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N. Gregson G. Davis is Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities in Classical Studies. He has an additional appointment in the Literature Program. Davis’s research focuses on Latin literature of the late Roman Republic; he also has done scholarship on contemporary Caribbean poets, including Nobel Prize laureate Derek Walcott.

A native of St. John’s, Antigua, Davis has a AB (magna cum laude) in classics from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley. He was Latin Orator at Harvard’s 1960 commencement exercises and won the Bowdoin Prize for undergraduate Latin translation. Davis taught at Stanford and Cornell before coming to Duke in 1993. His books include Aimé Césaire (Cambridge 1997), a study of the francophone Martinican poet-playwright-politician; and Polyhymnia: The Rhetoric of Horatian Lyric Discourse (Berkeley 1984).

Davis was a member of the provost’s search committee, has served on the Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure Committee, and has directed the Duke in Venice Summer Study Abroad Program. He also served on the provost's Task Force for Faculty Diversity.

102 Allen Building
Box 90029
Durham North Carolina 27708
gdav@duke.edu
Phone: (919) 684-6811
Fax: (919) 668-2729