborating the always problematical memories of what people themselves think they witnessed under the stress of violence. Mr. Hedges' account is widely used as the 'poster child' for the asserted fact that Israeli Defense Force troops in the Gaza strip intentionally lure children into positions where they can shoot and kill them.
This article was written from a non-partisan perspective and was shopped to Harper's and elsewhere. Mr. Hedges has given three accounts of this incident. These contradict one another on crucial assertions and in one case he even removes a claim about seeing silencers on M-16's and seeing the children shot.
This account irresponsibly foments hatred in my opinion. This is not good considering Hedges' overall admirable body of work and his important anti-war efforts.]
Palaima, T. Mycenaean Society and Kingship: Cui Bono? A Counter-Speculative View. Aegaeum.