Gordon Jennings Laing

Gordon Jennings Laing ( born October 16, 1869 in London ( Ontario), † September 1, 1945 in Lake Zurich ) was an American classical scholar, who worked as a professor at the University of Chicago from 1899 to 1935.

Life

Gordon Jennings Laing was born in Canada. He studied at the University of Toronto where he earned undergraduate degrees in 1891. He then furthered his studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in Basil Gildersleeve Lanneau and Minton Warren and was in 1896 received his doctorate with a thesis on The Genitive of Value in Latin and Other Constructions with Verbs of Rating. From 1897 to 1899 he worked as a Latin professor at Bryn Mawr College. In 1899 he moved to the University of Chicago, where he was appointed professor later. From 1911 to 1912 he worked at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, in the year 1916/1917 he was Sather Professor. From 1919 he was head of the classical languages ​​department at the university. In 1921 he moved to McGill University, where he was also Dean of the Faculty of Arts. In 1923, he returned to Chicago, where he remained until his retirement (1935 ).

In addition to the academic teaching and his research Laing participated in the academic administration of the University of Chicago share (1931-1935 Dean of the Division of Humanities, Dean Alumni 1940-1943 ) and was a leading member in Classical Studies associations. From 1919 to 1920 he was chairman of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, and from 1924 to 1925 chairman of the American Philological Association. From 1905 to 1908 he was Managing Editor of the Classical Journal, from 1905 to 1921 and from 1923 until his death, co-editor of Classical Philology.

Laing's research focused on the Roman literature of all periods, particularly the poet Catullus, Horace, and Ovid. In addition to his dissertation, which was published in Chicago in 1920, he published numerous articles in magazines and Classical Philology Classical Journal.