Georgia Irby

Fellow, Center for the Liberal Arts 2014-16

Office: Boswell 329
Phone: 757 221 2162
On Leave: 2023-24
Email: [[glirby]]
Research interests: History of Science, Ancient Environment, Mythology

Background

Georgia Irby, Professor of Classical Studies, has broad research interests including the history of Greek and Roman Science. She received her PhD in Classical Philology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has co-authored a Latin textbook, edited a two-volume History of Science and Technology in the ancient world, and has published on Greek mythology, Roman military religion, and Roman military medicine. Two of her recent books, Conceptions of the Watery World in Greco-Roman Antiquity and Using and Conquering the Watery World in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Bloomsbury (2021), stem from her COLL 100 course, “Why Water Matters.” In the class and the books, she explores water as a focus of engagement with the natural environment in the ancient world, including physics, infrastructure (e.g., aqueducts), medicine, mythology, religion, and more. In another recent monograph Epic Echoes in The Wind and the Willows (Routledge 2001), she investigates Kenneth Grahame's engagement with classical literature, especially the themes and imagery of the Iliad and Odyssey. Together with a number of smaller projects (including articles on sea monsters and on environmental history), she is currently working on a translation and commentary of the Hispano-Roman geographical writer Pomponius Mela. She is also the editor of the Classical Journal, one of the premier journals of the field. Her talk today stems from her work in ancient geography and cartography.

Research Interests

Greek and Roman Science (cartography, geography, and hydrology), Pomponius Mela, Greek and Latin pedagogy, Greek and Latin Mythology in “pop” music.