The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences has announced that Jon Solomon, a professor of classics and the Robert D. Novak Chair of Western Civilization & Culture, will give the 2025 Dean’s Distinguished Lecture on March 4. The annual Dean’s Distinguished Lecture is an opportunity for the campus community to hear engaging, accessible presentations from some of the college’s most accomplished faculty members.  

“There is an incredible spectrum of research and scholarship taking place across the College of LAS. This annual lecture is an opportunity for our diverse community to learn from one of the outstanding faculty members whose work expands our understanding of the world and our place within it,” said Venetria K. Patton, the Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of LAS.   

Solomon, who has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois for nearly 20 years, has wide-ranging scholarly interests, from classical philology to medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque adaptations of the classics to contemporary cinema. He has published on Greek poetry, Roman cookery, The Three Stooges, Ben-Hur, and the classical tradition in opera and is currently working on the second and third volumes of his translation of Boccaccio's “Genealogy of the Pagan Gods.”  

“Jon is an outstanding scholar and a master teacher,” said Antony Augoustakis, LAS associate dean for the humanities. “He teaches both Greek and Roman Mythology and Greco-Roman Antiquity and US Minority Cultures, both blockbuster LAS courses with hundreds of students enrolled every semester. Through these and other courses, Jon has had an impact on thousands of students during his time at Illinois.”  

More information on the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture series, including recordings of past talks, is available on the LAS website. Additional details on the event will be shared early in 2025.