Renaissance Humanism; History of Rhetoric; Ancient Literary Theory
Kathy H. Eden, Chavkin Family Professor of English Literature and Professor of Classics, specializes in renaissance humanism, history of rhetoric, hermeneutics, ancient literary theory, and history of classical scholarship. B.A., Smith (1974); Ph.D., Stanford (1980). Professor Eden began teaching at Columbia in 1980. She studies the history of rhetorical and poetic theory in antiquity, including late antiquity, and the Renaissance, within the larger context of intellectual history and with an emphasis on the problems of reception. Her books include Poetic and Legal Fiction in The Aristotelian Tradition (Princeton,1986), Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and its Humanist Reception (New Haven, 1997), and Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property and the ‘Adages’ of Erasmus (New Haven, 2001). Her articles appear in Journal of the History of Ideas, Rhetorica, Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, Studies in the Literary Imagination, Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook and Traditio. Her current project explores epistolary theory and the construction of letter collections in antiquity and the Renaissance. In 1981-82 she received a fellowship from the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. and in 1998-99 a Guggenheim fellowship. In 1998 she won the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates and in 2001 the Mark Van Doren Award and the Award for Distinguished Service to the Core Curriculum. Kathy H. Eden webpage.