Athena's Owl

Lysistrata Audition Information

John Given — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:18:16 +0000

We now have a webpage for information on our spring production of Lysistrata. The webpage includes news about upcoming auditions, including a list of characters actors can try out for. Please check back to the webpage for updates about the play. You can find it at: www.ecu.edu/classics/lysistrata.cfm.

Note that the dates of the performances have shifted slightly. Due to a scheduling conflict, we have had to move our Thursday performance to Sunday. So the dates are now March 26, 27 and 28, 2010. All performances will be at 8:00 p.m. in the Great Rooms of Mendenhall Student Center at ECU. There will be no charge for admission!

Theater of War

John Given — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:24:12 +0000

On Veterans’ Day, yesterday, the New York Times featured an article entitled “The Anguish of War for Today’s Soldiers, Explored by Sophocles.” It describes how a group of professional actors are touring the country performing staged readings of Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes on military bases. These plays deal with the traumas of war and can be read as precursors to modern diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder. The reactions of the soldiers, as described in the article, testify to the ongoing power of these classical plays. As we remember the brave men and women who have fought for our country, it is thrilling to see how the Classics can help our modern mythological heroes to understand themselves and their experiences.

You can read the article here.

Petra Lecture by Dr. Perry

John Given — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:32:29 +0000

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

In Memoriam: Roger Hornsby

John Given — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:54:55 +0000

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.

Peter Martyr at Dickinson

John Given — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:20:44 +0000

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/

Spring Courses Posted

John Given — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:10:01 +0000

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.

100th Anniversary of Latin at ECU

John Given — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:07:02 +0000

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.

The first faculty sitting on the steps of Austin Building. Top row, left to right, Kate W. Lewis, art; William Ragsdale, education; Birdie McKinney, Latin; Sallie Joyner Davis, history. Middle row, left to right, Maria D. Graham, mathematics; Mamie E. Jenkins, English. Front row, left to right, Claude W. Wilson, education; Jennie Ogden, home economics; Fannie Bishop, piano; Herbert E. Austin, science, and Robert H. Wright, president.

A Centennial Moment…the First Day of Classes at East Carolina

One hundred years ago today, on October 5, 1909, 123 students (104 women and 19 men) entered the institution known as the East Carolina Teachers Training School. Today marks the last major event in our Centennial Celebration – the first day of classes at East Carolina.

On the day preceding the opening of school, citizens of Greenville had turned out in large numbers to welcome the arrival of a new type of Greenville resident – the student. Most of these young men and women had arrived by train from 31 counties in North Carolina and from four states. They traveled on Greenville’s dirt and plank roads to the campus by carriage.

Upon arrival, the students discovered four completed buildings – an administrative building, Old Austin; West Dormitory, the women’s dormitory (later called Wilson, and razed in 1968); East Dormitory, the men’s dormitory (now Jarvis Hall); and a dining hall (now Old Cafeteria), then called a refectory. Two other buildings, a central power house and an infirmary (now the Mamie Jenkins Building) were under construction. Despite attempts at having the campus ready for the first day of class, chairs had not been delivered, so borrowed church pews were used; electricity had not been connected, so kerosene lamps were requisitioned from the local hardware stores; the paving of Fifth Street had only just begun; and the podium in the auditorium from which the new president spoke was borrowed.

Greeting the first students were 10 faculty members (7 women and 3 men) and the president, Robert H. Wright. The faculty members were: Claude W. Wilson, pedagogy (he was also the bursar) ; W. H. Ragsdale, public school administration; Mamie E. Jenkins, English; Herbert E. Austin, science; Maria D. Graham, mathematics; Sallie J. Davis, history; Birdie McKinney, Latin; Jennie M. Ogden, household economics; Fannie M. Bishop, public school music and voice; and Annie Lee Davis, music. Staff members included Mrs. Kate R. Beckwith, lady principal; Charles O. Laughinghouse, physician; and Emma R. Jones, stenographer.

Today, 100 years later, East Carolina University enrolls 27, 666 students (16,831 women and 10,835 men), has a faculty of 1,867 and a staff of 3,548 (including 187 administrators). Today’s class comes from all 100 of counties in North Carolina, 46 other states, and 46 foreign countries. Today’s campus includes three sites, the original campus (now referred to as the east campus), which includes 150 buildings on 523 acres, the health sciences campus (referred to also as the west campus or medical campus) which includes 55 buildings (two under construction – The Family Medicine Center due to be completed in fall 2010 and the School of Dentistry due for completed by the end of the year 2011) on 206 acres, and the former Voice of America site northwest of the City of Greenville which includes 7 buildings on 650 acres.

What a difference 100 years has made!! Please join the entire ECU family today in celebrating in your own way the centennial anniversary of the first day of classes at East Carolina.

Dr. Green Returns

John Given — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:27:31 +0000

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.

Spring 2010 classes

John Given — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:51:08 +0000

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.

Building Rome in a Day

John Given — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:19:33 +0000

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.