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David Konstan

American classical philologist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ19972022 ↗
Source-derived summary

(Jay) David Konstan (November 1, 1940 – May 2, 2024) was an American classicist and academic, known for his work on notions of emotion and beauty in the ancient world, as well as others on Latin poetry, Epicurean philosophy, the Greek novel, ancient ideas of friendship, and other topics. A Professor of Classics at NYU, he previously spent three decades teaching at Brown University, where he was John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Classics and Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature.

Konstan received his B.A. (in mathematics), M.A., and Ph.D. (in Latin) degrees, all from Columbia University. In the Fall of 2016, Konstan was a Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala, Sweden.

Konstan died May 2, 2024, at the age of 83.

Bibliography

One of his books has been reviewed in The Wall Street Journal.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “David Konstan” as american classical philologist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1940, 2024, 2016—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1940-11-01, 1940-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where David, Konstan and American can be independently traced.
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Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american classical philologist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19972022. VIAF identifies the subject as 62698847. The Library of Congress control number is n82162161. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 2024 and 2016.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “David Konstan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.