Robert Frakes


Robert Martin Frakes is an American classics scholar. He is the dean of the School of Arts & Humanities at California State University, Bakersfield, where he is also a professor of history. His research concerns "political, legal, and religious history in the later Roman Empire".

Education and career

Frakes grew up in Santa Barbara, California, where he became interested in classics through the mentorship of Vernon P. Ziolkowski.
He is a 1984 graduate of Stanford University. After earning a master's degree and teaching certifications in Latin and Social Science through the Stanford Teacher Education Program, he completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1991. His dissertation was Audience and meaning in the "Res gestae" of Ammianus Marcellinus, supervised by Harold A. Drake.
From 1991 until 2017, Frakes was a faculty member in history at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. During this time, he was also a Humboldt Research Fellow, visiting the Leopold Wenger Institute for Ancient Legal History and Papyrus Research at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. At Clarion, he became chair of the Department of Social Sciences.
In 2017, he moved to California State University, Bakersfield as dean of the School of Arts & Humanities and professor of history.

Personal life

Frakes is married to Susan Frakes, a bookbinder.
He is the son of historian George E. Frakes and teacher and librarian Catherine Rose Kay Davies Frakes. Like Frakes, both of his parents were educated at Stanford University.

Books

Frakes is the author or editor of several books on ancient history, as well as a college writing textbook. They include: