John A. Scott (philologist)

John A. Scott (born September 15, 1867 in Fletcher, Illinois , † October 27, 1947 in Augusta, Michigan ) was an American classical philologist who taught from 1897 to 1938 at Northwestern University .

Life

John Adams Scott, the son of a farmer, studied at Northwestern University , where he received his bachelor's degree in 1891 . He then deepened his studies at Johns Hopkins University with Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve , at whose suggestion he also traveled to Germany and attended courses at the universities of Göttingen and Munich . In 1897 he was at Gildersleeve with a comparative thesis on the poet Hesiod and Pindar doctorate .

From 1897 Scott worked as an Instructor of Greek at Northwestern University, where he worked together with Omera Floyd Long at the Department of Classics . Scott was appointed associate professor in 1898 and head of the Department of Classics and full professor in 1904 . After all, he was the John C. Shaffer Professor of Greek from 1923 to 1938 . In 1916 he received an honorary doctorate from Illinois College .

In 1916/1917 Scott was President of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South , 1918/1919 President of the American Philological Association , 1920/1921 Sather Professor , 1926/1927 advisor to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens , 1929 Martin Lecturer at Oberlin College .

John A. Scott was Associate Editor of Classical Philology from 1909 to 1933 , with Paul Shorey . Both polemicized against German (“Teutonic”) ancient studies, which had had a great influence in the USA since the middle of the 19th century.

Scott's main research areas were the Homeric epics. A staunch advocate of Unitarianism , he summed up his views (influenced in part by Paul Shorey) in his Sather Lecture at Berkeley (1921).

Fonts (selection)

• The Unity of Homer . Berkeley 1921 (Sather Lectures 1)
• Socrates and Christ . Evanston (Illinois) 1929
• Luke, Greek Physician and Historian . Evanston (Illinois) 1930
• The Poetic Structure of the Odyssey . Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1931 (Martin Classical Lectures)
• We would know Jesus . New York 1936

literature

• E. Christian Kopff : Scott, John Adams . In: Ward W. Briggs (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists. Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. 1994, ISBN 0-313-24560-6 , pp. 572f.

Web links

• Entry on John A. Scott in the Database of Classical Scholars (English)