John Tennant

John Tennant is a Lecturer in Ancient Greek and Latin and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at Stanford University’s Classics Department. His research concerns the transmission of cultural wisdom in Greek prose and poetry and how this transmission was called into question in the late fifth century BCE. John explores how proverbs, aphorisms, and other rhetorical commonplaces become particularly important at times when discourse breaks down and language itself becomes an object of mistrust. His current book project, Plato’s Proverbs: The Reformation of Discourse in Plato’s Republic, offers a new way of reading Plato, based upon the previously unexplored role that proverbs and quotation play in creating a more just state. Related to John’s interest in the breakdown of discourse is a focus on instances of “failure,” particularly with respect to performance in ancient literature, such as Pindar’s numerous false starts and self-corrections. John’s second book project will explore more broadly the dynamic of failure in ancient literary performance. All of John's work and teaching seeks to integrate the larger body of world literature with the classical canon so as to allow texts from both the ancient and modern worlds to illuminate and reflect back onto one another. John received his PhD in Classics from the University of California, Los Angeles (2019) and his MA in Classics from Stanford University (2013). Prior to becoming a classicist, John was a union-side labor lawyer, having received his J.D. from Harvard Law School (1989).