MAJOR GENERAL JAMES B. KNAPP, USAF (Ret.), a West Point graduate and career Air Force officer, gained a place in history as the chief negotiator at the armistice talks between North Korea and South Korea in 1969. A highly decorated pilot and commander during World War II, he later served with the Strategic Air Command. General Knapp died soon after this deanship was endowed by his son in his honor.
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James B. Knapp Deanship of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Established in 1999 by J. Barclay Knapp in honor of his father
Held by Christopher S. Celenza
CHRISTOPHER S. CELENZA, PH.D., DR. PHIL., is the James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. He is also a professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.
Dr. Celenza was previously Dean of Georgetown College at Georgetown University, and a professor of history and classics. During his time at Georgetown he advanced many efforts to foster inclusion and equity, and developed a new undergraduate research program that improved opportunities for both students and assistant and associate professors.
Prior to his 2017 move to Georgetown, Dr. Celenza was Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Johns Hopkins, and held the Charles Homer Haskins Professorship in classics. He first joined the Krieger School faculty in 2005 as a professor in what was then the Department of German and Romance Languages. He also taught for nine years at Michigan State, and holds two doctoral degrees—a doctorate in history (Duke University, 1995) and a doctorate in classics and neo-Latin literature (University of Hamburg, 2001).
Dr. Celenza has received numerous awards and grants, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. He served as the 21st Director of the American Academy in Rome from 2010 to 2014, and as the Director of JHU’s Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe from 2008 to 2010. He is the author or editor of 11 books and more than 40 scholarly articles in the fields of Italian renaissance history, post-classical Latin literature and philosophy, and the history of classical scholarship.