We're pleased to announce this year's winners of the following SCS Awards:
Congratulations to these exemplary Classicists for all their excellent work!
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(Photo: "library" by Viva Vivanista, licensed under CC BY 2.0)
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(Un)-Forgotten Realms: Science Fiction and Fantasy in and about the Ancient Mediterranean
25th Annual Classics Graduate Student Colloquium
University of Virginia
Saturday, April 17th, 2021
Keynote Speaker: Jennifer Rea (University of Florida)
Late in the afternoon on November 5, 2020 — close to 24 hours after polls across the country had closed for the 2020 elections — the NRA tweeted a familiar phrase: “Come and Take It.”
In May of 2018, I wrote about the valorization of ancient Sparta for Eidolon. The article underscored Spartan culture as a romantic figment of the far right imagination within America. The growth in the use of Plutarch’s alleged quote of the Spartan king Leonidas, whom the Greek historian says answered back ‘μολὼν λαβέ’ (“having come, take” or in less direct translation, “come and take [them]”) to the Persian king Xerxes when told to surrender his arms, continues to grow in popularity among gun enthusiasts on the far right.
Non-human Animals in Ancient Greek Philosophy and Religion
May 13-15, 2021 (Online Conference)
Non-human animals figured prominently in ancient Greek agriculture, diet, medicine, visual art, homelife and war practices. They were also portrayed and examined in various poems, plays, dialogues and treatises. This conference aims at examining ancient Greek philosophical and religious views on issues pertaining to the nature and status of non-human animals and the attitudes of human beings towards them. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
The religious significance of animal sacrifice in Greek antiquity
The depiction of animals in Greek myth and poetry
The goals of the systematic study of animals in Ancient Greece
Specialized Labor in Classical Antiquity: Economy, Identity, Community
May 14-15, 2021, Zoom Webinar
Keynote Speakers: David Hollander (Iowa State University) and Lynne Kvapil (Butler University)
The notion of ‘specialized labor’ informs research on economic growth in antiquity, ancient slavery, urbanism, philosophical discussions of craft and knowledge, and so much more. But what is specialized labor? In what contexts did it exist in classical antiquity, and why? What were its economic consequences, and how did its existence shape discourses concerning work, knowledge, and identity? Who were the people performing this labor, and what impact did it have on their lives?
The past decade has seen a surge in interest about the lives of workers both in the ancient Mediterranean and beyond. From in-depth case studies (such as Flohr 2013; Tran 2013) to expansive volumes (Verboven and Laes, eds. 2017; Stewart, Harris, and Lewis, eds. 2020) and dedicated conferences, there is an increasing awareness of and interest in what labor looked like in classical antiquity. This conference will join that conversation. Specialized labor provides an approach to understanding labor that bypasses the valuation of labor as ‘skilled’ or ‘unskilled’ by focusing more closely on the division of labor rather than its social prestige. Charcoal burners and mosaicists alike may be specialists, for all the differences in their professional lives.
PhD scholarships in the Humanities at Newcastle University
Northern Bridge Consortium offers up to 67 fully funded doctoral studentships to outstanding applicants across the full range of arts and humanities subjects, including Creative Practice disciplines, and interdisciplinary studies. As of 2020/21, all international students will be eligible to apply for Northern Bridge Consortium studentships, including EU and non-EU citizens.
We run an annual competition to select the best doctoral candidates and provide a comprehensive and attractive package of financial support over the duration of study, which incorporates:
1st -3rd September 2021
Abstracts are invited for contributions to a conference on “Reflections on language in early Greece”, to be held on-line (via Zoom or a similar platform) on 1st-3rd September 2021. By ‘early Greece’ we have in mind texts and other cultural artefacts earlier than Plato, and materials that are all too often overlooked in scholarly discussions of Greek reflections on the nature of language. We envisage the conference as offering a series of independent yet mutually illuminating contributions, which illustrate the significance of the topic in this period and the wealth of views and approaches adopted towards it, beyond and besides the traditional opposition between physis and thesis, or between a Cratylus and a Hermogenes. To this end, we hope that our conference will cut across genres, traditional periodizations and academic disciplinary boundaries and we welcome contributions that straddle the divide between Classics, Philosophy, and Linguistics.
Themes that we wish to examine include, but are not limited to:
· The correctness or incorrectness of language (incl. names)
· The potential of language to represent reality; the role of language as a tool for accessing reality or as an obstacle to doing so
The American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) was founded in 1885 and is the distinguished, peer-reviewed scholarly journal of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA). The AJA is published quarterly in print and electronic forms (see www.ajaonline.org).
The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of the AJA reads initial submissions, decides whether to assign them to peer reviewers, and determines whether the final version is publishable. The EIC develops an editorial vision and solicits manuscripts consonant with that vision. The EIC works closely with the Managing Editor and editorial staff as well as with the AIA’s Vice President for Research and Academic Affairs.
The EIC appoints peer reviewers and an Editorial Advisory Board, assists the AIA Development Department in raising funds in support of the journal, and provides written reports on the status of the journal to the AIA Governing Board. The EIC oversees a part-time Editorial Assistant and the work of two independent contractors: the Book Reviews Editor and the Museum Review Editor.
The EIC serves as an independent contractor for a term of three years, with an option to extend for two years. Compensation is normally in the form of release time from the EIC’s home institution; appropriate adjustments will be made in the case of independent scholars.
Required Qualifications
Lecture and Concert Video Nancy Felson, Helen Eastman, Alex Silverman, & Live Canon Ensemble
In the fifth century B.C., Pindar of Thebes wrote odes to celebrate the victories of great athletes at the pan-hellenic games. He celebrated their prowess by re-telling the myths of ancient Greece in a way that elevated the athletes' status and suggested that they, like the heroes of old, would be glorious forever. But the mythic women had little to say. Instead, they were frequently abducted or maligned. In this lecture-concert, learn more about some of those silenced women in new music and poetry and hear some modern victory odes, including two that celebrate winners in the recent U.S. elections.
The program, which is part of our Performing Pindar Project, aired Thursday, November 19 at the University of Georgia's (virtual) Spotlight on the Arts Festival. It featured new writing by Live Canon poets, performed by members of Live Canon Ensemble, and new music by composer Alex Silverman and lyricist Helen Eastman. The original music includes ballads of Cyrene and an instrumental piece based on the meter of Pindar’s Ninth Pythian Victory Ode. This video should appeal to a wide audience of students and faculty -- anyone who welcomes creative responses to ancient poetry.
Please click on the link below anytime in the next two weeks to see the full program:
The 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. Most of the projects funded take place in the US and Canada, though the initiative is growing and has funded projects in the UK, Italy, Greece, Belgium, Ghana, and Puerto Rico. This post centers on two projects that explore the experience of studying Classics in secondary schools, and amplify the voices of Classics students during their early encounters with the field.
On November 3, 1903, the Department of the Isthmus separated from the Republic of Colombia and became its own republic. This act ended 82 years of history between them. The reason? to allow the US to build a canal after Colombia refused to in August of that same year.
The new republic entered the twentieth century with great emotion and with the dream of finally seeing an interoceanic canal. New projects were sought, but there was also an uncertain future accompanied by the first conflicts with the Canal Zone and the United States. Which were initiated by the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty of 1903, as in Article 1 indicates that the US will guarantee the independence of the Republic and the right to intervene in the affairs of Panama as it is set forth in Article 136 of the 1904 Constitution. The former raised doubts, and questions not only from the neighbors countries that said that Panama was now a US a protectorate and that in fact it was not Latin American, but also by the same Panamanians that felt that way and understood it as an attack on sovereignty and as a risk on the national identity and Panamanian culture.
