Kurt Raaflaub

Kurt Arnold Raaflaub (15 February 1941 – 12 September 2023) was a Swiss historian and Emeritus Professor of Classics and History at Brown University, where he taught Greek and Roman history. He was the brother of conductor Beat Raaflaub.

Life and career

Raaflaub was born to Fritz Raaflaub and Heidi Ninck in 1941 in Cameroon where his father worked as a teacher and missionary. After returning to his Swiss hometown Basel, he graduated from the University of Basel in 1970 and was first employed at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. In 1978 he became a professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, remaining in this position until his retirement in 2009. Raaflaub was married to Deborah Boedeker; they co-directed the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C.

In 2004, Kurt Raaflaub received the James Henry Breasted Prize, from the American Historical Association, for his book, The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece, published earlier that year.^[1][2]

Raaflaub died on 12 September 2023, at the age of 82.^[3]