David M. Weeks, PhD

Editor, lexicographer, linguist

Telephone: 413.863.5188
E-mail: d_weeks@sonic.net
WWW: http://www.sonic.net/~dweeks/work/

PROFILE

Industry-experienced editor and translator with wide-ranging interests in technology, science, and humanities. PhD in philology; world-class command of English grammar, spelling, and style. Reads numerous ancient and modern languages.

Proficient technical writer, familiar with computer applications, operating systems, and networking. Comfortable working with both engineers and managers; organizes and communicates complex material clearly to readers at all levels.

KEY SKILLS

EXPERIENCE

Editing and publishing:

Senior Editor and research consultant, Houghton Mifflin Company (Reference Division)

• Etymologies and general editing on American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition and College, Student, Concise, and paperback dictionaries. Revised and restructured Indo-European roots appendix; supervised work of outside contributors. Thoroughly revised affixes and nautical terminology. Created new tables and illustrations. Developed style guides and contributed to design of SGML DTD. Answered correspondence from readers; made radio and television appearances for publicity.
• Senior Contributing Editor, Concise American Heritage Larousse Spanish Dictionary.
• Wrote manuscript and supervised art selection for American Heritage First Dictionary.
• Research and consulting for Word Mysteries and Histories.

Editorial contributor, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

• Researched and edited etymologies and consulted on American English for Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary.
• Worked remotely from California and on site in London.

Lexicographer:

• Authored articles on the American language (see PUBLICATIONS AND APPEARANCES, below).

Copyeditor:

• Berghahn Books, New York
• Johns Hopkins University Press (German Studies Review, Journal of the History of Philosophy)
• Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies
• Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
• jTEI: Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative
• Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies

Technical writing:

Documentation specialist for software companies in California

SYSTEMS AND TOOLS

PC/Windows: (Windows 9x–Win7) — applications, system configuration, registry, MS Office macro programming

UNIX/Linux: (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Fedora, SuSE) — administration, utilities, shell scripting, virtualization

Internet: communications, e-mail, ftp, telnet/ssh, VPN, networking and security

Software tools:

Copyeditor, Facing Crisis: Art as Politics in Fourteenth-Century Venice, by Stefania Gerevini. Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 2024.

Translator, Literary Politics in Antiquity: Studies on Cicero, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, by Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. (Translated from German.)

Copyeditor, A Commentary on The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition, by Andy Orchard. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2021.

Copyeditor, The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity, by Jan M. Ziolkowski. 6 vols., OpenBook Publishers, 2018.

Translator, From the Steppes to the Sea: Indo-European and the “Indo-Europeans,” by André Martinet. In preparation.

Appeared on “The World,” NPR, April 2004.

“Communications: From Snail Mail to Email,” “Cyberspace: I Hear America Clicking,” “Transportation: Hitchin’ a Ride,” all in Speaking Freely, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Translator, Jung: A Biography, by Gerhard Wehr. Shambhala Press, 1987. (Translated from German).

Translator of articles for the Encyclopedia of Religion. Macmillan Company, 1985-1986. (Translations from French.)

Editor (with Jaan Puhvel) and translator, The Plight of a Sorcerer, by Georges Dumézil. University of California Press, 1986. (Translated from French.)

Translator, The Stakes of the Warrior, by Georges Dumézil. University of California Press, 1983. (Translated from French, with passages from Old Norse, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit.) Designed and executed dust-jacket art.

EDUCATION

University of California, Los Angeles. PhD in Indo-European Studies. Dissertation: Hittite Vocabulary. Nominated for Junior Fellowship, Harvard University. Teaching assistant in sociology.

University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistic Anthropology and Sociology. Studies in sociology, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology; Old English, Old Norse.

Hampshire College, Amherst, Mass. Studies in linguistics and sociology.

Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Mass. Prize in Spanish.

LANGUAGES

Reading knowledge of French, Spanish, German. Working knowledge of Italian, Latin, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, Icelandic, Russian, and others.

Last modified 3 June 2025