"Intellectual
Curiosity, Paideia”
Hullo! I’m
Dr. Stephen Chappell
What drives me?
Intellectual curiosity and the joy of unveiling the past for others through beautiful locations,
texts that enrich the human condition and clear analysis of historical trends have driven my
life. My academic training and career feed into my continuing desire to share the past with a
wider audience comprised not only of students but also of interested, educated and engaged
adults. Historical and cultural literacy broaden our minds and help overcome the artificial
barriers that society and political boundaries erect and make us better citizens. Paideia, an
ancient Greek concept, is the education of the whole human being. It serves as the key tenet
of my professional and academic philosophy.
My Degrees
- B.A. in Classics, UCLA
- M.A. in Classics, UCSB
- Ph.D. in Ancient History, UCLA
Formation
I grew up in the beautiful, historic city of York in the 1970s and early ’80s surrounded by
impressive old buildings and remains and during an exciting time for archaeological
discoveries. Family stories from my lively, self-taught grandmother, especially of her
experiences in the World Wars, gave an early impetus to my lifelong fascination with the
past. Excellent teachers at Nunthorpe Grammar School imbued me with a deep love of
learning, especially history and languages. At sixteen, enabled by my war bride aunt, my
parents emigrated to Southern California. Amidst the palm trees I learned ancient Greek –
and had a go at ancient Armenian too for fun – and pursued degrees in the Classics and
Ancient History. UCSB and UCLA made wonderful contributions to my intellectual
formation and confirmed my deep desire to become a professor. Influenced by my
grandmother and by Paideia, this meant my becoming an intellectual and a man of culture as
well as a professional scholar and teacher.
Academic Career
After my doctorate in Roman History (with a dissertation on Roman Transylvania) from
UCLA in 2005, I pursued my early career as a lecturer teaching in California, Ohio and
Virginia before landing in the Shenandoah Valley as the Assistant, then Associate Professor
of Ancient History at James Madison University. Teaching was the especial love of my
vocation. In fifteen years at the university, I created fourteen new courses, including courses
on Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Northern English Literature and a broadly construed treatment
of the Ancient Mediterranean. I tried always to create dynamic classes in which students felt
encouraged to engage with the material and each other. This class atmosphere encouraged a
deep understanding and appreciation of the content and importance of the ancient world
realising the idea of Paideia. Mentoring students and reviving the Classics programme gave
me especial pleasure. Many of those students have remained in contact, years and even
decades later to my enduring delight. In September 2022, I took early retirement and
returned to the UK, thirty-five years after leaving my homeland.
Study Abroad
In 1998, I had my first taste of the study abroad experience as teaching assistant of the UCLA
Rome program. Though challenging at times, it was a deeply fulfilling experience. I gave
my first lectures and short talks at the sites, on one occasion having to project above the
roaring traffic of the Via dei Cerchi at the Circus Maximus. My two years in this role made
me fall in love with the study abroad experience and gave me a passion to share with students
other countries and the past, that “other country” as L.P. Hartley put it. With tenure behind
me, I returned to Study Abroad as soon as I could and created my North of England
Programme which covered a very broad period from the Palaeolithic to Tony Blair! The
original cities of Chester, York and Durham formed a nucleus to which I added and
subtracted others, such as Ripon, Manchester and Carlisle. Adding a literature course and
author’s homes (Gaskell, Bronte, Wordsworth) drew on my life-long hobby of reading
literature. The programme ran from 2014 to 2022 except during the two Covid summers of
2020-21. In 2017 I co-taught a programme on Ancient Greece based in Athens and Aegean
islands with a mathematician colleague. The antique fascination of Greece drew me back to
create my own Greece programme which, long deferred by Covid, finally launched in 2022.
The mainland and Crete allowed us to look at the whole period of Greek History from
Ancient to Modern. Phaistos, Delphi and the ancient Macedonian capital of Aegae were
particular highlights. My experience with Study Abroad was that by engaging with Paideia
students could not only understand the locations through study, but also through personal
experience.
