Mary R. Lefkowitz has been selected by the American School’s Board of Trustees as the next recipient of the prestigious Athens Prize. She will be honored on May 9, 2024, at the School’s annual Gala in New York City.

The Athens Prize is rewarded for outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge of ancient Greece. Recent recipients have included Edward E. Cohen, an acclaimed economic historian, author, businessman, and educator, who received the prize in 2022.

"I hope that this honor will serve as an illustration of how much someone can learn from a summer session at the American School,” said Lefkowitz. “I think it's fair to say that seeing Greece--as it was then and as it was in the distant past--launched me on my career. You need to be there to understand why it matters so much to all of us,” she added.

Mary R. Lefkowitz is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities Emerita at Wellesley College.  Best known to non-Classicists for her book, Not Out of Africa (1996), she is the author of books and articles about ancient Greek literature and culture, including most recently, Euripides and the Gods, and co-editor of The Greek Plays, The Greek Histories, and Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (4th edition).  She holds a B.A. from Wellesley and a Ph.D. from Radcliffe, plus honorary degrees from Trinity College, Grinnell College, and the University of Patras, and is a recipient of a National Humanities Medal.  An alumna of the School (Summer Session 1955), she has been a Trustee since 2004.  In 2022, in recognition of her many distinguished contributions to ancient Greek scholarship, she was made an Honorary Citizen of Greece by the Greek government.

“Mary R. Lefkowitz is an outstanding scholar and teacher of ancient Greek literature and culture. Her relentless pursuit of, and concern for, truth and intellectual integrity, as well as her contributions to classical Greek studies, have earned her the honor of the Athens Prize,” said Chairman of the Board of Trustees Alexander Zagoreos.

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Please mark your calendars for our May 9, 2024, Gala!