(The website for Keely Lake's In Memoriam can be found here)

Keely K. Lake, 48, passed away on January 15, 2020, at the age of 48.  

She was the daughter of James and Dorothy (Burcham) Lake, born on December 8, 1971.  She had recently moved back to Hot Springs to care for her father.

Keely graduated from Hot Springs High school in 1990, the University of South Dakota with a BA in Classics in 1994 and the University of Iowa with a PhD in Classics in 2001.

She was a visiting guest professor at Gettysburg College in 2001 and Professor of Classical Greek and Latin at Wayland Academy from 2002 until 2018.

She was teaching online courses for Montclair State, Wayne State University and One Schoolhouse.

She was an active member of the Vergilian Society, several Classic related boards and organizations and was a reader/table leader for standardized AP exams in Latin.

Keely was an avid gardener, enjoyed cooking, reading, traveling, and collecting books.  She also traveled extensively which was a passion of hers. 

She is survived by her father, James Lake; and her precious cats, Penelope and Gemini.  She is preceded in death by her mother.

Visitation services will be held 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m., Thursday, January 23, 2020, at Chamberlain McColley’s Funeral Home in Hot Springs, SD.

The Theory and Practice of Cosmic Ascent: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches

Conference Sponsors: Trinity College Department of Classics, and The Centre for the Study of the Platonic Tradition, Trinity College, Dublin

Conference Organisers: Professor John Dillon (Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin) and Nicholas Banner (Trinity College, Dublin) 

One of the most striking tropes in the history of western thought is the account of cosmic ascent; we find narratives of humans ascending to the stars and beyond in a vast array of sources from among the earliest written accounts of western literature, through antiquity, and up to (at least) the High Middle Ages. From the Hellenistic period onward, Mediterranean religions and philosophies (understood broadly) looked increasingly to a model of human ascent as a primary locus for spiritual achievement; however, the ways in which such ascent was conceptualized vary enormously from tradition to tradition (we might compare e.g. Jewish apocalyptic texts with the ascent-accounts of Platonist philosophers, or Hermetic with Sethian ascent-accounts), and even from thinker to thinker (we might contrast e.g. Plutarch with Plotinus or St Paul with Clement of Alexandria). 

8:00 am

Light breakfast and coffee in Gibson Room

8:50 - 9:00 am

Welcome and introduction

First session (Chair TBD)

9:00 - 9:45 am

Ben Watson (University of Oklahoma): "A New Commentary on Cicero’s Divinatio in Caecilium"

9:45 - 10:30 am

Gina White (University of Kansas): "Emulation and Moral Development in the De Officiis"

10:30-10:45 am

Coffee

Second session (Chair TBD)

10:45 - 11:30 am

Amanda Wilcox (Williams College): "Cicero on Paternal Authority and the Domus"

11:30 - 12:15 pm

Peter White (University of Chicago): "The Mirage of the Tirocinium Fori"

12:15-1:30 pm

Lunch (in Gibson Room)

Third session (Chair TBD)

1:30 - 2:15 pm

Francesca Martelli (UCLA): "Historical Irony in the Ordination of Cicero Ad familiares 10-12"

2:15 - 3:00 pm

Spencer Cole (University of Minnesota): "Cicero and Populism, Then and Now"

3:00 - 3:45 pm