Janet Martin, affiliate professor of classics, emeritus, and an knowledgeable in medieval Latin, died of heart problems at dwelling in Princeton, New Jersey, on Aug. 30. She was 84.

She joined the Princeton college in 1973, the place she taught for 37 years, and transferred to emeritus standing in 2010.

Picture courtesy of the Division of Classics

“Professor Martin was a trailblazer in lots of respects,” mentioned Barbara Graziosi, the Ewing Professor of Greek Language and Literature, professor of classics and division chair. “She was the primary lady appointed to a tenured college place within the Division of Classics. As an early member and energetic participant within the Ladies’s Classical Caucus (WCC), she made it simpler for others to comply with swimsuit not simply right here, however throughout the U.S. and internationally.” In 1996, Martin co-organized the convention “Feminism and Classics: Framing the Analysis Agenda” that was among the many gatherings held to have fun Princeton’s 250th anniversary.

Graziosi mentioned the nationwide WCC appointment strengthened Martin’s affect on the sector. “She confirmed how the research of medieval Latin belongs in a classics division, not least by illuminating the context that made it doable for historic texts to outlive and be acquired by later readers. Along with her emphasis on transmission and reception — i.e. how historic texts made it into the trendy world — she proposed an expansive imaginative and prescient of our area, which we proudly embrace right this moment. Medieval Latin continues to be an essential side of what we provide at Princeton Classics.”

Judith Peller Hallett, a founding member of the Ladies’s Classical Caucus and professor of classics and distinguished scholar-teacher emerita on the College of Maryland-Faculty Park, mentioned: “From its earliest days onward, the WCC benefited mightily from Janet’s eager and probing thoughts, meticulous labors, and imaginative and prescient of a extra principled and equitable future for girls, and the research of gender, within the area of classics.”

William Chester Jordan, the Dayton-Stockton Professor of Historical past, director of the Humanities Council’s Program in Medieval Research and a 1973 graduate alumnus, mentioned Martin was indispensable in serving to to determine the undergraduate Program in Medieval Research.

“Janet Martin was a wonderful Latinist, who from early in her profession at Princeton shared her experience with many medievalists on the school,” he mentioned, noting that she continuously gave invited lectures within the gateway course for undergraduate certificates college students in medieval research. “She impressed quite a lot of them to pursue graduate research within the area.”

W. Robert Connor, the Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics, Emeritus, met Martin on the College of Michigan, when she was a graduate pupil and he was an teacher; they turned colleagues when Martin joined Princeton’s college.

“She had an admirable mastery of each historic and medieval Latin,” he mentioned. “I revered her for her excessive scholarly requirements and her willingness to share her spectacular information with those that genuinely wished to study.”

Christian Wildberg, professor of classics, emeritus, remembered Martin’s collegiality from the second he joined the school.

“Janet was very pleasant and supportive (I particularly bear in mind her kindness throughout my job interview), and that continued through the years,” he mentioned. “Every time I met her within the hallway, I believed there was one thing avuncular about her, which I appreciated as a brand new member of the division.”

Martin was born on in 1938 in Bogalusa, Louisiana, certainly one of seven youngsters. Her mother and father, Bruce Whittington Martin, a paper manufacturing engineer and government, and Edna Poyas Corridor Martin, a homemaker, had been each graduates of Louisiana State College. Martin acquired her bachelor’s within the historical past and literature of the Center Ages at Radcliffe Faculty in 1961. At Michigan, she acquired her grasp’s in classical research in 1963 and earned her Ph.D. in medieval Latin from Harvard College in 1968.

After 4 years as an teacher and assistant professor at Harvard College, together with a yr as a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, Martin spent the remainder of her profession at Princeton. The Latin, literature and historical past of the Center Ages remained on the middle of her educating and scholarship on the College. Her version of chosen letters of Peter the Venerable was printed by the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Research in 1974, and there adopted a collection of papers on the reception and circulation of classical literature in medieval Europe and a research on the textual content and music of Hildegard of Bingen.

Within the classroom, she introduced medieval Latin and literature, the classical custom, and Latin paleography and textual criticism to college students. From undergraduate programs on the tragic heroine and girls’s writings to a graduate seminar on feminist literary idea and the classics, her educating helped to open new vistas within the area.

Her undergraduate programs included “The Age of Nero,” “Introduction to Medieval Latin,” “Ladies’s Texts and Ladies’s Expertise in Classical Antiquity and the Center Ages” and “The World of the Center Ages,” amongst others. Her graduate seminars included “Issues in Latin Literature: Feminist Literary Concept and the Classics,” “Survey of Early Medieval Latin Literature” and “The Classical Custom within the Center Ages” (typically taught as “Medieval Latin Literature and Ladies’s Expertise”), amongst others.

Daniel Turkeltaub, a 1996 classics main who additionally earned a certificates in medieval research, mentioned the “insightful steerage” he gained from Martin as his senior thesis adviser and within the classroom nonetheless informs his personal work with college students as an affiliate professor and the chair of the classics division at Santa Clara College.

“Professor Martin was a gracious, beneficiant and versatile mentor who would assist her college students whereas giving them the area to pursue their very own pursuits,” mentioned Turkeltaub, who took her medieval Latin class senior yr. He remembered how she took benefit of the small class measurement, selecting “fascinating readings for us that had been uncommon however suited the non-public pursuits of her college students.”

When Turkeltaub had hassle deciding on a senior thesis subject, Martin gave him a e book she thought would curiosity him, Ernst Curtius’ “European Literature and the Latin Center Ages.” A paragraph on web page 30 gave him the concept jumpstarted his thesis. “She helped me construct the boldness to jot down a senior thesis on the quite weird subject I had chosen — “The Gods of Medieval Troy: An Evaluation of the Depictions of the Classical Gods within the Texts of Dares and Dictys” — regardless that it was not one thing she had explored earlier than. I’ve tried to emulate her flexibility and graciousness nonetheless right this moment after I advise my very own college students, even after they deliver me concepts for his or her senior capstone tasks which are simply as uncommon and novel to me as the thought I delivered to her 28 years in the past.”

Angela Bell, a classics main and member of the Class of 1993, now the vice chancellor for analysis and coverage evaluation on the College System of Georgia, took programs in Roman satire and medieval Latin with Martin.

“Professor Martin was very keen about these subjects and her enthusiasm for them shone in her educating,” mentioned Bell. “Particularly, she ensured we received and loved the humor within the satire, and the medieval Latin course offered the chance to find out about ladies authors. Her excessive requirements pushed me to work laborious and deepen my essay responses on exams. Her feminist studying of Classical texts was influential as I carried out my unbiased work at Princeton and whilst I taught highschool Latin for a few years.”

Martin’s many contributions to the College group embrace a greater than a decade’s service on the manager committee of the Program in Medieval Research, in addition to serving as a founding member of the Ladies’s Research Committee and an related college member with the Program in Ladies’s Research (now the Program in Gender and Sexuality Research). She was additionally a longtime member of the American Philological Affiliation and the Classical Affiliation of the Atlantic States.

Martin is survived by her brother James, her sister Nancy, 5 nephews and two nieces.

People wishing to make a contribution in Martin’s reminiscence could ship them to Trinity Church Princeton or to Princeton College’s Program in Gender and Sexuality Research (make checks payable to “Princeton College” and notice within the memo line “Janet Martin memorial fund” and ship with a short cowl letter to Princeton College, Alumni and Donor Data, Helen Hardy, P.O. Field 5357, Princeton, NJ 08543-5357, or donate on-line — click on on the “in honor/reminiscence of” field and write within the “particular directions and feedback” area that the present is in reminiscence of Janet Martin).

View or share feedback on a memorial web page meant to honor Martin’s life and legacy.