COVID-19

In an April 2020 post for Eidolon, I gathered predictions on “classics after coronavirus.” Two years later, it’s hard to believe all that’s changed — and all that’s stayed the same. Thanks to advocacy for more inclusive and global approaches to antiquity, the term “classics” can scarcely be used without scare quotes. Even the simple preposition “after” seems hopelessly outdated: we’re all learning to live and work alongside a virus that’s here to stay.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought historical epidemics into contemporary public awareness on a massive scale. Although ancient pandemics have been studied in detail since at least the 19^th century, over the past year, outbreaks of the past have become apparently more relevant for what they might offer us today. Of course, the interest in historical pandemics seems to increase every time contemporary diseases draw public attention. Over the last three decades, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and Zika, among others, have made headlines, increasing interest in past diseases, even if not on the same scale as Covid. Presentist concerns, unsurprisingly, drive historical research.

What use is Covid-19? Despite its epidemiological and socioeconomic consequences, can this pandemic do anything good for scholars? For Classicists? For one thing, we have seen the capacity of the virus to generate numerous themed conferences, journal volumes, and lecture series. Whether that’s a “good thing” is another matter. But, at the very least, we may say that this global pandemic renders a cluster of ideas more broadly interesting and salient than usual.

Our fourth interview in the Contingent Faculty Series is a virtual conversation between Joshua Nudell and Dr. Bonnie Rock-McCutcheon. Dr. Rock-McCutcheon received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, where she wrote a dissertation on the role of spectacle in gifts to Delian Apollo in the Archaic period, before becoming a Lecturer of Classics at Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA. Her current research focuses on sociality with the gods, the role of gender in myth, and the use of graphic novels in the classroom. She was recently featured in an episode of the Creators Unite podcast, talking about her experiences using comic books and graphic novels in the classroom. When not teaching a wide range of courses for both the history and classics programs, Dr.

In Part 3 of our guest series for the SCS Blog, the Women’s Classical Caucus (WCC) invites you to celebrate the winner of its 2020-21 Public Scholarship Award: Peopling the Past, a grassroots group of Canadian archaeologists and art historians of the ancient Mediterranean who have created resources accessible to audiences of all ages.

In Part 2 of our guest series for the SCS Blog, the Women’s Classical Caucus (WCC) invites you to celebrate the winner of its 2020–2021 Leadership Award: Suzanne Lye, Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The award recognizes Dr.

Unattainable wishes for the present or past may be entirely reasonable.

– Smyth’s Greek Grammar, “Wishes” §2156.5

Picture the heroine in the sand, wind-lashed and desperate, cursing the hero who left her behind. She’s Medea, she’s Ariadne, she’s Dido. Each of the three make a similar wish:

If only that ship had never reached my shores