Phi Beta Kappa President To Deliver Albaugh Lecture Feb. 6

Dr. Niall Slater, president of Phi Beta Kappa honor society and professor of classics at Emory University, will deliver the annual Roy B. Albaugh lecture at 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, in the Treasure Room at Armstrong Browning Library. The lecture, "Empire and Legitimacy: Nero's Cultural Politics," is free and open to the public.
With areas of interest in ancient theater and the archeology of the theater, and the ancient novel, Slater was valedictorian of his class at Wooster University and received his doctorate from Princeton University. He also was a James Rignall Wheeler Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Prior to his arrival at Emory, Slater held teaching posts as the University of Southern California and at Concordia College. He previously served at chair of the classics department at Emory and currently is director of the Center of Language, Literature and Culture. He is the author of "Plautus in Performance: The Theatre of the Mind" and "Reading Petronius" as well as numerous articles. He was named president of Phi Beta Kappa in August 2003.
The Roy B. Albaugh Phi Beta Kappa Lectureship was endowed in the late 1970s by Mrs. Oma Buchanan Albaugh in memory of her late husband, a Waco business and civic leader. Previous Albaugh speakers have included John Updike, Stephen J. Gould, Stanley Hauerwas and Liz Carpenter.