APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University Associate Professor of Classics Randall McNeill has been awarded a $75,000 grant from the Arete Initiative at the University of Chicago for the Defining Wisdom Project.
McNeill was one of 23 scholars in the United States and Europe — and one of only two from a liberal arts college — selected for a grant from a field of more than 600 researchers in fields ranging from neuroscience to philosophy.
The two-year grant will support research McNeill is conducting for the book project entitled “The Price of Wisdom: Community and the Individual in Greek and Roman Poetry.” He will investigate the way wisdom influences how an individual interacts with society, exploring ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of “civic wisdom.”
His study will explore specific literary representations of individuals who struggle to achieve civic wisdom to shed new light on broader Greek and Roman cultural attitudes concerning the relationship of the individual to society.
A specialist in Latin poetry and Greek and Roman history, McNeill’s research will focus on four characters from classical poetry whose personal travails exemplify the tensions that often exist between individual interest and the common good: Achilles in the “Iliad” of Homer; Oedipus in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”; Roman poet Catullus’ self portrayals; and Aeneas in the “Aeneid” of Vergil. Each character represents the ethical and psychological challenges of balancing conflicting demands of civic duty and personal identity.
“My research is intended to encourage members of the Defining Wisdom Project and others to consider those issues of individuality and society that must play a role in any discussion of the nature and role of wisdom in the contemporary world,” said McNeill. “By exploring the cultural attitudes of the ancient Greeks and Romans regarding the proper relationship of the individual to society, we may gain valuable perspective on what could be required of each of us as we move forward in the 21st- century.”
Launched earlier this year and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, the Defining Wisdom Project is a $2 million research program on the nature and benefits of wisdom. McNeill and other grant recipients will become part of a Wisdom Research Network that will meet periodically to share research and results.
