William A. Johnson
Professor in Classical Studies & Dean of Humanities
Duke University
William A. Johnson works broadly in the cultural history of Greece and Rome, with particular interest in ancient books, readers, and reading, and with a general interest in how literary pursuits intersect with cultural context in antiquity. He has lectured and published on Plato, Hesiod, Herodotus, Pliny (both Elder and Younger), Gellius, Lucian, and on a variety of topics relating to books and readers and publishing, both ancient and modern. Other work has focused on ancient music; he produced the editio princeps for two of the very rare papyrus documents containing ancient Greek music (see Ancient Music Web Site), and has a piece on pantomime in Rome. He has published 5 books, three dozen articles, and has given over 50 invited lectures to national and international audiences. He teaches a wide range of Greek and Latin topics to undergraduate and graduate audiences at Duke. At the moment, he is taking a three-year hiatus from teaching to serve as Duke's Dean of Humanities.

Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire

A socio-cultural study of Greek and Roman elite reading communities in the period of the high empire (Oxford University Press, 2010, paperback 2012).

Bookrolls and Scribes

 A foundational study of the artefactual remains of over 400 papyrus bookrolls (University of Toronto Press, 2004, paperback 2013).

OUP Handbook to the Second Sophistic

An introduction to the Greece and Rome of the second century that puts in socio-cultural context the important (but long neglected) literary output that falls under the rubric, "Second Sophistic" (Oxford University Press,  2017, paperback with corrections 2021). 

Ancient Greek Music on Papyrus
A web site showcasing two ancient Greek papyri published by Johnson that contain musical notation, with words and music and an interactive facility  that allows you to hear the papyri "sing". 

Ancient Literacies
​An edited volume exploring new approaches to the varieties of "literacy" in antiquity  (Oxford University Press, 2009, paperback 2011). 

Essential Herodotus
An new kind of introduction to the Father of History, including selected readings from Herodotus's  research on folk traditions, foreign cultures, and natural wonders together with his well-known narrtives on politics and war, all made accessible to the reader through a magisterial set of annotations reflecting a lifetime's work (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Contact:
   William A. Johnson
   Department of Classical Studies
   Duke University P. O. Box 90103
   Durham, N.C.   27708-0103
   Tel. (919) 684-2082   Fax (919) 681-4262
   Office: Allen Building 229B
   Email: william.johnson@duke.edu
   Skype: wjohnson925