Professor Fisher was a productive and impactful scholar, cherished and devoted colleague and administrator, and dedicated and masterful teacher. She held an AB (1966) from Northwestern University and an MA (1971) and PhD (1972) in Classical Philology from Harvard University. After teaching at the University of Minnesota and briefly at Georgetown University, she joined George Washington University as an assistant professor of classics in 1978, earned tenure in 1983, and became a full professor in 2001. Upon her retirement in 2020, she was elevated to professor emerita. Thus, Prof. Fisher served on the faculty at GW for 42 years. Prof. Fisher was also a longstanding chair of our department, steering what is today the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (CNELC) for some 18 years, first as acting chair from 1985–86 and then as chair from 1988–2005. After her time as chair, Prof. Fisher also served as coordinator of our Program in Classical Studies for another 14 years, from 2005–2019.
Prof. Fisher’s research focused on the survival, reception, and reinterpretation of classical literature through translation and imitation, especially in the medieval Greek literary tradition of Byzantium. She was awarded fellowships by The Center for Hellenic Studies and Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies and published multiple monographs on the Greek text of orations on holy subjects by the 11th-century Byzantine polymath Michael Psellos, translating some of the orations with annotations as well. In addition, Prof. Fisher authored scores of refereed academic articles, a number of which focus on the theory and practice of translation in the late antique and Byzantine worlds.
At GW, Prof. Fisher taught courses on Greek and Latin language at all levels, ancient literature in translation, and ancient culture, including Mythology of the Classical World, Greek and Roman Drama, and Medical Terminology from Greek and Latin. She was a talented pedagogue with a consummate sense of timing who crafted active learning experiences for her devoted students. Prof. Fisher also brought her own scholarship into the classroom, whether it was in the areas of her expertise in ancient Greek and Byzantine studies or her own experiences as a translator of a foreign language into English: a Greek word would appear on the board during Latin to provide broader linguistic, historical, and cultural context to something in the Latin text of the day; the Oxford Latin Dictionary was hauled into class for several consultations and discussions of the wide variety of meanings that one Latin word could have and to demonstrate the verbal gymnastics required to capture the multiple, intended meanings in an English translation; and an experience with editing a manuscript for publication might be shared to encourage beleaguered students who were being required to revise their papers (again).
Prof. Fisher’s contributions will certainly live on—in her scholarship; in our thriving CNELC department and well-subscribed Program in Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies; and in the students who partake in one of her most innovative contributions: an undergraduate internship in Latin pedagogy that Prof. Fisher founded and directed with her cherished colleague at School Without Walls, about which Prof. Fisher published an article that is now used by other institutions seeking to replicate this model program, and which has continued beyond her retirement and promises to proliferate her pedagogical forte for years to come.
Written by Professor Elise A. Friedland.