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Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz
Overview
Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz is a long-serving Hamilton College professor of Classics and Comparative Literature who joined the faculty in 1974 as an Assistant Professor of Literature at Kirkland College. A feminist classical scholar specializing in gender and sexuality in ancient Greek tragedy, she has been central to both the Kirkland era and the merged Hamilton College for over five decades. She holds the Margaret Bundy Scott Professorship in Comparative Literature.
Relevance to Research
Rabinowitz appears in 61 corpus files spanning from 1974 through the 2024–25 course catalog, making her one of the most continuously documented faculty members in the corpus. She was present at Kirkland College from its early years, participated in the Kirkland governance debates of the mid-1970s, was among the Entebbe hostages in 1976, and remained active in scholarship and teaching well into the 2020s. Her career spans the Kirkland era, the 1978 merger, and the full coeducational period of Hamilton College.
Notes
Role: Professor of Comparative Literature (and formerly Literature); Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of Comparative Literature Key events:
- A.B., City College of the University of New York; Ph.D., University of Chicago
- Joined Kirkland College faculty as Assistant Professor of Literature in 1974
- June–July 1976: Held hostage during the Air France Flight 139 hijacking that ended with the Entebbe raid; she and husband/colleague Peter Rabinowitz were among 258 passengers diverted to Uganda; released before the Israeli commando raid; recounted the experience to The Spectator (September 1976)
- November 1975: Named to a Kirkland Humanities Division committee reviewing the Jewish Studies program (with Peter Marcy and Ellen O’Brien); the committee recommended discontinuing the concentration while preserving Judaica course offerings
- Participated in Kirkland governance and curricular discussions throughout the mid-1970s
- Remained on faculty through the 1978 Hamilton–Kirkland merger and subsequent decades
- Holds the named Margaret Bundy Scott Professorship in Comparative Literature
- Still listed as faculty in the 2024–25 Hamilton course catalog (joining year 1974)
Corpus highlights: - November 1975 (spec-1975-11-14): Identified as “Kirkland Assistant Professor of Literature Nancy Rabinowitz” serving on the Humanities Division committee reviewing the Jewish Studies program - December 1975 (spec-1975-12-05): Named as a member of the panel that recommended discontinuing the Jewish Studies concentration at Kirkland - September 1976 (spec-1976-09-17): Extensive first-person account of the Entebbe hijacking; she and Peter Rabinowitz describe the experience as passengers on Air France Flight 139 - 1974–75 catalog (yhm-arc-pub-cat-1974-75): Listed as Assistant Professor of Literature at Kirkland - 2005–06 catalog (yhm-arc-pub-cat-2005-06): Listed as “Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of Comparative Literature,” joining year 1974; A.B., City College; Ph.D., University of Chicago - 2024–25 catalog (yhm-arc-pub-cat-2024-25): Still listed as faculty
Related Sources
No individual source pages yet in wiki/sources/ for the Spectator 1975–1976 issues.
Related Topics
- Coeducation and Kirkland College
- Hamilton–Kirkland Merger, 1978
- Curriculum and Academic Departments
- Student Publications at Hamilton