William J. Dominik

William J. Dominik (born 29 December 1953) is an American-Australian scholar of Classical Studies. He is presently Integrated Researcher of Classical Studies and Research Fellow at the University of Lisbon and Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of Otago.

Dominik is the son of university professors of classical music and spent his childhood in a number of states in the USA. He earned a BA in Classics and English from the University of the Pacific in 1975, after which he left the USA to live overseas for what has amounted to all but a few years. He is married to Brazilian artist and former nutritionist Najla Barroso Dominik.

Dominik received his PhD in Classical Studies from Monash University in 1989 after gaining an MA in Classical Humanities from Texas Tech University in 1982. He taught at the University of Natal from 1991 to 2001, where he rose to the rank of Professor and Chair of Classics and Director of the Program in Classics. He moved to the University of Otago as Professor and Chair of Classics in 2002, where he served as Head of the Department of Classics from 2002 to 2009. Dominik was awarded Professor Emeritus status in 2015.

An idiosyncratic aspect of Dominik's career has been its wide international dimension. In addition to holding the aforecited posts at the University of Natal and the University of Otago, he has served in recent years as Invited Professor and Integrated Researcher at the University of Lisbon (2018-2019) and CAPES Visiting Foreign Professor at the Federal University of Bahia (2010, 2016-17). He has also held visiting professorships and other teaching/research positions at Texas Tech University (1981-1982, 1990-1991), Monash University (1985-1988), University of Leeds (1997-1998), University of Cambridge (2000-2001), University of Edinburgh (2006-2007), and the University of Oxford (2013).

Dominik is the author or editor of several hundred publications, including sixteen books, on Latin literature, especially Roman epic of the Flavian period; Roman rhetoric; the classical tradition and reception; lexicography; etymology; and other topics. Dominik's research is significant for its emphasis upon the political, especially critical and dissident, aspects of imperial Roman literature (to which one critic refers as “la osadía de Dominik") and its positive hermeneutic approach to the literature and rhetoric of the imperial era.

A distinctive feature of Dominik's research and pedagogical output is its collaborative nature, which is evident especially through the publication of various co-edited books and a journal. He was the founding editor and manager of the Classics series Scholia: Studies in Classical Antiquity (1992-2011). In addition tohaving served as a referee for over sixscore publishers, journals, and institutions, Dominik has supervised, examined, and moderated over a gross of postgraduate dissertations.

Dominik has delivered over sevenscore lectures and papers, including many invited or commemorative presentations such as a University of Cambridge Faculty of Classics Literature Seminar, an Inaugural Professorial Lecture at the University of Otago (2002), the keynote address at the Federal University of Bahia Inaugural Classics Colloquium (2010), the Third Biennial Constantine Leventis Memorial Lecture at the University of Ibadan (2010), a Royal Society of New Zealand National Identity Symposium Presentation (2011), an Oxford Philological Society lecture (2013), and the Inaugural Seminar at the Federal University of Sergipe Postgraduate Program in History (2016).

Dominik has received over a couple of hundred individual research fellowships, grants, and awards (including renewals and sponsored visits), such as a Commonwealth Fellowship at the University of Leeds (1997-1998), a South African Human Sciences Research Council Established Researcher Grant (1997-1998), a Visiting Research Fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge (2000-2001), an Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh (2006-2007), a Visiting Research Centre Associateship at St. John's College, Oxford (2013), a Plumer Visiting Research Fellowship at St. Anne's College, Oxford (2013), and an FCT Research Fellowship at the University of Lisbon (2019-2022).

• Brill’s Companion to Statius (Leiden 2015). ISBN 97-89-00-4217898. (co-ed. with C. E. Newlands and K. Gervais)
• Petronii Satyricon Concordantia (Hildesheim 2013). ISBN 978-3-487-14893-9. (co-ed. with J. E. Holland)
• A Companion to Roman Rhetoric (Oxford 2010, 2007). ISBN 978-1-4443-3415-9. (co-ed. with J. Hall)
• Writing Politics in Imperial Rome (Leiden 2009). ISBN 978-90-04-156715. (co-ed. with J. Garthwaite and P. A. Roche)
• Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003). ISBN 90-04-11188-3. (co-ed. with A. J. Boyle)
• Literature, Art, History: Studies on Classical Antiquity and Tradition. In Honour of W. J. Henderson (Hildesheim 2003). ISBN 3-631-36837-2. (co-ed. with A. F. Basson)
• Anthologiae Latinae Concordantia Pars 1: A-L (Hildesheim 2002). ISBN 3-487-11737-1. (co-ed. with P. G. Christiansen and J. E. Holland)
• Anthologiae Latinae Concordantia Pars 2: M–Z (Hildesheim 2002). ISBN 3-487-11738-X. (co-ed. with P. G. Christiansen and J. E. Holland)
• Words & Ideas (Mundelein 2018 [corrected reprint], 2012, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2002). ISBN 978-0-86516-485-7. (ed.)
• Words & Ideas: Answer Key (Mundelein 2017 [reprint], 2014, 2009, 2006). ISBN 978-0-86516-637-0.
• Roman Verse Satire: Lucilius to Juvenal. A Selection with an Introduction, Text, Translations, and Notes (Mundelein 2011 [revised edition], 1999). ISBN 978-0-86516-442-0. (co-ed. and co-tr. with W. T. Wehrle)
• Roman Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and Literature (London 1997). ISBN 0-415-12544-8 hbk; ISBN 0-415-12545-6 pbk. (ed.)
• Concordantia in Sidonii Apollinaris Epistulas (Hildesheim 1997). ISBN 3-487-10567-5. (co-ed. with P. G. Christiansen and J. E. Holland)
• The Mythic Voice of Statius: Power and Politics in the Thebaid (Leiden 1994). ISBN 90-04-09972-7.
• Speech and Rhetoric in Statius’ Thebaid (Hildesheim 1994). ISBN 3-487-09814-8.
• Concordantia in Claudianum (Hildesheim 1988). ISBN 3-487-07848-1. (assisted ed. P. G. Christiansen)

• University of Lisbon: William J. Dominik
• University of Otago: William J. Dominik
• Academia.edu: William J. Dominik
• Video: William J. Dominik, "Bringing the Classics and the Humanities into the New Millennium." Inaugural Professorial Lecture, University of Otago, New Zealand (20 November 2002).