Dr Dorothy Thompson FBA
- Fellow type
- UK Emeritus Fellow
- Year elected
- 1996
- Subjects
- Classics
- Sections
- Classical Antiquity
Summary
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
‘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 Ursula Coope FBA
Ancient Greek philosophy (especially Plato, Aristotle and Neoplatonism); philosophy of action
Professor Dame Mary Beard FBA
The history, literature and culture of the classical world, and its impact on later periods
Professor Catherine Morgan FBA
Classical archaeology of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea; Greek political organisation; Greek religion; island studies; Archaic poetry
