Current Graduate Students |
Ancient Greece
Associate Professor
Ph.D., Cornell University, 1999
Office: HSSB 4210 Winter 2010 Hours: Tuesdays, 5-6 p.m.
Phone: cut off-- no funding Fax: (805) 893-8795
Email: jwilee@history.ucsb.edu
NOW AVAILABLE TO PERFORM COMPENSATED OUTSIDE PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES. REASONABLE RATES! (more...)
Pursuant to the generous UCOP decision (26 August 2009) that faculty may use furlough days to engage in compensated Outside Professional Activities (OPA), I hereby announce that on furlough days I will be available for compensated service in any of the following professional capacities:
1. Mercenary general: Are you in want of skilled leadership for your hired soldiers? I can command mercenary forces mustering from 10 to 10,000. Whether you have infantry, cavalry, light troops, or a combination of foot and horse, I'll bring your army discipline, enthusiasm, and best of all, victory! Extra charges will apply for work with elephants or scythed chariots.
2. Democratic restoration consultant: Hoping to regain control of your city-state from a murderous aristocratic clique with no respect for the rule of law? I can offer you tested and proven methods for liberating your fellow citizens from tyranny. Please, no inquiries from oligarchic revolutionaries.
I am also available on furlough days to endorse products and services. Just think how sales of your [insert item name here] will skyrocket when they're backed by professional approval from an expert in ancient warfare!
Please contact me for more information if you are interested in retaining my services for these Outside Professional Activities. You can also look for my listing in the latest issue of Peltast of Fortune-- the premier professional journal for 21st century specialists in combined arms tactics of the fourth century BC.
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When not on furlough, I study the history of ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean world using both texts and archaeology. While I'm interested in all of ancient Greece, my research focuses on the social and cultural aspects of warfare in the Archaic and Classical periods, as well as on the tactics, equipment, and logistics of ancient armies.
My first book (see Selected Publications below) examined everyday life in an ancient mercenary army. Currently I'm writing a new book that investigates warfare and culture in the western Anatolian borderlands from the Ionian Revolt (499-494 BC) to the mid-fourth century BC.
In addition, I'm finishing an article on humor in Xenophon's Anabasis, and working on a study of classical influences in Mexican and U.S. political and military culture during the mid-nineteenth century.
In addition to teaching graduate and undergraduate Greek history courses, I teach the earliest portion of our undergraduate world history survey course. I also teach classes in the history of warfare beyond antiquity, including a seminar on insurgencies and guerrilla warfare in historical perspective. I have run archaeological field schools and summer study programs in Greece. In 2009 I directed a Summer Session for the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
If you want to apply to the graduate program in Ancient History, you should first read our departmental field description. For additional information about studying Greek History at UCSB, you may email me at the address above.
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Photograph: View to the west from the acropolis of Sardis, August 2009. The slopes of Mount Tmolus are visible in the left distance, and the Pactolus River valley is in the center background.
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This page was last updated on: 09.XI.2009.
Research and Teaching Interests- Ancient Greece
- History of Warfare
- Greek Archaeology and Epigraphy
- World History
Current Projects- Warfare and Society in the Western Anatolian Borderlands, 550-334 BC
- Humor in Xenophon's Anabasis
- Archaic Inscriptions from Halai in East Lokris
Selected Publications- "Urban Warfare in the Classical Greek World"
in Victor Hanson (ed.), Makers of Ancient Strategy. Princeton University Press, March 2010.
- "Land Warfare in Xenophon's Hellenika"
in Robert Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika, 391-394. Pantheon Books, 2009.
- A Greek Army on the March: Soldiers and Survival in Xenophon's Anabasis
Cambridge University Press, 2007. Nominated for the 2008 Runciman Award. Reviews here and here.
- "Warfare in the Classical Age"
in Konrad Kinzl (ed.), A Companion to the Classical Greek World, 481-508. Blackwell Publishers, 2006.
- "Xenophon and the Origins of Military Autobiography"
in Alex Vernon (ed.), Arms and the Self: War, the Military, and Autobiographical Discourse, 141-160. Kent State University Press, 2005.
- "For there were many hetairai in the army: Women in Xenophon's Anabasis."
The Ancient World 35.2 (2004), 145-165.
- "Urban Combat at Olynthos, 348 B.C."
British Archaeological Reports S958 (2001), 11-22.
Professional Activities- Director, Summer Session II, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2009
- Director, Travel-Study Program on Crete, UCSB Summer Sessions, 2007
- Vice-President, Santa Barbara Society, Archaeological Institute of America
Archaeological Fieldwork- Mitrou Archaeological Project
Co-Director of Basic Field School, 2005.
- Cornell Halai and East Lokris Project
excavation staff member, 1999-2003.
Undergraduate and Graduate Courses- History 2A: World Civilizations to 1000 CE
An introduction to the early civilizations of Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Mediterranean, and Oceania. Next offered: Winter 2010.
- History 111A: Early Greece, 3000-750 BCE
Topics include Neolithic culture in the Aegean, Bronze Age Minoan & Mycenaean civilization, the development and collapse of the Late Bronze Age international system in the eastern Mediterranean, and early Iron Age Greece. Next offered: Fall 2010.
- History 111B: Archaic and Classical Greece, 750-323 BCE
Topics include the rise of the polis ("city-state"), the Greeks & Persia, the social and cultural history of classical Greece, the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath, and the rise of Macedon. Next offered: Winter 2011.
- History 111C: The Hellenistic World, 323-30 BCE
Topics include the campaigns of Alexander, the formation of the Hellenistic kingdoms, Greek federal states, Hellenistic science and technology, and ethnicity and culture in the Hellenistic world. Next offered: Fall 2011.
- History 111DR: Directed Readings in Greek History
Next offered: Fall 2010 and Winter 2011. Fall 2010 Topic: Ancient Greek Warfare
- History 111P: Proseminar in Greek History
Research seminar for history majors. Participants formulate a project, conduct research, and produce a final 15-20 page paper.
- History 197JL: Topics in the History of Warfare
Recent Topics: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Warfare (2006); Insurgencies and Guerrilla Warfare in Historical Perspective (2009).
- History 201E: Reading Seminar in Greek History
Recent seminar topics: Historiography of Classical Greece; Houses and Households in Classical Greece; Hellenistic Historiography.
- History 202: Introduction to the Graduate Study of History
- History 211A & 211B: Research Seminar in Greek History (two-quarter sequence)
Next offered: Winter & Spring 2010.
Topic: The Eastern Aegean and Western Anatolia, 600-300 BCE.
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