The Penn Libraries have received a major collection of 280 Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, valued at over $20 million, from long-time benefactors and Library Board members Lawrence J. Schoenberg (C’53, WG’57, PAR’93) and Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg. To promote the use of this and other manuscript collections at Penn, the Libraries will create the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies.
Full press release:
http://www.library.upenn.edu/docs/publications/SchoenbergMssCollection.pdf
Follow SCS News for information about the SCS and all things classical.
As the COVID-19 virus becomes more widespread in the US and in many other countries, the SCS office and the Board of Directors are making plans to deal effectively with disruptions to all our operations and programs.
Since many academic institutions are now placing restrictions on domestic travel, cancelling trips and programs abroad, and even teaching online due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the SCS Board of Directors has approved, effective 3/6/20, the deferred spending by award winners of short-term award and grant funds for travel, programs, and events. Winners of the Frank M. Snowden Jr. Scholarships (formerly the Undergraduate Minority Scholarships), Coffin Fellowship, Pedagogy Awards, Koenen Fellowship, and Classics Everywhere micro-grants will be allowed to postpone their awards until 2021, subject to terms that will be included in all award letters going forward. Detailed instructions will be included in all award letters. SCS will continue to receive applications for these programs in accordance with posted deadlines, and 2020 winners may use funds in 2020 if they are able to do so.
---
Our second interview in the Contingent Faculty Series is with Ryan C. Fowler, who is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Franklin & Marshall College. Ryan teaches a wide variety of classes, including Ancient Medicine and Ancient Rhetoric and Persuasion. He has written a number of articles and books on Platonism in the early Roman Empire. Ryan held a residential fellowship at the Center for Hellenic Studies in 2014, was Sunoikisis fellow for curricular development from 2012-2016, and has also taught at Grinnell College and Knox College. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from Rutgers University, an M.A. in Classical Greek from Columbia University, and an M.A. in philosophy from San Francisco State University.
How has working in a contingent position affected your work as a teacher? And do you think working in such a position has given you a different perspective on teaching or working at a college or university?
A Forum on Thornton Wilder's Alcestiad at Fordham University
The Dean's Office of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, the Fordham Theatre Program, and the Fordham Department of Classics will present A Forum on Thornton Wilder’s Alcestiad on March 6, 2020. This June, Fordham Artist-in-Residence and Artistic Director of Magis Theatre Company, George Drance S.J., will stage Thornton Wilder’s Alcestiad at Four Freedoms Park in New York City. In anticipation of the production, a panel discussion of the script will be held on March 6, 2020 at 6:30pm. The event will be held at the Twelfth Floor Lounge at Fordham Lincoln Center. Panelists will include George Drance, S.J. (Fordham University and Magis Theatre Company), Elizabeth Scharffenberger (Columbia University) and Jerise Fogel (Montclair State University). Actors from Magis Theatre will also present a few scenes from the upcoming production. The event is free and open to the public.
The 2020 SCS Election Slate and narrative report of the 2019-2020 Nominating Committee are now available on our website.
Thank you to our Nominating Committee members and to all those who have agreed to stand in summer 2020.
---
As previously announced, Patrice Rankine and Sasha-Mae Eccleston will serve as guest editors of a future issue of TAPA with the theme of race, racism, and Classics (issue 153:1, to appear April 2023). Their detailed call for papers, along with instructions and deadlines for submission, follows.
Race and Racism: Beyond the Spectacular
…the “cultural logic” of lynching enables it to emerge and persist throughout the modern era because its violence “fit” within the broader, national cultural developments. This synchronicity captures why I refer to lynching as “spectacular”: the violence made certain cultural developments and tensions visible for Americans to confront.
Jacqueline Goldsby, A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature
The program submission system is now open and accepting proposals.
You can visit the main page at https://program.classicalstudies.org/
---
Workshop: Socratic eudaimonia and the care for others
An event sponsored by the International Society for Socratic Studies
Verona, April 8-9, 2020
Despite the appearances given by certain texts, the moral psychology of Socrates need not imply selfishness. On the contrary, a close look at passages in Plato and Xenophon (see Plato, Meno 77-78, Protagoras 358, Gorgias 466-468, Euthydemus 278, Lysis 219; Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.9.4-5) suggests that the egoist’s welfare depends upon the welfare of others (i.e. family or friends). Since the welfare of the egoist’s family and friends is part of the egoist’s own eudaimonia, the egoist has a direct and intrinsic motive to promote the welfare of these others.
The new Classics Everywhere initiative, launched by the SCS in 2019, supports projects that seek to engage communities worldwide with the study of Greek and Roman antiquity in new and meaningful ways. As part of this initiative the SCS has been funding a variety of projects ranging from reading groups comparing ancient to modern leadership practices to collaborations with artists in theater, music, and dance. In this post we honor Black History Month and focus on programs that support and encourage the engagement of black communities globally with the study of classical antiquity.
Advocacy, growth, and inclusion are the three new strategic priorities that the SCS is committing to for the immediate future. The following programs, funded by Classics Everywhere, exemplify these priorities by seeking out and fostering the perspective of black students, scholars, and artists in the study of classical antiquity and its legacy: an event celebrating the release of a new book on classical reception, a public panel in Ghana, and the creation of a new curriculum for young African Americans in New Orleans.
“BA Program in the Archaeology, History, and Literature of Ancient Greece”
Languages of Ecology: Ancient and Early Modern Approaches to Nature
Languages of Ecology: Ancient and Early Modern Approaches to Nature focuses on the origins, variety, and transformations of notions of ecology in antiquity and the early modern period.
The colloquium aims to initiate an interdisciplinar debate about epistemic and literary-based image production that led to popular, symbolic, and new scientific notions of ecology. Studies into the foundations and traditions of environmental thinking and ancient experiences of nature, including eco-critical attitudes, enable a better understanding of the different languages of ecology that emerged and co-existed during the early modern period and beyond.
