Herbert Golder


Herbert Alan Golder is an American academic, writer, and filmmaker. He is a Professor of Classical Studies and Professor in Cinema & Media Studies at Boston University, who specializes in Greek Drama, Myth Studies and Cinema. He is also Director and Editor-in-Chief of Arion, A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, published by Boston University, for which he has won the Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals and the Modern Language Association, as well as the Inaugural Scholarly Outreach Prize from the American Philological Association. He served as General Editor, along with William Arrowsmith, of The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, published by Oxford University Press. His own translations have been published and staged. He is currently translating the erotic fragments of Sappho.
He has also worked in film in different capacities, notably with Werner Herzog on ten films, features and documentaries, such as My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done, which he co-wrote and which was nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Golder's own most recent film, Ballad of a Righteous Merchant, which he wrote, directed, and produced, garnered him over 30 international awards and many nominations. His current project is L, a feature film, which he has written and will direct.

Education and Career

Herbert Golder was born in Philadelphia, PA, to Ruth and Mervyn Golder, President of the GB Goldman Paper Company. After graduating high school, he attended Boston University as a University Scholar, where was the protégé of William Arrowsmith, graduating summa cum laude in 1975. He went on to do graduate work in classics at Yale University, earning a M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D.. In between his last two degrees, he attended Oxford University as a visiting postgraduate student. He wrote a doctoral dissertation on Greek drama as a performance art entitled, Euripides’ Andromache: A Study in Theatrical Idea and Visual Meaning under the direction of C.J. Herington.
He was a Teaching Fellow and Instructor in Classics while completing his dissertation at Yale University and afterwards moved to Syracuse University as an Assistant Professor of Classics. In 1985, he joined the classics department at Emory University and in 1988 moved onto Boston University, where he became an Associate Professor in 1993 and a Full Professor in 2004. In 1990, he relaunched the journal Arion, A Journal of Humanities and the Classics that explores the links between the classics and living culture, which had been founded in 1962 at the University of Texas at Austin by his mentor, William Arrowsmith, and which had been defunct for thirteen years. In 2014, he also assumed the role of Professor in Cinema & Media Studies.
An interest in cinema coeval with his interest in classics, arising from his conviction that if Sophocles or Homer were alive today, they would be filmmakers, working in the most powerful myth-making medium was possess, led to a chance encounter with Werner Herzog in 1988. After a brief discussion about Greek drama, Herzog told Golder he should work in film with him and they started working together that day. Over the years, Golder has worked with Herzog, writing, producing and assistant directing, even appearing as an actor in one of his feature films, Invincible (2001). Golder chronicled their working relationship in a documentary film, entitled, Ballad of a Righteous Merchant, which was shot during the making of My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, a feature film which he co-wrote with Herzog.

Selected Academic Works

The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor,.Arion, A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, Director and Editor-in-Chief,.David Strauss, Writer and Confessor, in Unmodern Observations of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. William Arrowsmith, 1–72.Euripides’ The Bacchae, Applause Books, 2001.Sophocles’ Aias , Oxford University Press, 1999.The Complete Euripides, Volume IV: Bacchae and Other Plays, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2009.The Complete Aeschylus, Volume II: Persians and Other Plays, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2009.The Complete Euripides, Volume III: Hippolytos and Other Plays, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2010.The Complete Sophocles, Volume II: Electra and Other Plays, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2010.The Complete Euripides, Volume II: Electra and Other Plays, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2010.The Complete Euripides, Volume I: Trojan Women and Other Plays, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2010.The Complete Sophocles, Volume I: ''The Theban Plays, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2011.The Complete Aeschylus, Volume I: The Oresteia, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2011.The Complete Euripides, Volume V: Medea and Other Plays, The Greek Tragedy in New Translations, General Editor; Oxford University Press, 2011.Euripides’ Cyclops'', Arion, 2024.

Selected Film Works

Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Assistant Director to Werner Herzog, Archival Research, and Post-Production Supervision