Christopher S. Celenza

Professor Christopher S. Celenza is the James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. He is also a professor of history and classics.

Dr. Celenza was previously Dean of Georgetown College at Georgetown University, and a professor of history and classics. During his time at Georgetown he advanced many efforts to foster inclusion and equity, and developed a new undergraduate research program that improved opportunities for both students and assistant and associate professors.

Previous to his 2017 move to Georgetown, Dr. Celenza was Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Johns Hopkins, and held the Charles Homer Haskins Professorship in classics. He first joined the Krieger School faculty in 2005 as a professor in what was then the Department of German and Romance Languages. He also taught for nine years at Michigan State, and holds two doctoral degrees—a doctorate in history (Duke University, 1995) and a doctorate in classics and neo-latin literature (University of Hamburg, 2001).

Dr. Celenza has received numerous awards and grants, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. He served as the 21st Director of the American Academy in Rome from 2010 to 2014, and as the Director of JHU’s Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe from 2008 to 2010. He is the author or editor of 11 books and more than 40 scholarly articles in the fields of Italian renaissance history, post-classical latin literature and philosophy, and the history of classical scholarship.

He is the author or editor of 11 books and more than 40 scholarly articles in the fields of Italian Renaissance history, post-classical Latin literature and philosophy, and the history of classical scholarship. An Italian translation of his book The Lost Italian Renaissance was published in 2014. His most recent books include Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer (London: Reaktion, 2017) and The Intellectual World of the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). His latest book, The Italian Renaissance and the Origins of the Modern Humanities: An Intellectual History, 1400-1800 is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.