Athena's Owl

Archive for September, 2009

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!