John Ma
Professor of Classics
Department CHAIR
(212) 854-5682
jtm2179@Columbia.edu
611 Hamilton Hall
Fall 2024 Office hours: TBA
Research Interests
Ancient history (especially hellenistic)
Greek epigraphy and Archaeology
John Ma joined the Department in 2015, after working at Corpus Christi College and the Faculty of Classics at Oxford for fifteen years. Before that, he worked in the Classicss Department at Princeton (during which period he lived in New York). He received a B.A. (Literae Humaniores) and D.Phil. (Ancient History) from Oxford University. His main interests lie in the history of the ancient Greek world and its broader context (including the ancient near-east). Within Greek history, he is particularly interested in the handling of epigraphical and archaeological evidence, historical geography, and the complexities of the Hellenistic world. His research tries to combine philological attentiveness (especially in the case of Greek inscriptions), interpretive awareness (for literary but also documentary evidence), groundedness in materiality and concrete space, and a feeling for legal, social and economic realities.
Selected Publications
Polis (2024).
Aršāma and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context (co-edited with C. J. Tuplin, 3 vols., 2021)
Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World (rev. ed. 2015).
"Reexamining Hannukah" July 2013.
Statues and Cities (2013)
"Chaironeia 338: Topographies of Commemoration", JHS 128 (2008), 72–91.
Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor (1999)
