David Butterfield, Professor of Latin and the Provost of Ralston College, Savannah Georgia, will deliver the 24th Fowler Lecture, continuing the tradition of honouring the memory of former Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus, Don Fowler. Professor Butterfield will speak to the title 'Lecretius' Lost Life' in the lecture theatre of the Stelios Ioannou Classics Centre, 66 St Giles, Oxford at 5pm on Thursday 7th May 2026.
Professor Butterfield took his BA, MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, and works primarily on Latin literature, particularly poetry of the Late Republic and Augustan periods. He is an expert on the transmission of knowledge and literature from antiquity to the modern world, and in addition of Greek and Latin literature, prose and verse composition, and textual criticism he has taught palaeography and codicology, the history of the book, the evolution of the Latin language, and the history of scholarship. His publications include Varro Varius: The Polymath of the Roman World (2015), The Early Textual History of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (2013), A E Housman: Classical Scholar (2009), and 10,000 Not Out: A History of the Spectator 1828-2020 (2020).
Before joining Ralston College in 2023 Professor Butterfield spent two decades at the University of Cambridge as a student and University Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Classics, as well as a Fellow of Christ's College (2008-11) and Queens' College (2011-23) where he was Director of Studies in Classics, Praelector and Archivist. He is a Senior Fellow at the Pharos Foundation, Literary Editor of The Critic, Contributing Editor of The Spectator, and Editor-in-Chief of the online Classics magazine Antigone
Attendance is free to all, and the audience is invited to drinks afterwards in the Classics Centre. Those who wish to apply may join the speaker for dinner at 7:15pm in Jesus College (3 courses with wine, at a cost of £60): please email armand.dangour@jesus.ox.ac.uk
