In December 2003 I was promoted to Professor Emeritus. I am doing what
I have always enjoyed -- pursuing Classical studies, theater, chronobiology.
I am relieved only of administration, having had a sufficiency (e.g.,
13 years, 1965-78, as chairman of my department). My initial appointment
at Minnesota was tenured in Classics and in Speech and Theatre Arts,
and I worked also with the Medical School’s Franz Halberg in Chronobiology.
I have published on ancient and later rhetoric, especially delivery,
and oral performance; published cassette albums and CD’s of Classical
literature in the restored pronunciation and in translation; acted professionally
in many plays; published chronobiologic studies. What may seem to some
scholars an odd triangle of interests to continue beyond undergraduate
years into a research university makes perfect sense to me. How it does
so may be hinted in the writings of the great 4th- and 3rd- century
Greek physician Herophilus of Cos, who compared the dilatation, or diastolic
movement, of the pulse to the arsis, or upbeat, of a musical/metrical
foot, and the contraction, or systolic movement, to the thesis, or downbeat.
In so-called retirement I will not have a desk in Classical and Near
Eastern Studies unless I am invited to free-lance-teach there, but as
of January 2004 I will have one as Honorary Member of the Center for
Chronobiology in the Mayo Building, Medical School. I am planning to
work there on the history of the concept of time. I shall also no doubt
appear in various Twin Cities theaters.
Several mini-reviews in the Key Reporter, Spring 2001, including: "The
Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark" (Dennis R. MacDonald, Yale,
2000), "The Image of Christ" (Gabriele Finaldi, Susanna Avery-Quash,
Xavier Bray, Erika Langmuir, Neil MacGregor, and Alexander Sturgis,
National Gallery Co. Ltd., London, distributed by Yale, 2000), "The
Science of Man in Ancient Greece" (Maria Michela Sassi. Trans.
by Paul Tucker. Chicago Univ., 2001), and "Cicero, Catullus,
and the Language of Social Performance" (Brian A. Krostenko. Chicago
Univ., 2001).
"The Uses of Imprecision: `The Clytemnestra
Project' at the Guthrie," from The Chorus in Greek Tragedy and
Culture, Vol. Two, in Arion Third Series 4.1 Spring 1996,
pp. 225-34.
"The semantics of heterochrony, if not homeochrony,
in chronomes?" Proc. International Workshop, Sun, Moon and Living
Matter, Bratislava, Slovakia, June 29-July 1, 1994, pp. 89-99.
"Tranio in Plautus' Mostellaria: Building
the Character," Text and Presentation, Journal of the Comparative
Drama Conference 12 (Gainesville, FL: Maupin House Publishing, 1992)
"Johannes Trithemius, De Origine Gentis
Francorum Compendium: An Abridged History of the Franks" (Dudweiler:
AQ-Verlag, 1987) Bibliotheca Germanica, Vol 4. (with M.Kuelbs).
Performance of Literature in Historical Perspective ed. D. Thompson et al. (Univ. Press of America 1983) Chapters
1 and 2 (pp. 1-65): "Oral Performance and Ancient Greek Lit."
and "Oral Interpretation of Classical Latin Literature."
"Euphantastik Memory and Delivery in the
Classical Rhetorical Tradition," Rhetoric 78 ed Brown and
Steinmann, 1979, pp. 375-3
"Autorhythmometry, Time and the Humanities,"
International Society for Chronobiology XII International
Conference Proceedings, 1977, pp. 167-179.
"Individual Differences in Timing of Circadian
Rhythms in Psycho-physiologic Performance, Including Results of a Newly
Designed Latin Test, " Chronobiologia, Supplement 1 (1975),
65-66.
"Aristotle: The Classical Heritage of Rhetoric"
(Scarecrow Press, 1974) Chapter 15 "Delivery in Ancient Rhetorical
Theory."
"Classical Theater and the Burgess-Langham
Production of Oedipus the King," Miscellaneous Papers
of the Bell Museum of Pathobiology, 1973, pp. 27-33.
"Guthrie's Oresteia," Arion,
1968, pp. 154-158, and Drama Survey, 1969, pp. 158-163.
"A Fifteenth-Century Rhetorical Opusculum,
" Classical Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honor
of B. L. Ullman, 1964, pp. 259-281.
"Magister Gasparinus," The Speech
Teacher, 12 (1963), 200-203.
"Critical Edition of the Latin Rhetorical
Treatise De Compositione by Gasparino Barizizza of Bergamo, "
Year Book of the American Philosophical Society, 1962, 629.
"Scholarship and Showmanship," Arion
1, 1 (1962), 102-107.
"Delivery in Ancient Rhetorical Theory, "
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 90 (1959), pp. 256-274.
"Teaching Latin by Interactive Television",
published in the Madison conference proceedings as part of "Breaking
Through Distance Learning Barriers with Faculty Development Training"
Sonkowsky R.P., Conrélissen G. , Halberg F.
Robert P. Sonkowsky