James P. Sickinger

Research Interests and Publications
My work focuses on the civic uses of writing in the ancient Greek world. My first book, Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens (Chapel Hill 1999), examined the types of documents that the ancient Athenians made, used, and kept, often without inscribing and displaying them on stone. I have also written on Greek law, the epigraphic habit, and the bureaucracy of Athenian government, and co-edited, with G. Bakewell, of Gestures. Studies in Ancient Literature, History, and Philosophy Presented to A.L. Boegehold (Oxford: Oxbow Books 2003). My research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation (1989), the Samuel Kress Foundation (1994), and the National Endowment from the Humanities (1996, 2001).

I presently serve as an editor and contributor to Brill's New Jacoby, a revised edition of F. Jacoby's monumental Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker, with facing English translations of the Greek fragments, a new critical commentary, and a brief encyclopaedia-style entry about each historian's life and works; I oversee entries on the local historians of Argos and Attica. Other ongoing research includes a study of recently discovered ostraka from the Athenian Agora, a book on the epigraphic habit in Athens and ancient Greece, and a monograph on the perversion of Athenian democracy in contemporary scholarship and political discourse.

Recent Publications
"Ostraka from the Athenian Agora." In The Athenian Agora: New Perspectives on an Ancient Site, edited by J. McK. Camp II and C.A. Mauzy, pp. 77-86. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern 2009.

"Nothing to Do with Democracy: Formulae of Disclosure and the Athenian Epigraphic Habit." In Greek History and Epigraphy. Essays in honour of P.J. Rhodes, edited by L. Mitchell and L. Rubinstein, pp. 87-102. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2009.

"Indeterminacy in Greek Law." In Symposion 2007. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Durham, 3 - 5 September 2007), edited by E. Harris and G. Thür, pp. 99-112. Vienna: Vienna Academy 2008.

"Didymos of Alexandria (340)." In Brill's New Jacoby. Brill Online, 2008.

"The Bureaucracy of Democracy and Empire." In Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles, edited by L.J. Samons, II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 196-214.

"Rhetoric and the Law." In A Companion to Greek Rhetoric, edited by I. Worthington. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006, pp. 286-302

"The Laws of Athens: Publication, Preservation, Consultation." In The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece. Edited by E. Harris and L. Rubinstein. London: Duckworth, 2004, pp. 93-109.

Recent Papers
"Official Letters on Stone." Paper delivered at the Colloquium "Documents in Ancient Society: The Letter." Institute for Ancient Studies/American Academy at Rome, Rome, Italy. 28-30 September 2008.

"Publication of Legal Decisions in Classical Athens." Paper delivered at the Premiere Rencontre des Jeunes Historiens du Droit Grec. Athens, Greece. 12-13 September 2008.

"Indeterminacy in Greek Law." Paper delivered at the Biennial Meeting of the Gesellschaft für griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte. Durham, England. Sept. 2007.

"Ostracism and the Foundation of the Athenian Agora." Paper delivered at the Annual Meetings of the Classical Association of the Midwest and South. Cincinnati, 2007.

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