"Jacques A. Bailly, an associate professor of classics at the University of Vermont, is the department's director of graduate studies. He has also been the official pronouncer of words at the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2003. He won the annual bee as an eighth grader in 1980." Read the interview with Prof. Bailly at The Chronicle of Higher Education's web site.
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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.
Res Difficiles 2.0: A Digital Conference On Challenges and Pathways for Addressing Inequity In Classics
ResDiff 1.0 was timely respite in the midst of a pandemic that forced us to change whether and how we convene and exacted costs disproportionately in underserved communities by reinforcing the durable inequities that have come to define our times. What was conceived as an intimate gathering on the campus of Mary Washington for those teaching Classics was transformed into a digital event attracting 250 registrants from twelve countries. In our papers and conversations, we explored how people on the margins in our texts and contexts are invited—or pushed further from—the center, and explored avenues through with such marginalization might be addressed. Following the conference, recordings of the presentations were made available online at resdifficiles.com. Furthermore, a selection of those papers is being prepared for publication in a co-edited series of consecutive issues in Ancient History Bulletin which will start to appear in 2021.
Some months ago, a piece by Leah Mitchell and Eli Rubies on Classics and reception studies in the 21st century reiterated the importance of studying the reception of classical antiquity. It was a reminder that reception of classical material itself predates the scholarly field devoted to it.
Playing Cleopatra: Hollywood and Anglophone Television Castings
On October 11 2020, American screenwriter and producer of Greek descent Laeta Kalogridis posted this tweet:
Dear colleague,
You probably don’t remember the muffins.
Over the last decade, we’ve tried all kinds of messages to encourage you to support the SCS Annual Fund. We’ve used inspirational quotes from Homer, Ovid, Plutarch, and Cavafy; we’ve included testimonials from grateful recipients of fellowships; we’ve offered matching gifts; we’ve set our text as limericks; and yes, we’ve even tried muffins as metaphors.
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 discusses a project for school-age children in rural Italy that draws attention to the ancient past through the contemporary world.
FELLOWSHIPS FOR RESEARCH AND STUDY AT THE GENNADIUS LIBRARY 2021-2022
The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is pleased to announce the academic programs and fellowships for the 2021-2022 academic year at the Gennadius Library. Opened in 1926 with 26,000 volumes from diplomat and bibliophile Joannes Gennadius, the Gennadius Library now holds a richly diverse collection of over 146,000 books and rare bindings, archives, manuscripts, and works of art illuminating the Hellenic tradition and neighboring cultures. The Library has become an internationally renowned center for the study of Greek history, literature, and art, especially from the Byzantine period to modern times.
COTSEN TRAVELING FELLOWSHIP FOR RESEARCH IN GREECE: Short-term travel award of $2,000 for senior scholars and graduate students, for work at the Gennadius Library. Open to all nationalities. At least one month of residency required. School fees are waived for a maximum of two months.
DEADLINE: JANUARY 15, 2021.
THE GEORGE PAPAIOANNOU FELLOWSHIP: Ph.D. candidates or recent PhDs writing on Greece in the 1940’s and the post-war period, civil wars and the history of the Second World War. Fellows are required to make use of the George Papaioannou Papers housed at the Archives of the ASCSA. Open to all nationalities. School fees are waived for a maximum of two months. Stipend of €2,000.
