classics chicagoclassics.uchicago.edu/files/classics_newsletter_summe… · · 2013-11-15turning...
TRANSCRIPT
Summer 2005
Dear friends of Classics,
I’m delighted to welcome you to the
relaunched Departmental newsletter and hope
that you will find it interesting and
informative.
There have been some major developments
since the last newsletter appeared, of which
the most significant is probably the
reconstitution, on January 1 of this year, of
the Committee on the Ancient Mediterranean
World as an independent Ph.D. track within
the Department of Classics. The merger was
undertaken partly in recognition of the
broader and more interdisciplinary skills that
are now demanded of Classicists and partly to
allow Ancient Mediterranean World students
access to the level of fellowship support and
From the Chair
New Books by Former Students!
2004 was a banner year
for former students
turning their PhD
dissertations into books
published by various
university presses. Vicky
Pagán’s Conspiracy
Narratives in Roman
History (Texas) has
appeared, along with
Department FacultyDanielle Allen
Michael Allen
Elizabeth Asmis
Shadi Bartsch
Helma Dik
Chris Faraone
Jonathan Hall
Ralph Johnson (em.)
David Martinez
Emanuel Mayer
Mark Payne
James Redfield
Allen Romano
Nicholas Rudall
Richard Saller
Antonia Syson
Peter White
David Wray
Associate FacultyJonathan Beere
Lee Behnke
Michael Dietler
Jas’ Elsner
Elizabeth Gebhard
Janet Johnson
Walter Kaegi
Bruce Lincoln
Glenn Most
Richard Neer
Martha Nussbaum
Wendy Olmsted
Dennis Pardee
Gabriel Richardson
Seth Richardson
Robert Ritner
Martha Roth
David Schloen
Laura Slatkin
Matthew Stolper
Theo van den Hout
Classics at Chicago
funding opportunities that were previously
restricted to their Classical Languages and
Literatures peers. A newly designed
curriculum will enter into effect in September
2006 for the new Ph.D. track (to be known as
the Program in the Ancient Mediterranean
World) and the Department has officially
changed its name to the Department of
Classics to reflect more accurately the broader
constituency that it represents.
Our graduate students are the life-blood of the
Department and I am delighted to report that
they continue to enjoy great success with job
placement. No fewer than five dissertations
were defended this last academic year and as
many as nine graduates presented papers at
the APA in Boston. A generous gift from the
Radcliffe G. Edmonds III,
Myths of the Underworld
Journey: Plato,
Aristophanes and the
“Orphic” Gold Tablets
(Cambridge). Peter Struck,
who took his degree in
Comparative Literature but
is a much loved “adopted”
member of our department,
saw the publication of his
Birth of a Symbol: Ancient
Readers at the Limits of
their Texts (Princeton).
Congratulations to all
three!
Chris Faraone
“Five students in thenewly mergedClassics and AncientMediterranean Worldprogramssuccessfullydefendeddissertations thisyear.”
PAGE 2
From the Chair (cont’d)
Cohen family has endowed the Abigail Rebecca
Cohen Fellowship Fund which will, in future
years, offer us valuable resources to attract,
train, and maintain the most intellectually
adventurous graduate students in the field.
The end of every year inevitably sees
departures and arrivals. We were sorry to bid
farewell to Campbell Grey (Visiting Assistant
Professor of Roman History) and Julia Kindt
(Collegiate Assistant Professor in the
Humanities) but wish them every success in
their new positions at the University of
Pennsylvania and the University of Sydney
respectively. Meanwhile, we are delighted to
Plaudits for Graduate Students
To our great pride, five students in the newly
merged Classics and Ancient Mediterranean
World programs successfully defended
dissertations and settled into the world of
post-doctoral employment this year. John
Hyland (“Tissaphernes and the Achaemenid
Empire in Thucydides and Xenophon”) will
stay on with us on for another year as a
Visiting Lecturer in the Social Sciences
Collegiate Division. Carolina López-Ruiz (“The
Sons of Earth and Starry Heaven: Greek
Theogonic Traditions and Their Northwest
Semitic Background”) has begun a tenure-
track Assistant Professorship at the Ohio
State University, and has just published a co-
authored paper (with Chris Faraone and Brien
Garnand) in the Journal of Near Eastern
Studies under the title “Micah’s Mother
(Judges 17:1-4) and a Curse from Carthage
(KAI 89): Evidence for the Semitic Origin of
welcome Emanuel Mayer as Assistant
Professor of Classical Archaeology. Trained at
Munich and Heidelberg and teaching until
recently at Oxford, Emanuel is the first
tenure-track archaeologist in the Department
for more than a generation and his
appointment is an indication of the
Department’s determination to build and
expand upon its traditional existing strengths.
With best wishes,
Jonathan M. Hall
Professor and Chair of Classics
Greek and Latin Curses against Thieves?”
Ilse Mueller completed her dissertation on
“Strategies for Survival: Widows in the
Context of Their Social Relationships” and
continues teaching humanities in Canada, as
she has now for several years. Stacie Raucci
(“Gazing Games: Propertius and the Dynamics
of Visions”) has stepped up from a visiting
appointment to that of John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Assistant Professor at Union
College. Ben Stevens (“The Origin of Language
in Greek and Roman Thought”) has begun a
second year as Visiting Assistant Professor at
Bard College.
Our pre-doctoral students have also scored
notable successes this year. Robert Germany
will interrupt his work on campus to hold a
Visiting Instructorship at Trinity University in
Texas for a part of the year. Alex Gottesman
and William Bubelis have won Whiting
PAGE 3
New Faculty Profiles:
Mark PayneI joined the University of Chicago faculty in
2003, after completing a dissertation on the
bucolic poetry of Theocritus at Columbia
University. This summer I finished revising
this project for publication, and it will appear
in book form from Cambridge University Press
in 2006, entitled Theocritus and the Invention
of Fiction. I am a regular contributor to the
Poetry and Poetics program here, which aims
to encourage dialogue between readers of
poetry in different departments of the
University, and also invites poets to read and
lecture on campus. My next academic project
will be in keeping with the goals of this
program, as I look to explore common forms of
poetic assertion in archaic Greek poetry
(Sappho and Pindar) and a range of
modernists from William Carlos Williams to
Paul Celan. I am also an avid traveler (see
right) and the editor of this newsletter.
Antonia SysonIn my final year as an Oxford undergraduate I
read Lucan’s lush civil war epic and realized
that I had to carry on thinking about Latin
literature, a realization which sent me to
California for Berkeley’s PhD program in
Classics. Discovering the term “narrative
addict” (used by A. S. Byatt for readers of
Patrick O’Brian’s naval adventure stories)
helped me confront my long-held curiosity
about the power of all kinds of narratives –
whether by Sallust, Cicero and Vergil or by
Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot – to shape
readers’ understanding and become part of
their experience. This curiosity has driven
my work at Berkeley (I completed my PhD in
2003), and here in Chicago. I moved to the
city first as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at
Northwestern University, and then came
south to teach Latin Literature here in Hyde
Park. At the moment I am teaching all kinds
of Latin courses, and completing a manuscript
based on my PhD dissertation: “Reading for
the Novel: Fiction and Transformation in
Vergil’s Aeneid.”
Elektra WorkshopOn May 25, 2005, the Classics Department
and Classical Lecture Society joined together
to sponsor an afternoon tea and workshop
entitled “Sophokles’ Elektra: Staging Agonism
and Revenge” in the First Floor Theater of the
Reynolds Club. Prompted by the University
Theater’s June production of Sophokles’
Elektra, translated and directed by Professor
of Classics D. Nicholas Rudall, the workshop
sought to address textual and performative
issues associated with the staging of Greek
tragedy, focusing particularly on the central
agon of the Elektra. Attending faculty and
students received an exclusive preview
performance of the agon between
Clytemnestra and Elektra played by the
respective members of the UT cast, Emily
Boyd and Angeline Gragasin, after which
followed comments by panelists W. Ralph
Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Classics, Allen
Romano, Lecturer, Teresa Lemieux, Graduate
Student, and D. Nicholas Rudall. Discussion
ranged in topic from the morality of revenge
and the Sophoklean definition of justice to the
significance of shame and legal language in the
debate and the prevalence of ritual activity in
the play as a whole.
Teresa Lemieux
Mark in Mexico
Dissertation Fellowships. Shawn
Deeley won both a Tave Teaching
Fellowship in the College and a
Nicholson Center Fellowship for short-
term research in the British Isles.
Fanny Dolansky won a Martin Marty
Center Dissertation Fellowship. Phil
Venticinque participated in this
summer's seminar in papyrology
sponsored by the American Society of
Papyrologists at the University of
Michigan, and he will hold an Ephron
Teaching Fellowship later this year.
In addition, Brad Atwell, Ari Bryen,
Shawn Deeley, Jodi Haraldson, and
Phil Venticinque have taken
advantage of travel fellowships from
the Ryerson and Boyer endowments
to pursue research abroad during the
summer.
Peter White
Plaudits for GraduateStudents (cont’d)
University of Chicago1010 East 59th StreetChicago, IL 60637
Phone:773 702-8514
Fax:773 702-5728
E-Mail:[email protected]
Do you have material forthe next newsletter?
Email it straight to:[email protected]
New AppointmentsPresident Randel has named three
members of the Classics Department
as appointees to named chairs. On
July 1, Shadi Bartsch became the
inaugural Ann L. and Lawrence B.
Buttenwieser Professor of Classics
and Chris Faraone became the
inaugural Frank Curtis Springer and
[LABEL HERE]
Department of ClassicsGertrude Melcher Springer
Professor in the Humanities
and in the College. As of
October 1, Jonathan Hall will
become the Phyllis Fay Horton
Professor in the Humanities.
Graduate Student ActivitiesThe 2004/05 year was both busy and visible
for Chicago graduate students locally and
nationally. Winter and spring quarters
brought two very personable visitors to the
department at the invitation of the student-
run Classical Lecture Society. Traianos Gagos
(Michigan) presented on a unique prayer
document from Egypt, while David Konstan
(Brown) offered a stimulating discussion of
humor in Greek epigrams. Both papers were
followed by lively dinners with the speakers.
At the APA meeting in Boston, Chicago was a
noticeable presence with nine current
students on the program, both senior and
junior students delivering papers. The topics
reflected a wide range of interests, literary
and historical, and included studies of Homer
and Hesiod, near Eastern connections to
Greek myths, the Hellenistic Peloponnese,
Greek-Persian relations, Roman religion, and
Coptic Egypt. Chicago was also well-
represented at CAMWS in Madison with
presentations on 4th century Athenian history,
Greek orphans, and late-antique Egypt.
Fanny Dolansky
In the next issue:
Undergraduate Affairs
Profiles of EmanuelMayer and Allen Romano
SAVE THE DATE!Friday November 11,
4:00pm, Classics 10
George B. Walsh Lecture
“A Roman Writes a Postcard
Home: Pliny the Younger,
Roman Imperialism and
84 Charing Cross Road.”
Greg Woolf
Professor of Ancient History
and Head of School of Classics,
The University of St. Andrews.