Lee E. Patterson
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia
Contact
Office: 3280 Coleman
Office Phone: (217) 581-3457
E-mail: lepatterson2@eiu.edu
Courses
HIS 1500G: Roots of the Modern World: Society and Religion
Scholarly Interests
My research is primarily concerned with ancient Greece and Rome, with emphasis on political uses of myth, constructions of identity, and cross-cultural interactions. My book Kinship Myth in Ancient Greece is forthcoming from the University of Texas Press and examines communities (and sometimes kings like Alexander the Great) that invoked shared putative ancestors to justify a diplomatic venture. I also research authors’ attitudes toward myth and have published articles focusing on Pausanias and Alcman in Mnemosyne and Classical and Modern Literature. I am currently researching the Greek geographer Strabo, on whom I have a forthcoming article in the journal Hermes and an article-length study to be published in a book on ancient mythography. My future plans are to return to my other great interest, the Roman Near East. I have published on Roman dealings with Armenia and the Caucasus in Latomus and Ancient History Bulletin and am currently preparing entries on Parthia, Armenia, and the Caucasus for the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Virgil.
