Jason Harris

Jason R. Harris received his PhD from the University of Southern California in December 2013 and was most recently Visiting Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Tulane University from 2014-2016. He also has held fellowships from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the American Academy in Rome. As CHS/DAI Fellow he will spend the 2016-2017 academic year researching and writing his first monograph based on his USC dissertation (which was titled “The tyrant and the migrant: the bonds between Syracusan hegemony and mobility from Dionysius I to Agathocles”). This monograph, by focusing on the mobility of scholars (including Plato) and the creation of courts (e.g. at Syracuse under the Dionysii) and philosophical communities (e.g. the Academy and the Pythagoreans) across the Mediterranean, will analyze the ways in which this migration of intellectuals and their interaction with major political figures affected the sociopolitical landscape of the late Classical Greek world, acted as a catalyst for literary production, and reflected subsequent empire-building processes of the Hellenistic Period.