Dr Dorothy Thompson FBA

Classics and Ancient History

Elected 1996

Fellow type: UK Emeritus Fellow
Year elected: 1996
Sections: Classical Antiquity
Website: http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/directory/dorothy-thompson

Dorothy J. Thompson, a Fellow of Girton College and Bye-Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, is an ancient historian with a particular interest in Hellenistic Egypt. In her research and writing she employs the evidence of papyri to look at social and economic questions; she is further concerned with relations between the different ethnic groups of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.

From 2001-2007 she served as President of the International Association of Papyrologists and remains an Honorary President. Other presidencies include the Cambridge Classical Association (1987-1990) and the Cambridge Philological Society (2002-2004). Her Memphis under the Ptolemies (Princeton 1988) received the James H. Breasted Prize from the American Historical Association (1989).

Most of Thompson's teaching career has been in Cambridge, including Isaac Newton Lectureship in the Faculty of Classics (1992-2005), with a visiting professorship at Princeton University (1996). She has been a Member of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton (1982-1983), Fellow of the National Humanities Center, North Carolina (1993-1994), held a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (2002-2004) and has lectured widely in the UK and the US. Her Honorary DLitt (Liverpool) dates from 2013.

Current Post

Girton College, Cambridge Life Fellow

Clare College, University of Cambridge Bye-Fellow

Past appointments

University of Cambridge Isaac Newton Trust Lecturer in Classics

1992 - 2005

Girton College, Cambridge Senior Tutor

1981 - 1992

Girton College, Cambridge Fellow in Classics and History

1965 - 2006

Publications

The Ptolemies, the Sea and the Nile: Studies in Waterborne Power

Dorothy Thompson, Kostas Buraselis, Mary Stefanou - Published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press

Memphis under the Ptolemies

Dorothy Thompson - Published in 2012 by Princeton University Press

Second edition

‘Slavery in the Hellenistic world’ in the Cambridge History of Slavery I

Dorothy Thompson - Published in 2011 by Cambridge University Press

Kerkeosiris: an Egyptian village in the Ptolemaic period

Dorothy Thompson - Published in 2007 by Cambridge University Press

Counting the people in Hellenistic Eqypt

Dorothy Thompson, Willy Clarysse - Published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press

‘The Ptolemies and Egypt’ in Blackwell Companion to the Hellenistic World

Dorothy Thompson - Published in 2003 by Wiley-Blackwell

Other Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Robin Osborne FBA

Classics and Ancient History History Art and Archaeology of Greece and the Greek World History of Greece and the Greek World Southern Europe Greece

Professor Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer FBA

Greco-Roman literature, culture and philosophy; the reception of the Western classics, especially in China; translations of Seneca and Vergil; the symbiotic relationship of humanities and science, historically and at present.

Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill FBA

Latin Language and Literature History of Rome, Italy and the Roman Provinces Art and Archaeology of Rome, Italy and the Roman Provinces Classical Art and Archaeology Southern Europe

Dr Dorothy Thompson FBA