One of Florida State University’s most esteemed faculty members in the humanities has been recognized for a lifetime of scholarly excellence.

Francis Cairns, center, signing the “Sponsio Academia” or academic promise — an oath taken by students matriculating into the four ancient Scottish universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Aberdeen and Glasgow — is pictured with University of Edinburgh Principal and Vice Chancellor Sir Timothy O’Shea, left, and Professor Alvin Jackson, right.

Professor of Classics Francis Cairns was recently presented with an
 honorary doctor of letters
 degree from the University 
of Edinburgh (Scotland). The
 citation recognized Cairns’ 
interpretation of Late
 Republican and Augustan
 Latin poetry, which is his
 major research field. The
1972 publication of Cairns’
 monograph “Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry” is credited with revolutionizing Latin studies around the world.

"I felt particularly honored to receive the degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Edinburgh in recognition of my research and publications for two reasons," Cairns said. "First, the University of Edinburgh is a highly prestigious research institution which was recently ranked 17th in the entire world. Second, I began my teaching career in classics at the University of Edinburgh, and I regard the honorary degree very much as a tribute to those departmental colleagues who mentored my earliest researches there."

Cairns was educated at Glasgow University (M.A., Classics, 1961); Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., M.A., Literae Humaniores, 1963-1968, as well as Snell Exhibitioner and Ferguson Scholar; and Liverpool University (Ph.D., 1982).

From a Lectureship in Humanity (Latin) at the University of Edinburgh (1963-1973), he moved in 1974 to the Chair and Headship of Latin at the University of Liverpool. While there, he was also at various times Honorary Research Fellow in Classics at Birkbeck College London, Fellow of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, Visiting Professor in the Seminar für Mittellatein, Freie Universität Berlin, and Professore à contratto in the Università di Bologna.

In October 1968, Cairns moved to the Chair of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Leeds, where he was chairman of the School of Classics from 1989 to 1993. He had already established at Liverpool the Liverpool Latin Seminar (2001-present), and he edited (alone or jointly) 14 of the 15 volumes of Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar/Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar, which appeared over that period.

Cairns is also Joint General Editor of the series “ARCA Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs,” of which 51 volumes are now in print, and of the series “Latin and Greek Texts,” with eight volumes in print. He has held a number of named lectureships — as Inaugural Lecturer at University College Dublin, Dill Memorial Lecturer at Queens University Belfast, and James Loeb Lecturer at Harvard University — and has presented papers at conferences and universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Cyprus and Greece.

In 1999, Cairns was named Armstrong Distinguished Visiting Professor of Classics at the University of Texas in Austin, and in that year he became Research Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Leeds. In 2000, he moved to his present position as Professor of Classics at Florida State University.

Cairns’ major research field is Republican and Augustan Latin poetry and its Greek predecessors; he also has research interests and publications in the history and epigraphy of Euboea (Greece), in medieval and Renaissance Latin, and in computing and the humanities. In addition to holding research posts abroad, Cairns has lectured extensively in Europe, Canada and the United States, as well as in Britain. He was formerly a member of the British Medieval Latin Dictionary Committee, and is currently Socio corrispondente dell’Accademia Properziana del Subasio-Assisi, a member of Comitato del Certamen Horatianum; and serves on the editorial boards of various periodicals, including Quademi Urbinati di Cultura Classica (Italy), Res Publica Litterarum (United States and Italy), Emerita (Spain), Latomus (Belgium), Paideia (Italy) and Athenaeum (Italy).

Cairns’ publications include four monographs: Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh, 1972), Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge, 1979), Virgil’s Augustan Elegist (Cambridge, 1989) and Sextus Propertius: The Augustan Elegist (Cambridge, 2006). In addition, he has published more than 130 papers and book chapters on Greek and Latin poetry, medieval and Renaissance Latin, and Greek history and epigraphy.