Athena's Owl

Please plan to attend this upcoming lecture by Dr. Megan Perry of ECU’s Anthropology Department and Classical Studies Program.  Regular readers of Athena’s Owl will remember Dr. Perry’s summer research report from Jordan.  Come and hear the results of her work.

East Carolina University Department of Anthropology

presents:

Beyond the Façades:

An Archaeological Perspective of Petra, Jordan

a lecture by:

Megan A. Perry

Associate Professor of Anthropology, East Carolina University

Director of the Petra North Ridge Project

November 11, Wednesday

7PM

Flanagan 265

We were saddened to learn yesterday of the passing of Roger Hornsby, Professor emeritus of Classics at the University of Iowa.  Prof. Hornsby was a very good friend of the ECU Classics Program.  He was the first classicist to hold the Whichard Chair, our College’s annual distinguished visiting professorship, in 1997-98.  During that year, he gave the well remembered lecture “The Liberal Arts, The Humanities and Other Good Things.”  He visited Greenville numerous times in the succeeding years.  His presence was always a welcome respite from the routine of the academic year.  He had a deep, loving and infectious understanding of ancient literature.  He possessed the sharpest wit I have ever known, outpaced only by the sharpness of his sagacious mind.

Prof. Hornsby spent his career at the University of Iowa.  His early books on Latin literature and especially his book on similes in Vergil’s Aeneid are models of Classical scholarship.  Yet he will not be remembered primarily for his scholarship.  He was never the most prolific publisher.  Rather, his life demonstrated that the scholar’s influence need not be between the woven covers of a tome.  He leaves behind a veritable legion of students whose lives he touched deeply.  I myself was never fortunate enough to study with him.  I have, however, met several who did, and have repeatedly found that they will regale you with improbable Hornsby tales and, more importantly, will express without provocation how Roger shaped their lives in the classroom and beyond it.

nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Here is some information about an exciting summer program at my undergraduate alma mater.  I thought some of you might be interested.

Summer Latin Workshop 2010
July 11 to 16, 2010, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

We will read selections from De orbe novo by the Italian humanist Peter Martyr of Angleria (1457-1526), the most important early account of Columbus’ voyages to the new world. This work was originally written in Latin, and was complete by 1501. Martyr did not travel to the new world himself, but did interview Columbus and his shipmates, as well as other players in the events. His Latin is not difficult, and the spare and straightforward style of this work could best be compared among classical works to Caesar’s commentaries.

Given the topic this year, a special invitation is extended to teachers and scholars interested in early contacts between Europe and the Americas who would like to read De Orbe Novo in the original.

INSTRUCTORS: Prof. Christopher Francese and Prof. Meghan Reedy, both of the Dickinson College Department of Classical Studies

TO APPLY: please contact Mrs. Barbara McDonald, mcdonalb@dickinson.edu by the application deadline May 1, 2010.

FEE: The fee for 2010 is $300, due in a check made out to Dickinson College, by the fee deadline June 1, 2010. Please send it to Mrs.
Barbara McDonald, Department of Classical Studies, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA 17013. (The full cost is about twice that, but the workshop is subsidized by the Roberts Fund for Classical Studies.)

MORE INFORMATION: http://latincamp.wetpaint.com/

The Spring 2010 Classical Studies course schedule is now available online.  It features a new course by Prof. Stevens entitled “The Power of Images in Ancient Greece and Rome,” in which students will study significant monuments and art works of the classical world side by side with Greek and Roman literature.  Other courses include Prof. Romer’s Greek and Roman Religions, Prof. Papalas’s Greek History, Prof. Teske’s Greek Tragedy, and my own Classical Mythology.  And, as I mentioned in my last post, Prof. Peter Green will be returning to ECU and will offer a course on Herodotus and the Persian Wars.  Prof. Green has recently finished a new translation of Herodotus’s Histories.  Many of the historical and historiographical issues he faced in his translation project will be fodder for the class.  If you saw the movie 300 and want to know more about Xerxes’ invasion of Greece, this is the course for you.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the day when classes were first offered at East Carolina University, then known as East Carolina Teachers Training School.  Among those first classes was instruction in Latin, offered by Ms. Birdie McKinnie.  Below, I copy Chancellor Steve Ballard’s announcement of this occasion, along with a photograph of the first ECTTS faculty.

Great news!  Dr. Peter Green will be returning to ECU for the spring semester.  He will most likely be teaching a course on Herodotus and the Persian Wars on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Watch this space for more news.

Meanwhile, I note that Athena’s Owl has had its thousandth visitor.  Thanks to all of our regular readers and to those who drop by occasionally.

The Classics faculty in Foreign Languages and Literatures has completed its schedule for Spring 2010 classes.  It will feature a few new twists to the usual spring fun, along with our usual fine crop of courses in introductory and intermediate Latin and Greek.

Prof. Stevens will for the first time be offering Classics 2600, The Power of Images in Ancient Greece and Rome.  It will be a unique tour of extant monuments and material remains of the ancient world against the background of contemporary literature and philosophy.  Students will be asked to think about how intellectual concepts can be expressed in artistic and architectural products.  The course will cover the major monuments of both classical Athens and Rome in their historical and intellectual contexts.

Prof. Teske will bring back his popular Classics 1300, the Greek and Latin Roots course.  Students learn to break down the most complex of English words into their constituent parts and to understand how a word’s etymology impacts its present meaning.  Prof. Teske will also be teaching the Age of Augustus course (Latin 3002), in which students read the major poets of the Augustan era, including Horace, Vergil, Propertius and Ovid.

Prof. Given (yours truly) will be teaching Classical Mythology, Classics 3460.  Although I taught mythology in my job previous to ECU, this will be my first chance to teach it here.  It will feature all the gods and heroes that you’ve encountered in childhood stories and popular culture.  I will also be focusing a special section on the character of Odysseus and how he has been appropriated at different times from the ancient world until today.  We start with the Odyssey and end up with the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Several past popular courses are returning this spring.  Prof. Romer will again offer Greek and Roman Religions (Classics 3600) and Prof. Teske will have Greek Tragedy (Classics 2500).  Students should remember that all the Classics courses satisfy the Foundations requirement for the Humanities.

I will be happy to answer any questions about any of our courses.  Drop me a line at any time: givenj@ecu.edu.

A team at the University of Washington has published preliminary results from a unique project.  Using photographs publicly shared on Flickr, they are creating three-dimensional, digital images of Rome, Venice and Dubrovnik.  They report that each image is created in less than 24 hours.  (Hence, the “Building Rome in a Day” moniker.)  Their results so far are limited to scattered pixels that only allow for the barest glimpse of the architecture of such landmarks as the Coliseum or St. Peter’s Basilica.  Better results will be forthcoming.  Nevertheless, even the preliminary results show the potential for this new technology.  While we could never replace actual travel to important sites, the opportunity to study sites in three dimensions in the classroom or the home office will improve teaching and research.

Check out the project here.

Jim Duffy, who is organizing the new Classics students’ organization, has called an initial meeting for Thursday, September 17 at 3:00 in the lounge of the Foreign Languages & Literatures Department (Bate 3318A).   Anyone interested in Classical Studies is encouraged to attend.  This will be a good chance to meet your fellow students and to learn more about what the Classics Program is doing.

Anyone who knows the program director here at ECU Classics knows that I am a big football fan.  It’s been a pleasure to root for the Pirates these past eight seasons.  I’m pleased to be writing this new post as ECU is dominating Appalachian State.  I find it especially pleasing since the last time I watched App State play, they were embarrassing my poor Big Ten alma mater, whose fortunes have only gotten worse since that shameful day two years ago.  Go Pirates!

At ECU Classics, we’ve had our first full week of classes in the 2009-2010 academic year.   It’s shaping up to be an excellent year.  Our enrollments are as high as they’ve been in at least five years, thanks to strong interest in our Latin courses taught by Prof. Stevens and Prof. Wilson-Okamura, and in Prof. Teske’s Mythology and Etymology courses.  I’ve had six students come to me to declare a Classics or Classical Civilization major just since the beginning of summer.  We have three seniors who are pursuing major undergraduate research projects this year, all of whom will write a senior thesis at the culmination of their work.  The Ancient Greek Reading Group got off to a strong start on Wednesday, reading one of the goriest texts to survive from the ancient world, “The Martyrdom of Polycarp.”

The Classics faculty held our first meeting of the year on Thursday.  After welcoming our newest member, Prof. Marylaura Papalas, we discussed several new initiatives. Our participating Anthropology faculty members, Profs. Mazow and Perry, are working on course proposals for several archaeology courses that will eventually span the ancient world from the early Egypt to the Byzantine Period.  Archaeology has been a big hole in our curriculum for a long time.  It will soon be filled.  (Or excavated?)  We’re also planning some changes to our Mythology course.  Right now, it’s only offered as a 3000-level course, meaning that freshmen have to get special permission to take it.  We intend to lower the number so that it becomes an entry-level course for our curriculum, like Etymology and Intro to Classics.  Extracurricularly, Prof. Wilson-Okamura is planning to start a Latin Reading Group to complement the Greek group.  And we will have our production of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata next March 25–27.

Finally, thanks to the efforts of senior James Duffy, our Classical Studies Student Association is getting started for the year.  If you are interested in participating, please contact him.  I’ll give him space here for any announcements he would like to post.

Thanks to all our ECU students and our Athena’s Owl readers for your interest in Classical Studies!