Former Fellow Focus: James Zainaldin
Former Undergraduate Fox Fellow and Assistant Professor in Classical and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University James Zainaldin received his Ph.D. in Classics from Harvard University.
In this feature, Prof. Zainaldin discusses the recent publication of his new book and the impact of his Fox Fellowship on his life and career in academia.
KARL-MARY AKRE: Can you tell us a bit about your new book? How did your journey to publication begin?
JAMES ZAINALDIN: My book The artes and the Emergence of a Scientific Culture in the Early Roman Empire, just published last month by Cambridge University Press, aims to add a new chapter to the history of Greek and Roman science and Latin literature by setting the Roman technical treatises of the early Empire into new light. Now Assistant Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Studies and Mellon Foundation Dean’s Faculty Fellow at Vanderbilt University, I began this research as a doctoral student in the Harvard Department of the Classics. But my first real taste of the sort of work I would be doing as a scholar came as an FCHI Fellow (Spring 2014), when I was writing a senior honors thesis in Emory’s Classics Department on education and politics in Plato and Cicero.
How would you say the Fox Center figures in your academic career?
The FCHI was my initiation into the academic life, allowing me join a wonderful community of scholars who encouraged me to develop my own interests and allowed me both to learn from and share my own work with other academics. In some sense, that terrific semester was the first step in my graduate studies, as I learned gradually to think of myself not only as a student but also a junior colleague (though still ever a student too!).
Do you have any words of advice for Emory undergraduates who are interested in a Fox Center Fellowship?
To all Emory undergrads: whether you plan to go to graduate school or not, an FCHI fellowship is an opportunity for a new kind of academic experience you’ll never forget. It may even become a defining time in your Emory education!