Rate My Professor Paul Christesen

Paul Christesen is the William R. Kenan Professor of Ancient Greek History in Dartmouth College’s Department of Classics, a position he has held since 2016. He joined the Dartmouth faculty as an assistant professor in 2001, advancing to associate professor in 2007 and full professor in 2012. Christesen, a Dartmouth alumnus, earned his A.B. in History and Classical Studies from the college in 1988 and his Ph.D. in Classical Studies from Columbia University in 2001, with a dissertation on society and economy in Archaic and Classical Greece. He is also a Life Fellow of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, since 2017.

Christesen’s scholarship focuses on ancient Greek history, especially Sparta; sport history, including the ancient Olympics; the connections between sport and political systems; and Geographic Information Systems applications to archaeological data and settlement organization. His major monographs are Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds (Cambridge University Press, 2012). He has co-edited key volumes including A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity with Donald G. Kyle (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), How to Do Things with History with Danielle Allen and Paul Millett (Oxford University Press, 2018), and The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Sport in Antiquity with Charles Stocking (Bloomsbury, 2021). Ongoing projects include co-editing The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World with Paul Cartledge, with several volumes published or forthcoming, and co-authoring Spartan Origins. Christesen has authored over 30 articles, such as “Herodotus 9.85 and Spartan Burial Customs” (Classica et Mediaevalia, 2020) and “Athletics and Social Order in Sparta in the Classical Period” (Classical Antiquity, 2012). His honors include the 2025 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2022 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship from Aarhus University, Leventis Foundation Fellowships (2018-2019 and 2020), and the 2006 New Hampshire Professor of the Year award from CASE and the Carnegie Foundation. He regularly serves on Dartmouth’s faculty hiring committees.