Dominik is the son of university professors of classical music and spent his childhood in a number of states in the USA. After studying Classics at the University of Durham in 1973–1974 and completing his student teaching at the American School Foundation of Mexico City in 1975, he earned a BA in Classics and English from the University of the Pacific and a California Teaching Credential from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing in 1975. Dominik left the USA in 1976 to live overseas for what has amounted to all but a few years. A resident of Sintra, Portugal as of 2018, Dominik possesses dual Australian and American citizenship. He is married to Brazilian artist[5] and former nutritionist Najla Barroso Dominik, a member of the Academy of Letters and Arts of Salvador, Brazil.
Career
Dominik received his PhD in Classical Studies from Monash University in 1989 after gaining an MA in Classical Humanities from Texas Tech University in 1982. He taught at the University of Natal from 1991 to 2001, where he rose to the rank of Professor and Chair of Classics and Director of the Program in Classics. Dominik moved to the University of Otago as Professor and Chair of Classics in 2002, where he served as Head of the Department of Classics from 2002 to 2009; he was awarded Professor Emeritus status in 2015.
Dominik is the author or editor of several hundred publications[6] (mainly chapters in edited books and journal articles and reviews), including sixteen monographs, on Latin literature, especially Roman epic of the Flavian period; Roman rhetoric; the classical tradition and reception; lexicography; etymology; and other topics. Dominik's research is significant for its emphasis upon the political, especially critical and dissident, aspects of imperial Roman literature (to which one critic refers as “la osadía de Dominik"[7]); its positive hermeneutic approach to the literature and rhetoric of the imperial era; and its treatment of a range of writers in Latin literature and rhetoric from the Early Republic through Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period.
A distinctive feature of Dominik's research and pedagogical output is its collaborative nature, which is evident especially through the publication of various co-edited books and a journal. He was the founding editor and manager of the Classics series Scholia: Studies in Classical Antiquity (1992-2011).[8] In addition to having served as a referee for over sevenscore publishers, journals, and institutions, Dominik has supervised, examined, and moderated over a gross of postgraduate and honours dissertations.
Brill’s Companion to Statius (Leiden 2015). ISBN97-89-00-4217898. (co-ed. with C. E. Newlands and K. Gervais)
Petronii Satyricon Concordantia (Hildesheim 2013). ISBN978-3-487-14893-9. (co-ed. with J. E. Holland)
A Companion to Roman Rhetoric (Oxford 2010, 2007). ISBN978-1-4443-3415-9. (co-ed. with J. Hall)
Writing Politics in Imperial Rome (Leiden 2009). ISBN978-90-04-156715. (co-ed. with J. Garthwaite and P. A. Roche)
Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003). ISBN90-04-11188-3. (co-ed. with A. J. Boyle)
Literature, Art, History: Studies on Classical Antiquity and Tradition. In Honour of W. J. Henderson (Hildesheim 2003). ISBN3-631-36837-2. (co-ed. with A. F. Basson)
Anthologiae Latinae Concordantia Pars 1: A-L (Hildesheim 2002). ISBN3-487-11737-1. (co-ed. with P. G. Christiansen and J. E. Holland)
Anthologiae Latinae Concordantia Pars 2: M–Z (Hildesheim 2002). ISBN3-487-11738-X. (co-ed. with P. G. Christiansen and J. E. Holland)
Roman Verse Satire: Lucilius to Juvenal. A Selection with an Introduction, Text, Translations, and Notes (Mundelein 2011 [revised edition], 1999). ISBN978-0-86516-442-0. (co-ed. and co-tr. with W. T. Wehrle)
^Dominik, William J. (2017). "The Development of Roman Rhetoric". In M. MacDonald (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 159–172.