David Frederick Grose was born in Kenyon, Minnesota in 1944, and he was educated in public schools before matriculating at St Olaf College in Northfield. After Grose’s graduation from St. Olaf he moved on to the Department of History at Harvard University where he completed a PhD program under the direction of Mason Hammond in 1975. From there he went to the University of Missouri as an assistant professor and museum curator for a year, then to the Toledo Museum of Art, before arriving at the Department of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1977. He stayed at UMass until his death in 2004, rising to the rank of professor and serving for eight years as department chair.
At UMass, Grose’s scholarly reputation as a leading authority on Hellenistic and early Roman glass rose quickly and was sealed for certain by his magisterial Early Ancient Glass (Toledo Museum of Art), published in 1989. David came to the subject of ancient glass before there were established methods for examining, identifying, and classifying glass fragments. His role in organizing the field is greatly appreciated by his fellow specialists in ancient glass, and his insights into the development of the industry for glass production in Augustan Italy are one of the foundations of the field as it currently exists.
His posthumous volume "The Hellenistic, Roman, and Medievel Glass from Cosa," edited by R. T. Scott, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2017. The David F. Grose Memorial Lecture was inaugurated in 2005 with the support and encouragement of Grose’s family, especially his brother Dr. Charles Grose of Iowa City, Iowa.
2021–2023
Verity Platt, Professor of Classics and History of Art at Cornell University
The Sentient Sponge: Between Natural History, Art History, and Philosophy
2021–2022
Dimitri Nakassis, University of Colorado Boulder
The most richly imagined fabrics of the past”: Breaking Categories and Reassembling Ancient World
2020–2021
Thomas Tartaron, University of Pennsylvania
Kalamianos: The Brief but Brilliant Life of a Mycenaean Harbor
2018–19
Russell T. Scott, Bryn Mawr College
David F. Grose and the Glass from Cosa
with remarks by Jason Moralee (UMass Amherst), Andrea De Giorgi (Florida State University), and Nora Donaghue (Florida State University)
2017–18
Patty Baker, University of Kent Canterbury
Salubrious Spaces: Gardens and Health in Roman Italy (c. 150 B.C.-A.D. 100)
2016–17
Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University
Defeat in the Arena
2015–16
Bonna Wescoat, Emory University
From the Vantage of the Victory: New Research on the Winged Victory of Samothrace
2014–15
Gregory Nagy, Harvard University
Song 17 of Sappho revisited (in the light of new supplements)
2013–14
Alan Shapiro, Johns Hopkins University
Orientalism and Greek Identity on a Masterpiece of Athenian Vase-Painting
2012–13
Christine Kondoleon, Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Playing with Eros: Riddles and Rhymes
2011–12
Margarita Gleba, University College London
The Fabric of Society: Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy
2010–11
William Harris, Columbia University
The Question of Literacy in the Classical World and Why It Matters
2009–10
John Oakley, College of William and Mary
Children in Wartime: Ancient Athens and Modern Europe
2008–09
David Anthony, Hardwick College
The Archaeology of Indo-European Origins
Joshua Katz, Princeton University
“An Indo-European Walks Into a Bar…” Reflections on Language, Culture, and Poetics
2007–08
Mary Boatwright, Duke University
Gendering the Roman Forum: The Puzzle of the Aedicula Faustinae
2006–07
Ian Morris, Stanford University
How the Good Life Got Better: Economic Growth in the First Millenium BCE
2005–06
Michael Parenti
Popular Struggle and the Assassination of Julius Caesar
2004–05
Sharon Herbert, University of Michigan
In search of the "Last of the Phoenicians": Excavations at Tel Anafa and Tel Kedesh