B.A., M.A. (Classics), University of Hawaii, 1982, 1984
Ph.D. (Classics), University of California-Los Angeles, 1990

Steve Reece grew up in the town of Niigata on the west coast of Northern Japan. He taught at UCLA, Texas A&M University, and Vanderbilt University (Mellon Fellow) before coming to St. Olaf. He has published a wide variety of articles and book chapters on Homeric studies, New Testament studies, comparative oral traditions, historical linguistics, and pedagogy; he is also the author of a book about the rituals of ancient Greek hospitality entitled The Stranger's Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of the Homeric Hospitality Scene (University of Michigan Press).  He has just completed a monograph on early Greek etymology entitled Homer's Winged Words: Junctural Metanalysis in Homer in the Light of Oral-Formulaic Theory, for which he received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship; he is beginning a project on classical allusions in the New Testament, for which he received a FaCE grant through the Associated Colleges of the Midwest.

Reece has done research at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Lord Fellowship), the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at the University of Missouri (NEH Fellowship), the American Academy in Rome (Fulbright Fellowship), and the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C.  He has lectured broadly, is called on frequently to act as referee for professional journals and university presses, and has been a consultant for IBM, E.J. Brill Press, and the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition.  He has also served a term as President of the Classical Association of Minnesota.

In his spare time Reece is a hopeful fisherman, a "wannabee" basketball player, and an indolent bike-rider.

Besides being able tospeak Japanese witha Tennessee accent, his greatest claims to fame are having climbed a dozen active volcanoes and having served as a consultant for the Hollywood production of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures.

He is married to Rhonda, Minister of Music at Bethel Lutheran Church in Northfield; they have a son Taylor, a 2009 graduate of St. Olaf College, and a daughter Hannah, a sophomore at Pacific Lutheran University.

Courses in 2009-2010: Semester I = Greek 231 (Intermediate Greek), Latin 111A (Beginning Latin I); Interim = Classics 251 (Classical Studies in Greece); Semester II = Classics 243 (Golden Age of Greece), Greek 253 (New Testament Greek), Latin 112A (Beginning Latin II)