Wednesday, Feb. 6, 7 p.m.—RUTLAND— Middlebury College professor Jane Chaplin will discuss how historical writing rose from the influence of two individuals in a talk at Rutland Free Library on Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. Her talk, “The Invention of History,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open to the public.
There was a time when the idea of writing history didn’t exist. Professor Chaplin will describe the inception of history, which we owe to two extraordinary Greeks – Herodotus and Thucydides – a fascinating story whether one is interested in history or not.
Originally from suburban Boston, Jane Chaplin received her bachelor’s from Brown, master of Ssudies from Oxford, and a masters and doctorate from Princeton. She moved to Vermont in 1992 to take up a position in the Classics Department at Middlebury College. She shares the teaching of Greek and Latin with her departmental colleagues and has responsibility for the ancient history curriculum, offering courses on the Greek and Roman worlds in alternate years. Her area of specialization is classical historiography, especially the Roman historian Livy, on whom she has produced three books.
Rutland Free Library is located at 10 Court St., Rutland. For more information, visit rutalndfree.org.
