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Call for Papers for Panel Sponsored by The American Classical League

Teaching Students to Read Latin: What Does That Mean?”

Organized by Ronnie Ancona, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center, and Editor, The Classical Outlook

The American Classical League invites scholars and teachers to submit abstracts for its affiliated group panel session, “Teaching Students to Read Latin: What Does That Mean?” at the 154th Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in New Orleans in January 2023. We welcome abstracts that address one or more of the questions below or other issues relevant to the topic:

The fields of Latin studies and Latin pedagogy have been undergoing re-examination. What “Latin” should refer to and what “reading” means is no longer self-evident.

What Latin texts we read and why has been affected by discussions of race, gender, power, and class, among other things. In addition, what counts as a “text” is open to discussion, as we see the potential problems in limiting ourselves to some sort of canon. Still further, the timespan for the Latin we teach has come under scrutiny, as people debate whether we are teaching a language with a long history or whether we are teaching Latin of the so-called classical period and why.

Then there is the question of reading Latin, which most would consider a shared goal among instructors, and which is reflected in the 2017 “Standards for Classical Language Learning.” But is reading the same thing as understanding or comprehending? How does it differ from translating? Should the goals and/or methods of learning to read Latin be the same as for any other language or should they differ because Latin is no longer anyone’s native language? And should the choice of Latin texts we use in the classroom take into account our answers to these questions?

Finally, are (or should) our definitions of “Latin” and “reading” different depending on whether we teach at the elementary, secondary, or college/university levels? Does it matter whether our goal is to teach as many and as wide a variety of students as we can or whether our aim is to train future scholars?

All papers should be accessible to a broad audience of classics scholars and teachers. Papers accepted for the panel will be published in The Classical Outlook, journal of The American Classical League, after additional peer review. By submitting an abstract, you agree to submit your paper for publication in CO, if the abstract is chosen for the panel. Abstracts should be submitted to the panel organizer, Ronnie Ancona (rancona@hunter.cuny.edu). Any questions about the panel may be addressed to her. She will anonymize the abstracts before they are forwarded to the panel reviewers. Reviewer decisions will be communicated to the authors of abstracts by March 10, 2022, with enough time that those whose abstracts are not chosen can participate in the individual abstract submission process for the upcoming meeting.

Please submit as a Word document. Abstracts (maximum 500 words, excluding bibliography) should conform to the instructions for the format of individual abstracts that appear in the SCS Guidelines for Authors of Abstracts:

https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/guidelines-authors-abstracts.

Please put “ACL panel at SCS 2023” in the subject line of your email submission. Include the title of your paper, your name, and your institutional affiliation (or status as Independent Scholar) in the email message only, but make sure that your name (and any other identifying information) does not appear in the abstract itself or in the name of the file. If you refer to your own scholarship in your abstract, cite it in the third person, as you would any other source.

You MUST be a member of SCS to submit an abstract. Please include in your email submission message your SCS member number and the date you joined or last renewed. (This will appear on your membership confirmation email from SCS and in your account.) You DO NOT have to be a member of ACL.

The NEW deadline for the submission of abstracts is February 10, 2022.