Woodard Named to Raymond Chair in Classics at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The new Andrew V.V. Raymond Chair in the Department of Classics at the University at Buffalo is distinguished philologist and linguist Roger D. Woodard, author of a radical theory suggesting that the intellectual infancy of Western Civilization was far more complicated than we once thought -- one subject to influences of incredible value that other researchers previously had missed.

Known for his rigorous intellect, highly technical work and prolific publication of important books in his field, Woodard also is an accessible scholar who writes for a general audience.

Susan G. Cole, associate professor and chair of the UB Department of Classics, said that in his few months at UB, Woodard has tackled large sections of the department's undergraduate mythology course, giving undergraduates an opportunity to be taught by a senior researcher in the field. He is a popular teacher, she said, noting an enrollment increase in the course of nearly 200 percent in one semester.

Before coming to UB in the fall, Woodard was a professor in the departments of Classics and Linguistics at the University of Southern California, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1991. He was a Mellon Scholar and assistant professor in the Department of Classics at The Johns Hopkins University from 1988-91 and an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at Swarthmore College from 1986-88.

Woodard holds a bachelor's degree in zoology from North Carolina State University, a master's degree in near eastern languages and cultures from the Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., and a doctorate in classics and Indo-European linguistics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Woodard is best known for his groundbreaking, 1997 book, "Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer" (New York: Oxford University Press). In it, he employed his linguistic tools, which are informed by his knowledge of biological taxonomies, to tackle the question of how, when, where and why the Greek alphabet originated. The answer has significant implications in several fields.

"His is a striking theory in that it tackles issues related to ideosyncratic Greek dialects, ideographic and syllabic writing systems of the near east and the trade routes of the ancient Phoenicians," says Cole.

"His theory works beautifully with the evidence of the language as he re-evaluates the dates of, places of and reasons for the earliest alphabetic writing, all in the context of the eastern Mediterranean culture and exchange system of the time. He demonstrates just how important the cultural context is in the development of a writing system.

"The conclusions he draws strongly suggest that "Linear B," the linear form of writing that employed syllabic characters, may have originated on the island of Cypress, whose local inhabitants had developed a peculiar syllabary for writing their form of early "Greek," she said. Linear B was used at Knossos on Crete and on the Greek mainland between 1500 and 1200 b.c.e. (before common era). It is thought to form the basis of the ancient Greek alphabet.

This is an important and intriguing problem in the field of classical Greek studies and has given rise to scores of theoretical solutions. Woodard's book is considered a significant contribution to the problem of the Greek alphabet and is of great use to those working in a number of related fields, including archaeology and ancient history. His work is technical, applying a system of biological taxonomies to trace the evolution of the Greek language, but it has implications far beyond this application.