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Newsletter

The Classical Association of the Middle West and South 
Winter
top2014
In This Issue
Note from our President
Update from the Secretary-Treasurer
110th Annual Meeting of CAMWS
From the Local Committee
New in The Classical Journal
News from the Committee for the Promotion of Latin
CAMWS News
News from Our Members
News from Institutional Members
Announcements
Classics in the News
Necrology
Submissions
Quick Links
A Note from Our President, Monica S. Cyrino

Monica Cyrino in Qumran

See you in Waco!

What a year it's been since last we gathered in Iowa City. It seems even longer when there is no regular meeting of our Southern Section - but not to worry, there is a wonderful Southern Section meeting planned for October 2014 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. During this past year our membership levels have held steady, while our professional activities have seen a welcome increase. Awards for CPL BIG grants, as well as applications for prizes and fellowships, have risen substantially, and we received a significant number of panel, workshop, and individual abstract submissions for the Annual Meeting in Waco. This is why we support CAMWS with our membership dues and donations, and our hard work as committee members and officers, so that we may cultivate and carry on our activities in support of teaching, learning, and scholarship.

 

We're very proud of the exciting program we've put together for the Annual Meeting in Waco, which you can find on our webpage at http://www.camws.org/meeting/2014/. In addition to our marvelous schedule of papers, organized panels, and workshops - with multiple sessions on literature, history, archaeology, philosophy, reception, and pedagogy - we are delighted to offer some special social events and parties. On Thursday evening, we are thrilled to be hosting Steven Saylor, acclaimed author of the Roma Sub Rosa series, for a special reading and book signing, followed by a gala dessert reception sponsored by Baylor University. This year's expanded program for the Annual Meeting features the festive Friday night banquet in the elegant Downtown 301 Ballroom, which is included in your registration fee, and will be attended by all conference participants. The plenary banquet was a big success last year, and we are certain this will turn into an annual celebration of our accomplishments as an association and an occasion to renew old friendships and make new ones within our profession. Afterwards, please join me in the Ballroom foyer for a drinks reception accompanied by jazz music. We are particularly looking forward to the participation of our younger members at these events, whose enthusiasm and involvement represent the future of CAMWS.

 

By the time April comes around, the holiday break will be long forgotten, with its polar vortexes and frantic catching up on overdue projects, and we will all be in need of a warm, collegial respite. So I hope to see you all in Waco, and I look forward to catching up with as many of you as possible. Do join me in raising a glass and toasting ourselves for another year of accomplishment and a future of promise. And thank you for all you do for CAMWS.

 

Monica S. Cyrino

University of New Mexico

CAMWS President 

 

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Update from Secretary-Treasurer Tom Sienkewicz


Dear fellow members of CAMWS:

The preparations for the 2014 meeting in Waco are moving ahead with several innovations, including a Thursday evening dessert reception and a Dr. Pepper float break between the two Friday afternoon paper sessions, both sponsored by our host, Baylor University. I hope you find these events an appropriate addition to our more traditional events.  Also planned for the 2014 meeting is the possibility of presenters uploading handouts, Powerpoints, and other materials (at http://www.camws.org/meeting/2014/individual.php) so that this information can be accessed on laptops, smartphones and tablets by attendees and even by those who are unable to attend the conference. Instructions for uploading these materials will soon be sent by email to presenters.

The CAMWS office has been busy with a lot of things besides the annual meeting. The Executive Committee has authorized a call for bids to take the organization's website into the 21st century with a CMS (Content Management System) redesign which you can read about at CMS Request for Proposals. If you know anyone with the technical expertise to move this project forward, please encourage them to submit a bid by March 1st. Meanwhile, our long-standing web manager, Alex Ward, has a new daytime job and has submitted his resignation to CAMWS. We wish him well as he moves forward in his career.  He has been replaced, at least until the end of this academic year, by Megan Lyle, a student intern from Monmouth College. Megan has already learned a great deal about our complex organization and its complicated website and is doing a remarkably good job as we look for a more permanent replacement for Alex, who has kept our website functioning smoothly for many years. Thank you, Alex!

 

I am also happy to report that, thanks especially to the generosity of the University of Iowa and the University of Missouri, the CAMWS office once again possesses a complete run of The Classical Journal. CAMWS members should be grateful to both of these institutions for donating their back issues so that print copies of the journal will be preserved by the organization into the distant future.

 

The various sub-committees of the Steering Committee are now busily evaluating the many applications for CAMWS awards and scholarships.  Applications for the new archaeology/fieldwork award were especially numerous.  Such significant interest suggests that the CAMWS Executive Committee made a wise decision in deciding, last year in Iowa City, to use the donations collected over the last decade for the Second Century Fund in order to establish this award.

 

This was the first year that CAMWS has used an online application process for all its awards and scholarships.  Unfortunately some unforeseen programming bugs meant that various items like letters of recommendation disappeared into cyberspace.  I would especially like to thank those of you who were asked, at short notice and within a short time space, to resend these materials to the CAMWS office.  I was very impressed with your rapid responses and with your gracious understanding of a difficult situation.  We are confident that we can easily fix those bugs so that next year's application process will be a lot smoother and simpler. 

 

I would certainly not be able to keep the CAMWS office functioning smoothly without my faithful comrade-in-arms, Jevanie Gillen, who takes on the most remarkable challenges without complaint and cheerfully brings them to completion. When you see her at the registration desk in Waco, please be sure to thank her for all she does for CAMWS.

 

Let me close by thanking all of you for your loyalty to this important organization and by expressing the hope that I will see many of you in Waco in April to enjoy the Texas bluebonnets and to meet the ursine mascots of the Baylor Bears, Joy and Lady.

 

Tom Sienkewicz

Secretary-Treasurer, CAMWS

Monmouth College 

 

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110th Annual Meeting of CAMWS

at the invitation of

 
April 2-5, 2014
Waco Hilton Hotel & Waco Convention Center
Waco, Texas 

For information about the meeting, including details about special events, hotel, travel, things to do in Waco and registration, please go to http://www.camws.org/meeting/2014/ or follow the links below.

About Waco
Baylor Classics Department

Waco Hilton Hotel
Waco Convention Center

Meeting Schedule and Program

Meeting Registration

Travel, Dining, and Local Attractions in Waco

Information for Exhibitors

List of Panels

List of Workshops

Individual Abstracts Accepted

Guide for Presenters

Guide for Presiders

 

Registration Information: 

 

Please register online at https://www.camws.org/membership/meetingform.php.  Note that a separate registration form must be completed for each person attending.  You may pay online with a credit card (a $6 processing fee will be added) or you may print out the completed online registration form and mail it along with a check to CAMWS, Dept. of Classics, Monmouth College, 799 E. Broadway, Monmouth, IL 61462.  Please note that all registration fees go up for midnight on Wednesday, March 3, 2014.  All cancellation requests must be received by March 3, 2014 and are subject to a $15 administrative fee. 

 

Hotel Information:

  

CAMWS members are invited to choose between the following two hotel options:

Connected to the Waco Convention Center via a covered walkway, this hotel in downtown Waco offers free parking, complimentary WiFi throughout the hotel, a 24-hour business center, stunning outdoor venues and lush landscaped gardens, a modern fitness center, and an outdoor pool.  For all attendees the Hilton is offering a flat rate of $135 (plus tax) per night for a room with either a king or two queen beds.  To receive the special rate, you must make your reservation by
midnight on Wednesday, March 12 either by calling 866-318-1509 (with the booking code CAMWS) or by clicking here.

Located just across the street from the Waco Convention Center, this hotel's amenities include free parking, free WiFi, an outdoor pool, and a fitness center.  The Courtyard is offering a flat rate of $129 (plus tax) per night.  To receive this special rate, you must make your reservation by midnight on Wednesday, March 12, either by calling 800-359-1814 (with the booking code CAMWS) or by clicking here

 

Meeting Highlights
  • A reception hosted by the former presidents of CAMWS will open the meeting at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 2nd in the Waco Hilton.
  • Between Thursday morning and Saturday afternoon there will be four pedagogical workshops (new this year!), fourteen panels (including the Presidential Panel on "New Directions in Cinematic Receptions"), and paper sessions on a wide variety of pedagogical and scholarly topics.  
  • A happy hour for K-12 teachers sponsored by the Committee for the Promotion of Latin, a reception sponsored by the Women's Classical Caucus, and a lunch hosted by the Vergilian Society.
  • Two events sponsored by the Graduate Student Issues Committee (GSIC): a workshop entitled Evaluating Undergraduate Papers at noon on Friday and a panel entitled The Hiring Process on Thursday evening.  Complementary pizza will be served to students attending the panel.  
  • A plenary session on Thursday evening, April 3rd, with a presentation by Steven Saylor, acclaimed author of the Roma Sub Rosa series, followed by a gala dessert reception sponsored by Baylor University.
  • The Paideia Institute will sponsor a Latin Conversational Happy Hour in the Three Rivers Ballroom Sabine of the Waco Hilton from 6:00-7:00 p.m. on Thursday evening.  
  • On Friday afternoon Baylor will host a second reception at which Dr. Pepper floats and coffee will be served along with a variety of desserts and appetizers.
  • Friday evening's banquet will be held in the elegant Downtown 301 Ballroom, just across the street from the Hilton Waco.  The registration fee once again includes a banquet ticket.
  • The banquet will feature President Monica Cyrino's address on "Why Does Classical Reception Matter?" and the Ovationes for 2013-2014, presented in Latin by the renowned CAMWS orator Jim May.

Continuing Education Units 

 

Teachers who would like to earn 3.3 Continuing Education Units for attending the meeting do not have to do anything in advance.  When they arrive, they should simply ask at the CAMWS registration desk for a CEU application form.  Before leaving the meeting, they should return the completed form to the CAMWS registration desk, along with a check for $7.50, payable to UW-Madison Extension.

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From the Local Committee

Texas Bluebonnets

Waco, TX, located on the Brazos River, and home to Baylor University, offers the attractions of both a college town and a small city.  Along with the University, the delightful Cameron Park Zoo, the Dr Pepper Museum, and the Texas Rangers Museum (to name just a few attractions: for a more extensive list, click here) are all an easy walk from the hotel, as are numerous bars, restaurants, boutiques, and even an internationally acclaimed distillery!  In addition to multiple festive receptions and Friday's plenary banquet (with a welcome by Baylor's president Ken Starr and address by the incomparable Monica Cyrino), we are especially looking forward to the Thursday evening talk by Steven Saylor, author of the brilliant Roma Sub Rosa series of mystery novels set in ancient Rome.  The weather should be balmy and the bluebonnets in full bloom.  The Baylor Classics Department and the entire CAMWS Local Committee offer you the heartiest of Texas welcomes!

Julia D. Hejduk
Baylor University
Chair, CAMWS Local Committee

The Local Committee:

Simon P. Burris, Baylor University
Joseph DiLuzio, Baylor University
Meghan J. DiLuzio, Baylor University
Nathan Elkins, Baylor University
Jeffrey B. Fish, Baylor University
Brent M. Froberg, Baylor University
Kevin F. Funderburk, Baylor University
Ginny Lindzey, Dripping Springs High School
Daniel P. Hanchey, Baylor University
Timothy S. Heckenlively, Baylor University
Julia D. Hejduk, Chair, Baylor University
Laura Hudec, Pope John Paul II High School
Jeffrey M. Hunt, Baylor University
Kenneth R. Jones, Baylor University
Katherine J. James, Vanguard College Prep School
Kevin Symonds, Reicher Catholic High School
Nathan Wade, Rapoport Academy
Daniel J. Nodes, Baylor University
Alden Smith, Baylor University
David J. White, Baylor University

New in The Classical Journal

Classical Journal Cover

The following articles are new in CJ 109.2:

LUCCA DANIEL GREEN, "On the Suppliant's Sprint: The Socioreligious Context of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus 1-3"
  • I reexamine the opening three lines of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus, specifically, the meaning of θοάζετε in line 2. Using the socioreligious institution of supplication to reframe the issue, I argue that the word, typically translated as "you sit," is to be read as "you hasten," and must thus be regarded as an expression of the approach required by the supplicatory ritual. 

R. ROSS HOLLOWAY, "A Cover-Up in Early Roman History: Fabia Minor and the Sextian-Licinian Reforms"

  • The reform of the Roman magistracies made by the Sextian-Licinian rogations of 367 B.C. is celebrated in traditional accounts of Roman history as opening the consulship to plebeians. This paper argues that the motivation offered for this innovation by the tale of Fabia Minor, namely her social embarrassment and her appeal to her father's help, leading to the reform of the constitution, is nothing more than a veil to cover the ignorance of the annalists as to the true nature of what happened.   

CYNTHIA HORNBECK, "Caelum Ipsum Petimus: Daedalus and Icarus in Horace's Odes"

  • Horace uses the myth of Daedalus' flight and Icarus' fall to explore the risks inherent in artistic creation, to interrogate the dichotomy between art and nature and to probe the difficulties of poetic imitation. Each of the three programmatic poems (Odes 1.3, 2.20, and 4.2) presents a different speaker with a distinct attitude towards the mythical father and son; all three acknowledge the possibility of artistic failure. Read together in sequence, they show how a poet's ambitions, anxieties, and relationship to his predecessors evolve over the course of his career.

BLANCHE CONGER MCCUNE, "Lucan's Militia Amoris: Elegiac Expectations in the Bellum Civile"

  • Lucan's epic depicts the displacement of the elegiac notion of militia amoris by bellum civile through his use of elegiac allusions and topoi. Specifically, Julia's ghost is parallel to Cynthia's ghost in Propertius 4.7; the description of Erictho draws on the thumbnail sketches of witches in elegy; Cleopatra is portrayed as a meretrix who follows Ovid's advice in Ars Amatoria 3; Cornelia is depicted as one of the abandoned heroines; and Pompey is cast as an elegiac lover. In each case, however, Lucan frustrates expectations by negating or inverting the elegiac passage or topos: the civil war thus disturbs even the apolitical world of elegy.

MICHAEL B. CHARLES and EVA ANAGNOSTOU-LAOUTIDES, "Unmanning an Emperor: Otho in the Literary Tradition"

  • Otho was made out to be another Nero in the literary tradition, to the extent that his actions were assimilated with those of the last Julio-Claudian. This includes a predilection for sexual passivity, with Apollonius of Tyana even describing him, in a highly rhetorical passage, as having been Galba's boy lover. Despite numerous ancient references to Otho's ostensible effeminacy, including his supposedly overzealous care of his person, accusations of sexual excess appear to be rooted in the general view of the rhetorical tyrant typified by Nero. Otho's real-life sexual preferences are clearly unrecoverable, so this inquiry focuses instead on the way in which his sexuality was depicted by those attempting to shape his reputation as a man unworthy of imperial office. In this study, we examine contemporary social and philosophical tenets underpinning ancient criticism of his alleged behavior.    

 

 

The following articles are new in CJ 109.3:

 

DANIEL BARBER, "Presence and the Future Tense in Horace's Odes"

  • Horace is sometimes said to profess in the Odes a "poetics of presence," a philosophical or aesthetic orientation that privileges the here and now. This article examines how such an orientation toward the present might interact with the poet's use of the future tense and especially with those future verbs that seem to postpone focal events. It is concluded that the Odes' many gestures toward the future, from simple imperatives to the postponement of entire symposia, serve to problematize presence and to dramatize, in concert with other features of the collection, the anxious feeling that time is moving too quickly.

TRACY JAMISON WOOD, "Didactic Helen: Ovid's Praeceptrix and Euripidean Proto-Elegy"

  • Victim, agitator, seductress, lover, beloved-Helen has played every one of these roles. One under-studied role, however, is Helen as praeceptrix amoris, the erudite teacher of the arts of love. Ovid, well known for purportedly being the masculine version of this title, constructs Helen in his image in Heroides 17 especially. Yet Ovid is not the only author who fashions Helen as an alter ego; Euripides creates the lead character in the Helen as a female version of his own role as creator and potentially even a "director" of the stage-action. Each of these Helens has a similar purpose: she must teach her lover how to behave more appropriately in the service of love.  

DEBORAH KAMEN, "Sale for the Purpose of Freedom: Slave-Prostitutes and Manumission in Ancient Greece"

  • In this article, I argue that a secular form of manumission existed in classical Greece that was in many ways akin to the (better-attested) institution of sacral fictive sale. In the latter form of manumission, slaves were freed by being "sold" to a god, who made no use of his right of ownership; in the former, the third-party "buyer" was not divine but human. I then demonstrate that secular fictive sale was of particular use to slave-prostitutes, especially hetairai, due to their access to a number of potential "buyers"-namely, their past and present clients.

ISABEL KOSTER, "How to Kill a Roman Villain: The Deaths of Quintus Pleminius"

  • While he was Scipio's legate in Locri Epizephyrii from 205 to 204 bce, Quintus Pleminius plundered the local sanctuary of Proserpina. His actions and their aftermath prompt Diodorus Siculus, Livy and Valerius Maximus to create several incompatible death scenes for him that reflect the gravity of his crime. Since Pleminius is a minor character in the Second Punic War, he is a virtual historiographical blank slate. We can therefore observe how authors work with stock characteristics and comparisons to fashion a villain and give him a death that is appropriate for the narrative context.
     
     

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News from the Committee for the Promotion of Latin

Congratulations to the recent recipients of CPL funding, and a big thank-you for their remarkable outreach projects.

  • E. Del Chrol (Marshall University) received a BIG grant for hosting Andrew Reinhard who will promote the study of Classics to the broader community.  Del also received a Caristia grant for hosting a banquet for all Classics students at Marshall University.  To view a snapshot of the event, please click here.   
  • Ted Gellar-Goad (Wake Forest University) received a BIG grant that will help greasing the wheels for his students to get to the North Carolina convention of the Junior Classical League.  They will perform scenes from Aristophanes and Plautus at the event.
  • Jeff Hunt (Baylor University) received a BIG grant for Baylor's annual Latin Day, an event that brings together Baylor students and high school students in the Waco area.    

  

For more on the BIG grants (Bridge Initiative Grants), click here.  For the Caristia grants, click here.    

 

To request CPL Funds, go to http://www.camws.org/cpl/funding.php  

 

Upcoming CPL Outreach Events at the 110th Annual Meeting of CAMWS, April 2-5, 2014 in Waco, TX:

  • Happy Hour for High School Teachers of Latin: Thursday, April 3 
  • Committee for the Promotion of Latin Sponsored Panel: Challenges and Opportunities for Latin and Classics Programs: Saturday, April 5; 9:30-10:45 a.m.; Ranger Room 106-107 

CAMWS News

Request for Proposals: CAMWS CMS Redesign

CAMWS is now accepting proposals to update the CAMWS website to Drupal.  Please have a look at the Request for Proposals.


CAMWS Award Increases

The CAMWS Executive Committee recently voted to increase the amount of the Semple Award to $4000, the Grant Award to $5000, and the Benario Award to $3000.  These increases will apply to the 2014 awards.  For further information about these awards, please go to http://www.camws.org/awards/sgb.php.

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News from Our Members 
The Norma Wynick Goldman SOAR Award
Established by the Society of Active Retirees (Detroit)
in Conjunction with the Philadelphia Classical Society

Norma Goldman 

 

This January the Society of Active Retirees (SOAR)
Board of Directors, under the guidance of Ralph Stromberg, Executive Director, and Dr. Martin Herman, Professor Emeritus and former Associate Dean of Liberal Arts at Wayne State University (Detroit) established a fund to recognize Norma Goldman's contributions to Classical Studies and to acknowledge her role as the founding mother of SOAR. Begun in 2003 SOAR is a highly successful community based, non-profit, life-long learning program for retirees. Affiliated with both Wayne State University and the Elderhostel Institute Network, SOAR offers an array of non-credit courses, covering a wide range of topics, and provides its members with multiple opportunities for social and cultural enrichment and personal growth. 

 

The impetus to establish the fund came from Norma's colleague at Wayne State, Michele Valerie Ronnick, CAMWS President (2009-2010). Her lecture, "A Portrait of Norma Goldman (1922-2012)," kicked off the "First Inaugural Classical World and Design Show in Memory of Norma Goldman" which was sponsored and underwritten by the Philadelphia Classical Society and Bryn Mawr College in October, 2012. Under the aegis of Mary Brown, the Executive Director of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (CAAS), the President of the Philadelphia Classical Society (PCS), and Latin teacher at the Valley Forge Military Academy & College, the money will support student costume competition and costume presentation in live fashion shows for the next four years.

 

This unique alliance brings together important elements in Norma's life (1922-2011).

She was born in Pittsburgh, PA on March 30, 1922. Her family moved to Detroit and she graduated in 1939 from Wayne State University (Phi Beta Kappa). For more than 6 decades she was continually involved in the study and teaching of the classics and her accomplishments were myriad. In addition to her publications such as Latin Via Ovid (with Jacob Nyenhuis), Practice! Practice! (with Michael Rossi), English Grammar for Students of Latin, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome: Cosa: The Lamps (with Cleo Fitch) and My Dura-Europos: The Letters of Susan M. Hopkins (1927-1935) (with her husband, Bernard M. Goldman), Norma was engaged in organizing venues for her Roman fashion shows. She presented thirty live shows across the US and even on the steps of the American Academy at Rome, and enlisted many CAMWS members in this endeavor. She brought her fashion show to Philadelphia in 1991 and again in 2002. For those who could not attend the shows in person, she created an hour long video in 1993 called "Let's Wrap: 1000 Years of Roman Costume" with Mary Yelda and George Booth. The video, distributed by the American Classical League's Teaching Materials and Resource Center, taught viewers how to dress like a Roman. Norma received an Ovatio from CAMWS in 1988, and an Emerita Award from the American Classical League in 2006. She would, were she here today, be pleased by the results of this inter-organizational effort bringing together so much of her life's work.

 

-Michele Valerie Ronnick

 Wayne State University

 

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Michele Valerie Ronnick Speaks to the Cum Laude Society
at the Cranbrook Kingswood School (Bloomfield Hills, MI)

On October 14, 2013 Michele Valerie Ronnick (CAMWS President, 2009-2010) was the guest speaker at the Cum Laude Society at the Cranbrook Kingswood School, a well known prep and private school located north of Detroit in Bloomfield Hills, MI.  Her talk focused on racial injustice in the context of the study of Classics.  In addition, she was featured in an article in The Crane-Clarion, the Upper School's student newspaper, authored by Nihal Shetty, a senior studying AP Vergil with Latin Instructor Brent Heard.  A pdf of the article can be found by clicking below.

Crane-Clarion Article on Ronnick

Capti: Fabula Minippeo-Hoffmanniana America
Now Available as eBook

Now available: An eBook edition of Capti: Fabula Menippeo-Hoffmanniana Americana by CAMWS member Stephanus Berard (Wenatchee Valley College):  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HG6NVZ2/ref=cm_sw_su_dp.

"The glory of the book is the exuberant language: this is not Cicero's Latin, but more like a post-modern Tacitus, a latter-day Lucan, a spiritual descendant of M. Terentius Varro.... There are descriptions galore...a long, satirical evocation of Seattle...and a description of LA that would be at home in Hugo or Dickens....Its blend of modern form, modern scientific or philosophical motifs, and ancient language is almost steampunk in style" --Anne Mahoney (Tufts University), The Classical Outlook

For more information and to contact Stephanus Berard, visit http://boreoccidentales.com/.

 

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News from Our Institutional Members
Summer Intensive Greek and Latin at the
University of Arizona

The Department of Classics at the University of Arizona will offer its usual Summer Intensive Language Programs in Greek and Latin this summer.

Summer Session I, June 9-July 10, 2014
  • Intensive Greek 112 (Hansen & Quinn), 1:00-4:45 daily (1st year equivalency)
  • Intensive Latin 112 (Moreland & Fleischer), 9:00-12:45 daily (1st year equivalency)

Summer Session II, July 14-August 13, 2014

  • Intensive Greek 212 (Prose and Poetry), 1:00-4:45 daily (2nd year equivalency)
  • Intensive Latin 212 (Prose and Poetry), 9:00-12:45 daily (2nd year equivalency)

For more information, go to http://classics.arizona.edu/node/351.  

 

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Tracking Hermes/Mercury:
A Conference Hosted by the University of Virginia
Department of Classics 



The Department of Classics at the University of Virginia announces a conference "Tracking Hermes/Mercury" to be held in Charlottesville, VA on March 27-29, 2014.  The program will present a wide range of papers devoted to this multifaceted and enigmatic figure, including literary, cultic, and artistic representations from many periods of Greco-Roman antiquity.

Further information on speakers and attendance can be found at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/hermes/.


Post-Baccalaureate Program at the
College of William and Mary

Beginning in Fall 2014 the Department of Classical Studies at the College of William and Mary will offer a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classical Studies.  Our aim is to offer a flexible program for students who have already earned an undergraduate degree but who wish to pursue an intensive course of study in the Classical languages for graduate studies, teaching, or personal enrichment. 

The Program features:
  • Diverse and rigorous courses in Latin, Greek, and Classical Civilization to suit individual interests and needs
  • Close student-faculty interaction and the opportunity to study with distinguished teacher-scholars 
  • Competitive tuition rates
  • Summer study abroad opportunities in Greece and Italy
  • Opportunity to study at America's second oldest college and one of only eight "Public Ivies" in the nation
  • Historic campus in beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia, only an hour from Richmond, VA and three hours from Washington, D.C.

For additional information, please visit our website at www.wm.edu/classical-post-bac or contact John Donahue, Chair, Department of Classical Studies (757-221-1930;  jfdona@wm.edu).   

 

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Intensive Summer Courses in Latin and Greek
at Ave Maria University

Ave Maria University wishes to announce its Intensive Immersion Courses in Latin and Greek offered during the summer of 2014, designed to teach students to speak, read, and write Latin or Greek.

Ave Maria University is expanding its offering of courses in spoken Latin and Greek.  In the summer of 2014, we will be offering immersion courses in Latin and Greek at a beginners and an intermediate level, each of which runs for three weeks.  Levels 1 and 2 combined are the equivalent of two semesters of university level work and provide more than 120 hours of instruction in the language.

Latin Course Details:
  • Level 1: Monday, May 19-Friday, June 6
  • Level 2: Monday, June 9-Friday, June 27
  • Both levels taught by Dr. Bradley Ritter of Ave Maria University
  • Classes meet Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 12 p.m.
  • Two field trips in Latin during weekday afternoons every three week period

Greek Course Details:

  • Level 1: Wednesday, May 21-Tuesday, June 10 (taught by Stephen Hill, MA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
  • Level 2: Thursday, June 12-Wednesday, July 2 (taught by Dr. Christophe Rico, Director of the Polis Institute in Jerusalem)

These summer courses are the only ones of their kind in the United States and are designed to bring students to an active proficiency in Classical Latin or Koine Greek through immersion and dedicated work.  Students learn by communicative exchange from the first day of class.  Intensive language drills, dialogues, conversation, and storytelling help develop a rich spoken vocabulary and give students a solid grasp of the morphology and a systematic introduction to the grammar of Latin or Greek (or reintroduction for those who have studied the languages).

 

Please visit our website for more details.  

 

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Updates from Ascanius: The Youth Classics Institute

Ascanius: The Youth Classics Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the knowledge of and inspiring lifelong learning about Latin, Greek, and the ancient Greco-Roman world, especially at the elementary and middle school levels.

This winter brings a look ahead to our summer enrichment programs, funding and support for local outreach programming, an ancient Greek alphabet book, and the ability to join Ascanius as a member and get free stuff and discounts!  Visit www.ascaniusyci.org for plenty more happenings!
  • LatinSummer: Rome - An unforgettable summer enrichment program for middle-schoolers and their parent, on-site in Rome!  Participants will learn Latin and take part in engaging activities, all the while visiting the monumental sites of Rome!  Target audience is students without significant experience in Latin.  Additional LatinSummer programs will be held stateside this summer: in Birmingham, Boston, and Northern Virginia.  Visit www.ascaniusyci.org for more information and to register.
  • Classical Promise Scholarships - High school or college Latin students can apply for funding, materials, and mentorship to support them in bringing a Latin and Classical Studies program to elementary and middle school children in their own hometown! A particularly great opportunity not only for individual students, but also for Latin Clubs or Eta Sigma Phi chapters! Visit www.ascaniusyci.org for more information, an application, and details on previous recipients and programs. 
  • Featured Publication - Alpha is for Anthropos is an exquisitely illustrated alphabet book for Ancient Greek. Playful Greek verses and drawings in the style of red-figure vase paintings are sure to delight readers of all ages. Online audio recordings accompany each verse. Visit www.ascaniusyci.org for more information, sample pages, and to order.
  • Become a Member of Ascanius - New for the 2013-2014 school year! As a member, you will receive: "The Shooting Star" (a bi-monthly e-newsletter featuring full lesson and activity ideas and advice in response to member questions), access to a Members-Only section of our website (including free lesson and activity ideas), and 10% discounts on all Ascanius publications, workshops, programs, and contests. Membership is only $25 per year! Visit www.ascaniusyci.org for more information and to become a member.   

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Announcements 
Mortality: Facing Death in Ancient Greece

An NEH Summer Institute in Athens, Greece

Director: Professor Karen Bassi, University of California at Santa Cruz



The University of California at Santa Cruz, in sponsorship with the Institute for Humanities Research, invites applications for a four-week Summer Institute funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) on the topic of Mortality: Facing Death in Ancient Greece. The Institute will be held in Athens, Greece from June 29 to July 27, 2014. 

 

This Institute begins from the premise that mortality is the condition that gives life its singular human quality. Yet this fact, so often relegated to euphemism, has resisted anything like a comprehensive examination. The goal of this Institute is to develop a multi-disciplinary approach to mortality in ancient Greece as the basis for rigorous and innovative teaching and scholarship across the Humanities.

 

The NEH Institute will bring together twenty-two college and university teachers and three graduate students to examine relevant material from a broad range of ancient Greek literary sources, visual and archaeological remains, and historical periods, ranging from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BCE. In addition to attending lectures and seminars hosted by six outstanding visiting scholars, participants will present the results of their own research projects in a series of colloquia in the final week of the Institute.

 

NEH Summer Institutes for College and University Teachers provide college and university faculty members, independent scholars, and graduate students with an opportunity for intensive collaborative study of texts, topics, and ideas central to undergraduate teaching in the humanities under the guidance of faculties distinguished in their fields of scholarship. Institutes aim to prepare participants to return to their classrooms with a deeper knowledge of current scholarship in key fields of the humanities. Individuals selected to participate in this four-week Institute will receive $3,300. These taxable stipends are intended to help cover travel expenses to and from the project location, books and other research expenses, and living expenses for the duration of the period spent in residence.

 

Applicants must be United States citizens, residents of U.S. jurisdictions, or foreign nationals who have been residing in the United States or its territories for at least the three years immediately preceding the application deadline. Foreign nationals teaching abroad at non-U.S. chartered institutions are not eligible to apply.

 

For more information, including a full description of the research and pedagogical aims of the Institute, a complete list of the participating faculty, Institute location and housing information, a detailed day-to-day schedule, and how to apply, please visit the project's website: http://mortality.ihr.ucsc.edu/    

 

Completed applications should be received no later than March 4, 2014.   

 

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

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Classical Association of the Atlantic States: Call For Papers

2014 Annual Meeting, October 9-11
The Washington Marriott at Metro Center, Washington DC
775 12th St. NW, Washington DC 20005

We invite individual and group proposals on all aspects of the classical world and classical reception, and on new strategies and resources for improved teaching. Especially welcome are presentations that aim at maximum audience participation and integrate the concerns of K-12 and college faculty, and that consider ways of communicating about ancient Greece and Rome outside of our discipline and profession. We are hoping to include an undergraduate research session featuring presentations based on outstanding term papers, senior theses or other scholarly projects. All proposals must be submitted to the online form available at the CAAS website.

Please note that current membership in CAAS is required in order to submit proposals and to present papers or preside over sessions.  The submission deadline is April 7, 2014. For more detailed information and to enter a submission, please visit http://www.caas-cw.org/papercall.  Questions may also be sent to the program coordinator, Judith P. Hallett, at jeph@umd.edu

 

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I Quaderni del Ramo d'Oro Call for Papers

We are pleased to announce that the fifth issue of I Quaderni del Ramo d'Oro -- the on-line journal of the Center for Anthropology of the Ancient World (University of Siena, Italy) -- is now available at the address http://www.qro.unisi.it.

 

The first part is dedicated to the proceedings of the conference "Comunicare la cultura antica (riflessioni sulla traduzione di testi di medicina e filosofia)" (Communicating the ancient culture (reflections on the translation of medical and philosophical texts). The second part contains regular contributions reflecting the journal's thematic and theoretical interests.

 

I Quaderni del Ramo d'Oro is an on-line, open-access journal dedicated to publishing original, high-quality research in Classical Studies that demonstrates a particular commitment to studying the ancient world in an anthropological perspective, as well as works of cultural anthropology more broadly. All current and past issues -- including the special issue focusing on Greek and Roman mythology (Numero speciale) - are available free of charge and without restrictions on access. We invite you to peruse the journal's contents, which represent much of the pioneering research of the international and interdisciplinary group of scholars working at the Center. An English translation of the website will soon be available.

 

Papers are welcomed in Italian, English, French, Spanish and German, and subject to peer-review by an editorial board that includes distinguished scholars from Italy (University of Siena, University of Rome, University of Torino, University of Pisa, etc.), France (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris), and the United States (Ohio State University, University of Chicago), and by external referees. Submissions are invited from the whole community of scholars in Classics, cultural anthropology and related fields. For more information, please visit the journal's website http://www.qro.unisi.it or contact info.qro@unisi.it.

 

Submissions may be sent to segreteria.qro@unisi.it by March 31, 2014.   

 

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2014 Cloelia Survey on Pedagogy 

The Cloelia editors, Alison Jeppesen-Wigelsworth and Liz Gloyn (Guest Editor for 2014) have put together a survey to collect information on teaching practices and pedagogy in Classics.  The survey form can be found in Google Forms at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1duN9qkRHjK4RuhQdk_2T3vWDeCltJszbxSd13p_nKG4/viewform.
 

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Classics in the News 

On December 13, NPR featured a TED Talk by Classicist and tattoo artist Phuc Tran: "Does the Subjunctive Have a Dark Side?"

On February 9, Salon featured a story of Sherlock Holmes' use of an ancient Greek mnemonic device on the BBC series SherlockIt's Not So Elementary: The Secrets of Sherlock's Mind Palace.

On January 16, the website io9.com ran an amusing piece on a curse found in a Medieval manuscript. Many cat owners will sympathize:  This Medieval Manuscript Curses the Cat Who Peed on It.
 
On December 9, Oxford University announced the completion of a magnum opus: Medieval Latin Dictionary Completed After 100 Years.

On December 12, The Telegraph issued a challenge to its Latin-savvy readers: Take the Test: How Well Do You Know Your Latin?

On December 4, Newsweek ran a piece on two Italian cities' competing claims to be the ancient homeland of Circe: Never-Ending Odyssey.

On November 22, The New Yorker featured a story on the connections between the Kennedy family and Greek thought: J.F.K., Tragedy, Myth.

On November 20, The Atlantic ran a story examining how taking courses such as Latin can positively affect students' friendships: Friendship Starts in Latin Class.

For even more links to exciting Classics-related news stories, please like our Facebook page.

Necrology

Henry Immerwahr (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) passed away on September 13, 2013.  A remembrance of him can be found here.

Thelma E. Slater (Canton City Schools) passed away on November 24, 2013.  An obituary can be found here.

Lewis William Leadbeater (College of William and Mary) passed away on January 21, 2014.  An obituary can be found here.

John Donohue (National Latin Exam) passed away on January 27, 2014.  An obituary can be found here.

David L. Sigsbee (University of Memphis) passed away on January 27, 2014. 

To visit the CAMWS Necrology website go to http://www.camws.org/News/obitus_recentes.php.

 

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Submissions

The CAMWS Newsletter is published three times per year, in the fall, winter, and spring/summer.  The deadline for the spring/summer edition is May 15.
 
To access past issues of the CAMWS Newsletter, go to http://www.camws.org/News/newsletter/index.php.

Send submissions by e-mail to newsletter@camws.org.

Send submissions by regular mail to:

Stephanie McCarter
CAMWS Newsletter Editor
Department of Classical Languages
Sewanee: The University of the South
Sewanee, TN 37383
931-598-1221