James Dee received his A.B. in Comparative Literature (Honors) from the University of Rochester and his Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Texas. He was on the faculty of the Classics Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1972 to 1999, serving as department chair for eight years. His current status is Visiting Researcher-Scholar in Classics. He has held two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships for Research and has published nine reference works (six in Homeric studies), along with three dozen articles and reviews.