CRSN held a workshop for graduate students before the opening of the main conference and offered opportunities for more advanced doctoral students to present their work-in-progress during the conference. Here, however, few if any North American students participated. Through my involvement on the CRSN steering committee, I hope that the APA can work with the Outreach, CAMP and COCT committees in identifying graduate students in classics and related fields with research interests in classical reception, and in encouraging them to share their work at interdisciplinary academic conferences of this kind.
Classics in the media, and on listservs and websites
One of the chief responsibilities of the Outreach Vice-President has been to develop and pursue different strategies for reaching out beyond the professional classics community, first and foremost by collaborating with colleagues around the US and Canada to gather information on classically related events in their geographical regions, and to publicize these events globally as well as locally. When I assumed this position in 2008, I continued the practice of my predecessors in this position—Jennifer Roberts, CUNY, and Barbara Gold, Hamilton College— by sharing on-line articles from various North American media outlets about the classical world and its cultural presence today on a section of the APA website. Entitled “Events: What’s Current in Classics?,” this section has been maintained for several years by Robin Mitchell-Boyask of Temple University, the APA website editor. I made similar contributions to The Dionysiac, a listserv announcing classical plays, theatrical events and conferences, run by Hallie Rebecca Marshall of the University of British Columbia.
Over the past year, however, I have been encountering numerous relevant news items of this kind posted by others—many but not all of them classicists— on the “social utility” website Facebook. I have, moreover, been finding it increasingly easy and expeditious to share these items, and to post items brought to my attention by others (who have emailed me texts and links), on my own Facebook page. For this reason, I would like to consider starting an APA Facebook page over the next few months, perhaps with the assistance of one or more Outreach Committee members. Facebook already has a Wikipedia article about the APA in its “files”, written by Ruth Scodel, University of Michigan, with the approval of the APA Board, during her APA presidency. I would ideally like to use the text of this article on this proposed page. I would also like to obtain reactions from members of the Outreach, CAMP and COCT committees and from the Amphora editors, and some promises of assistance as well, before I launch this page. But I am eager to have it “up and running” by the time of the APA meeting in San Antonio.
Speakers’ Bureau; Musical and Performance Classicists Rosters
After updating the description of the Outreach committee and its activities on the APA website in January 2010, it was time to tackle the task of reorganizing and refocusing the Outreach Speakers’ Bureau. The most recent list did not include any classicists currently teaching in Canada; happily, several Canadian colleagues have now agreed to be listed. The practice of having state coordinators has been discontinued, since the individuals who have contacted me about identifying possible speakers did not appear interested in limiting their options to local presenters. Indeed, the major speaking invitation that came my own way as a result of my own listing was from a lecture series in Des Moines, Iowa. Those already on the Speakers’ Bureau roster were all asked if they wished to remain. They were also informed about plans to connect presentations by classicists (and particularly presentations to audiences and geographical regions with few opportunities to engage with scholars and teachers in our field) with the publication by these speakers, in books and journals, of new scholarship, and made cognizant of the need to privilege scholarly efforts that can easily be made accessible to a non-specialist audience.
In addition, with the assistance of CAMP, and at the request of over twenty colleagues who attended an organizational meeting of those interested in the musical reception of classical antiquity at the APA in Anaheim, Outreach has launched two additional rosters in 2010: one of classicists with backgrounds in musical performance and the history of music; the other of classicists with backgrounds in theatrical performance and in classical performance receptions. In compiling the roster of “musical classicists”, which now numbers over thirty individuals from North America and beyond, we are especially eager to identify colleagues who would be willing to share their knowledge of both music and classical antiquity with individuals writing or performing works that are set in the ancient Greco-Roman world, draw on ancient Greek and Latin literary texts, or feature classical figures and themes.
For the roster of “performance classicists”, we are hoping to identify colleagues willing to share their knowledge of classical antiquity and performance with individuals who are considering staging works that are set in the Greco-Roman world, draw on Greek or Latin literary texts, and/or feature classical figures and themes, in the areas of drama, music and dance. We also anticipate that the senior scholars listed in this roster may be asked to review “classical performances” staged by faculty members under review for tenure and promotion. Thanks to Mary-Kay Gamel, Keely Lake of Wayland Academy, Nancy Rabinowitz, and especially Ted Gellar-Goad, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for helping conceptualize, publicize and coordinate these two new rosters.
The wide interest in the musical reception of classical antiquity, voiced initially in response to the Call for Papers for the 2011 Outreach session on the musical reception of classical texts, described in detail below, has fructified in other ways as well. In June 2010 I was invited to speak at a conference at the University of Graz, Austria, celebrating the 350th birthday of the composer Johann-Josef Fux: it featured a performance of his 1714 opera Dafne in Lauro, inspired by Ovid’s narrative of Apollo and Daphne in Metamorphoses Book 1.
Finally, the organizers of the 2011 Outreach panel—Robert Ketterer, University of Iowa, and Andrew Simpson, Catholic University of America—are also organizing a conference to be held at the University of Iowa in the fall of 2011 entitled “Re-creation: Music and the Reception of Classical Antiquity.” The conference has the enthusiastic support of both the Department of Classics and the School of Music at the University of Iowa. It will explore the reception of Greco-Roman and other ancient literature, theory and culture in musical works composed for various venues, among them silent film scores, the musical stage (as operas, operettas, oratorios, and “musical comedies”), instrumental pieces, pop music in a general, inclusive sense.
The organizers will also welcome presentations focused on history, theory and other academic topics connected with the written and spoken word as well as its musical settings. One or more concerts will be incorporated into the conference as well as the screening of a silent film with Andrew Simpson (the acclaimed piano accompanist for the 2010 CAMP –sponsored session on classically themed silent films) on the piano. The organizers also hope to enlist the expertise of several members of the Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature at Iowa who specialize in silent film. It is hoped that the APA Outreach Committee, CAMP and COCT will play an important organizational role in this project, particularly in efforts to obtain outside funding.
Amphora
Amphora will finish its ninth year in December. The editor, Davina McClain, has prepared the following statement for this report:
Amphora, which originally was scheduled to appear in March, appeared in late June. The delay was due to a series of difficulties encountered by both the editor and the assistant editor. Additional time was needed to ensure the quality of the submissions, and of the issue itself. Once it was ready, the designer worked miracles to pull everything together into a beautiful issue. The next issue is slated to appear in December. At the moment there are not enough submissions of the quality necessary for publication, but the editor is making inquiries.
The various committees in the Outreach division have planned a number of exciting events for the 2011 APA meeting in San Antonio. Each is described in the report submitted by the respective chair.
Outreach Committee (Chair, Judith P. Hallett).
The Committee on Outreach will sponsor a panel, organized by Robert Ketterer and Andrew Simpson, on “The Children of Orpheus: How Composers Receive Ancient Texts”, and featuring the following papers:
Benjamin Stevens, Bard College, a member of the Outreach Committee, and Brett Rodgers, Gettysburg College, have independently co-organized a panel on “The Classical Tradition in Science Fiction” for the APA meeting in San Antonio. The topic of the Outreach panel for the 2012 APA meeting in Philadelphia will be “Black Classicism”, organized by Kenneth Goings, Ohio State University; Denise McCoskey, Miami University; Eugene O’Connor, Ohio State University Press; and Michele Ronnick, Wayne State University. The call for papers has been published.
Another Outreach committee member, Keely Lake, has organized a session entitled “Building Bridges: Latin’s Connections to Modern Languages and Cultures,” for the meeting of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in Boston on November 21. The two presenters—Lake and APA President-Elect Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University—will demonstrate links between Latin and modern languages as well as between classical and modern colleges. The similarities between the methods of classical and modern language instruction will be emphasized. The goal is to see Latin as complementary to rather than competing with the study of modern languages. Lake has updated and redesigned the National Committee for Latin and Greek website (promotelatin.org), and is eager for more contributions; she is pleased to report that the APA will be supporting some National Latin Teachers Recruitment Week grants in 2011.
The committee’s other activities in 2010 have included plans for a proposed series of lectures by ten distinguished classicists to be held at the Embassy of Greece in Washington, DC, and the nomination of a distinguished classicist for the National Humanities medal. I would like to express my gratitude to the many colleagues who have helped in these efforts, among them: Adam Blistein; John Bodel, Brown University; Deborah Boedeker, Brown University; Dee Clayman, The Graduate Center, City University of New York; Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University; W. Robert Connor, The Teagle Foundation; Judith Fletcher, Wilfred Laurier University; Mary-Kay Gamel; Keely Lake; Dimitrios Iatromanolakis, the Johns Hopkins University; Peter Meineck; Kurt Raaflaub, Brown University; and Nancy Rabinowitz.
Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance (Chair, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz).
Chair Nancy Rabinowitz has written the following report:
CAMP has had a very busy year in 2010. At the January meeting in Anaheim we arranged for the screening of a series of silent films with classical settings and themes in lieu of our traditional “live” performance. This film project—Greece and Rome in Silent Cinema—is part of a British initiative headed by Maria Wyke, University College, London, and Pantelis Michelakis, Bristol University. The addition of live piano music at the screening, offered by Andrew Simpson, made the event particularly pleasurable. At the same meeting CAMP co-sponsored (with Boston University) a special film showing of Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son: What Have Ye Done?
We also sponsored a successful panel, which investigated the socio-political contexts of re-performances of ancient drama, and asked how different cultural and political circumstances informed or influenced the productions. Its topic is of great relevance to research in the burgeoning field of classical reception. As Lorna Hardwick has emphasized in Reception Studies (2003), the theater has been at the foreground of discussions about how the classics continue to resonate into the modern world. The panel brought together three intersecting threads of inquiry that have for twenty years dominated the field of Athenian tragedy in particular. The presentations, moreover, underscored the importance of taking socio-political developments into account: not only those at the time of the original performance (so as to tackle such thorny problems as that of dating) but also those occurring when plays are re-performed (since the socio-political context can influence production choices: plays may be performed for the express purpose of commenting on current political events).
CAMP continues to view its annual panels as venues for raising significant questions about the intersections between performance and reception. The 2011 panel, organized by Dorota Dutsch and Nancy S. Rabinowitz, is entitled “Democratic Inflections”. It aims to engage in the international debate on the notion of a “Democratic Turn” in classical reception. In our conception, the word “democratic” draws attention to the ways in which performances of classical texts have been appropriated by diverse cultural groups and segments of society, both those in dominant positions but more particularly those that define themselves as disenfranchished. It features an international panel of speakers.
This year’s CAMP production, to be held Friday evening, January 7, 2011, will feature a dramatic reading of Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae, as translated, adapted and directed by Bella Vivante, University of Arizona. In Vivante’s words, the reading is a “racy adaptation that aims to reflect the spirit and intent of Aristophanes’ play while rendered in a modern idiom for a contemporary audience. Like all CAMP productions, this one will feature classics faculty and students from across North America as the performers, a troupe “chomping at the bit to entertain APA-AIA conference-goers with a lively, comedic romp. The director promises pratfalls, slapstick, stock jokes about chicks, dudes, sex, and drinking, singing, dancing, celebrity impressions, cinematic parodies, good shticks, bad puns and more. In keeping with the Old Comedy features of this play within the constraints of modern society, this performance is for Mature Audiences only.”
We have also launched a list of scholars interested in consulting on or reviewing performances of ancient drama, a companion to the list of “Musical Classicists.” Finally, we continue to work with Peter Meineck to identify and train program scholars for his NEH grant.
Committee on the Classical Tradition (Chair, Dirk Held, Connecticut College).
Chair Dirk Held has written the following report:
COCT will sponsor a session at the 2011 APA meeting in San Antonio entitled “New World Classics: Receptions of Antiquity for Modern Children.” Organized by Sheila Murnaghan, University of Pensylvania, and Deborah Roberts , Haverford College, the panel will address American versions of antiquity from Hawthorne to the present day. The papers are:
Professional Matters
The Division of Professional Matters includes under its jurisdiction the Subcommittee on Professional Ethics, the Committee on Placement, the Committee on the Status of Women and Minority Groups, and the Classics Advisory Service. Here follow brief reports from each committee, reporting on activities since the last APA meeting in Anaheim.
Subcommittee on Professional Ethics
Various questions were presented for consideration by the committee; as always, our deliberations are strictly confidential. Two complaints that have occupied the attention of the Subcommittee for some time have been resolved. The communication of outcomes is still pending in one of these cases.
Committee on Placement (Submitted by Erich Gruen)
A number of items came under consideration by the Placement Committee this year. We discussed at some length the value of extending the placement service to applicants for secondary schools, to encourage the schools to register with the service, and to alert our PhDs to career opportunities at that level. We have organized a panel on the subject, including PhDs who have taught or are teaching in private or public schools, to take place at the San Antonio meeting. We were able to settle amicably complaints leveled at individuals for violations of placement procedures or discourteous treatment of candidates. Happily, there were very few such instances. We will discuss through e-mail and more fully in San Antonio the proposition of introducing more flexibility in procedures when institutions conduct senior searches and possible candidates (especially those whose candidacy is solicited) prefer to avoid the embarrassment, awkwardness, and breach of confidentiality involved in formal registration.
Committee on the Status of Women and Minority Groups (Submitted by Stephen Trzaskoma)
After a delay of several years, CSWMG is now in possession of the raw data behind the various reports it is charged to produce: Journals, Placement, and the Departmental Census. The committee has created three teams to process the data, reconsider the nature and purpose of the surveys, and produce the reports. The teams for the Journals and Placement reports have been joined by representatives of the Publications Committee and the APA/AIA Joint Committee on Placement, respectively. These teams are now at work and expect to produce draft reports by the time of the Annual Meeting in San Antonio, where the full committee will meet to consider recommendations to be passed along to the Professional Matters Committee.
Classics Advisory Service (Submitted by John F. Miller)
1. Since I took over in January of this year the CAS has been in contact with eleven colleges and universities, nine in the US and two in the UK.
2. The bulk of the work has been in support of departments and programs in crisis, whether threatened with extinction or otherwise under stress. A letter from the APA President to the authorities in question is almost always part of our response but in some cases other strategies are used. We always take our lead from the wishes of the local department. In some cases this year a general letter-writing campaign was felt to be counter-productive because it was likely to alienate administrators, but some colleagues found this a productive strategy. Enlisting the aid of parents can be effective in some cases. Different traditions of faculty governance may recommend one or another approach to a dean or provost by the APA. In calendar 2010 we have so far worked on six cases, with one still ongoing as of this date. At issue was (or is) the elimination of positions—in two cases amounting to half the instructors in Classics—the closing of departments, the downgrading of a department to a program, and the cancellation of a flourishing Latin program along with terminating an Associate Professor of 30 years service.
3. The CAS also responded to requests from three colleges and one university for suggestions of suitable evaluators of their programs; two other colleges asked for assistance in developing or creating a Classics program.
4. I intend to revise the web page of the Classics Advisory Service during the present academic year. Suggestions from APA officers and members for useful additions or other editing would be welcome.
5. Responses to several threatened programs were coordinated with CAMWS and I think that the pooling of information has helped both organizations to respond more effectively. I would like to thank Anne Groton, Secretary-Treasurer of CAMWS, for collaborating with APA in this area. We plan to discuss how we can work together even more closely in the future.
Program
The elected members of the Program Committee in 2010 were Elizabeth Asmis, Maud Gleason, Steven Oberhelman, Jeffrey Rusten, and myself. We met twice in Philadelphia to consider submissions for the 2011 meetings, to be held in San Antonio. Heather Hartz Gasda and Adam Blistein provided indispensable support in making our meetings possible and our deliberations efficient.
1. At our first spring meeting (April 24) the Committee evaluated proposals for 16 panels, 2 seminars, 2 workshops, and 7 roundtable discussions; we also approved the charter renewal of 1 existing Affiliated Group (Category I). 4 applications for At-Large Panels were submitted (none an APA/AIA Joint Submission), of which we accepted 1, rejected 2, and invited 1 to revise and resubmit (this resubmitted panel proposal was subsequently accepted at the Committee’s June meeting). The Committee approved all the proposed seminars, workshops, and roundtable discussions and 9 of the 12 proposals for Organizer-Refereed Panels; the Committee suggested that one of the rejected Organizer-Refereed panels be recast as an At-Large Panel proposal, to be considered in April 2011. All 4 of the proposals submitted by APA Committees were accepted; three of these will be paper sessions, and one will be a workshop (“Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation,” from the Committee on Education). The now-traditional panel sponsored by the APA / AIA Joint Committee on Placement was scheduled to follow the reception on the opening night of the meetings: the theme this year will be “Classics Ph.D.s and Secondary Teaching: Challenges and Opportunities.” We also reviewed 16 panels submitted by affiliated groups: the Committee regretfully could not let 2 of these go forward, one because it had not attracted the minimum number of abstracts for review, another because it became plain, after an inquiry, that the proper procedures to insure double-blind refereeing had not been followed.
2. At the April meeting the Committee took up two other pieces of business. First, it received a report from Elizabeth Asmis, concerningthe APA / CA Joint Panel that she undertook to organize for the CA Annual Conference in late March or April 2011, and congratulated her on securing the participation of Peter Wiseman and Ingo Gildenhard (for the CA) and Erich Gruen and Joy Connolly (for the APA), who will offer papers on “Cicero and Civic Unity.” Second, it took up the request made by the Board of Directors in January to suggest steps that might be taken to the annual Plenary Session more attractive: I presented the Committee’s recommendations (which appear at the end of this report) to the Board at its meeting in Philadelphia in early October, and they were enthusiastically adopted.
3. The Committee met again for two days on June 18-19. As noted above, we accepted the one At-Large Panel proposal that had been revised and resubmitted. The adjudication of 407 individual abstracts was the main item of business. This number was up 30.4% from the 312 abstracts submitted for the Anaheim meetings of 2010, and was second only to the record 446 abstracts submitted for the meetings in San Diego in 2007.[1]
As always, explaining fluctuations in submissions from year to year is an uncertain business; yet I find it impossible to believe that this spike is not attributable in good part to the introduction of online-submissions for this most recent round. Though the system made available for this purpose through the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) was imperfect in some ways, it represented a giant step in the right direction; furthermore, the SSRN staff were responsive when problems arose, and there is little evidence that those problems were visible to our members, who reported remarkably few difficulties to the Association’s central office. We have arrived at the future, or at least its threshold, and for that thanks must go to Immediate Past-President Josh Ober, who pointed the Association toward SSRN, and above all to Adam Blistein, who labored tirelessly to make the collaboration work.
As most members are probably aware, every year before the June meeting, each of the five members of the Committee independently reads, writes comments upon, and rates every individual abstract on a scale of 1 to 4. After the committee members have submitted their ratings, Heather Gasda collates them in tabular form in advance of the meeting: the collated ratings provide the basis for our discussions. In cases where the committee members agree, there is little or no discussion. Otherwise we discuss each abstract until a consensus is reached. The discussion of the abstracts, which is often extensive and always collegial, constitutes the most enjoyable part of our work. There are no quotas. We consider all abstracts on their own merits and in accordance with the guidelines published on the Association’s website.
Of the 407 abstracts submitted, the Committee accepted 121 or 29.7%, up from the acceptance rate (24.4%) of last year. Women submitted 154 abstracts (37.8%), men 253 (62.2%), proportions that represented a slight tilt in the direction of men relative to last year. The acceptance rate for men (32.0%) was roughly equivalent to last year’s acceptance rate for men, while the acceptance rate for women (26.0%) was up markedly. We received (roughly speaking) 200 proposals on Greek subjects (49.1%), 164 on Roman topics (40.3%), with the remaining 43 (10.6%) devoted to topics such as linguistics, reception, and pedagogy. The top three categories for submissions were Latin Epic (35), Greek tragedy (33), and Greek epic (29); the accompanying tables provide further statistics, including comparisons with submissions in each category last year.
On the afternoon of June 19 the Committee organized the accepted papers into sessions, identified potential presiders, and drafted a preliminary program for the meetings in San Antonio.
4. There will be two seminars in San Antonio: “Allusion and Intertextuality in Classical Historiography,” organized by John Marincola; and “The Audience of Roman Comedy,” organized by Timothy J. Moore. As in the past, the papers for these seminars will be circulated to interested members in advance of the meetings, and the session itself will concentrate on extensive discussion of the papers; participation will be limited according to the space available. We warmly urge members to consider submitting proposals for seminars at future meetings.
5. Dee Clayman’s presidential panel will present “New Chapters in Recovering Greek and Latin Literature.” Her presidential address is titled “Berenice II, Lady of the Lock.”
6. As always, the Committee is eager to learn of any initiatives that the membership would like the Committee to undertake to enrich the annual program, and I invite the members to send their suggestions and comments to my successor or any of the continuing members of the committee.
7. On the Committee’s behalf I warmly thank all those who have submitted abstracts, organized panels, and agreed to chair sessions for the meetings in San Antonio; and Adam Blistein and Heather Gasda for their help in all aspects of preparing the program. Speaking for myself, and I am sure the membership at large, I also warmly thank my colleagues on the Committee, whose service demands weeks of their time each year, and in particular the colleagues whose terms are now ending, Steve Oberhelman and Jeff Rusten: if you look in the dictionary under “commitment” or “collegiality” or “acumen,” you will see their pictures. Finally, as I prepare to hand on the Committee’s chairmanship, I want to express my warmest gratitude to Adam and Heather once again, for their flawless collaboration and support over the last four years; and, especially, to the membership, for having given me this opportunity to work with them and learn from them.
Program Committee Proposal on Plenary Session Adopted by Board of Directors on October 2, 2010
In January 2010 the Board asked the Program Committee to consider ways in which the Plenary Session could be made more attractive to members and be better attended. The Committee took up the question at its April meeting in Philadelphia and now offers the following recommendations, several of them anticipated in Board’s earlier discussion:
Publications
This report will confine itself to questions of leadership in the division. The report to follow the January board meeting will discuss in more detail the specific activities of our different areas of publication.
We undertook this year two searches, for "web editor" and for editor for monographs.
For "web editor", I am pleased to report that the search committee has identified and endorses as candidate to the full Board for approval Professor Sam Huskey of the University of Oklahoma (c.v. postpended); the Board has approved the appointment at its October meeting. Sam has done good work with CAMWS in this space, is a fresh thinker, and is eager to work with us as we see what more we can do within existing resources to enhance our web presence. We have agreed that we would style him "Information Architect" for the Association, to reflect that the position is not only one of shoveling content onto a static page and arranging it, but is as much a job of thinking and designing conceptually how the web "publishes" the Association and its business. This choice carries forward discussions the Vice Presidents had with the Presidents and Adam last winter after our publications retreat. It does not preclude recognizing as we work with Sam that other approaches and resources might be necessary, but I am convinced that he will be the right thinking partner for just such conversations, and that in the meantime, he will do the doable within our present arrangement (which includes some greater capacity since the redesign of the website and the addition of a "content management system" last winter). (Search committee: Clayman, Hallett, Bagnall, Levene, Lenski, O'Donnell, Blistein)
For monographs editor, we are in a more difficult position. Solicitation of the association did not generate applications we could move seriously forward. Members of the search committee have deliberated further, beaten the bushes, gathered some names, and approached a number of respected senior members of the Association, to no avail. The underlying challenge, surfaced at our retreat, is that we are at a point where it is not clear just how APA-published monographs differ, first of all, from the array of things published commercially and elsewhere and, second, how the Association might most responsibly take up the challenge of reimagining its publications in view of digital opportunities. The search committee continues to deliberate. (Search committee: Coleman, White, Mastronarde, Goldberg, O'Donnell, Blistein)
The editor for textbooks, meanwhile, Sander Goldberg has spent some valuable time in exploring publishing possibilities this year, first with Rice University Press, which had an engaging model for e-publication of monographic scholarship but which discorporated late this summer. Investigation continues.
Clearly, our corporate and distributed mind is at some variance on the question of the future of our publications. Where we are of a mind in knowing the character and quality of scholarship that we think the Association should publish -- with TAPA -- we continue to flourish. There are and with Professor Huskey's appointment will be more opportunities to think about how to "leverage" that publication, but it is in good hands. On the other hand, our aporia in other matters has everything to do with the interesting times in which we work. My view is that we should proceed deliberately and directly on the question of the Association's self-presentation (with a view to the Gateway that we have discussed for years now) and more deliberately still on the question of other forms of publication. It is not at all clear that if we take a pause of some short time to reconsider our options anything of value would be lost.
J. O'Donnell
Research
This report consists of the interim reports from some of the task forces appointed last winter. As they got into action at different points, they have varying amounts to report. The Task Force on Digital Peer Review has got itself organized but has no substantive report so far.
Task Force on Summer Programs (John Bodel)
(John Bodel, Chair; Erwin Cook; John Duffy; Judith Hallett; Sharon Herbert; William Metcalf; Michele Salzman; Matthew Santirocco). This group was charged with exploring possible ways to fulfill the aim of the APA Directors to create an ongoing summer program aimed at giving graduate students from a mix of institutions a common foundation in methods and materials of research. Two areas targeted for primary consideration were the documentary research disciplines (papyrology, epigraphy, palaeography, and numismatics) and fields outside the range of traditional graduate programs in Classical philology, such as archaeology and the study of Egypt and the Ancient Near East. The committee conducted its deliberations by email over the spring and summer months. Various ideas were mooted in a series of exchanges concerning three issues especially: organization and location, timing (both frequency and duration), and staffing and costs.
We find ourselves in agreement on several basic principles, but also conceding that in many cases an ideal might have to be abandoned in favor of what is possible: the perfect combination of duration, venue, rotation, and staffing is likely to be difficult to achieve, and to some extent, we believe, the initiative is sufficiently worthwhile that it should be implemented in some fashion, even if imperfectly, if only to learn better what works and what doesn’t.
The following list of recommendations and issues for further consideration is therefore focused on the most basic questions, with details of many particulars left to be worked out ad hoc in individual instances by a suitable program leader, once identified. Practically, the first step of any APA-sponsored initiative would seem to be securing the cooperation of a scholar with suitable skills (and possibly access to suitable research materials) willing to undertake the leadership of a summer seminar. Subsequent arrangements would to some extent need then to depend upon what the leader could manage. Nonetheless, several ideal parameters might be identified and, if possible, observed.
Organization and location
Seminars should be hosted at institutions with suitable resources (research libraries and housing accommodations). Those focused on documentary disciplines ideally should be held at places that provide access to suitable collections of study materials. A distribution of seminars among different regions of the country on a broadly geographical rotation is desirable, but having a single or a few fixed host institutions during the early years may help the programs to become established. Research universities are perhaps the most likely locations to host seminars, but research centers such as the Center for Hellenic Studies or the Getty Center might also be considered.
Frequency and duration
Ideally, at least one summer seminar should be sponsored annually, with the targeted fields offered in rotation. The minimum desirable duration for any seminar is three weeks. The ideal range of duration is three to six weeks. Seminars of four or six weeks might be broken into two units, with an intervening assignment, and possibly two (or more) instructors at different venues (see below on staffing and teleconferencing). If funding permits, two seminars of four to six weeks might be sponsored in a single summer, thus improving both geographical distribution and disciplinary accessibility.
Staffing and costs
Suitable program leaders might be more readily recruited to undertake a seminar if the possibility existed of sharing the work with a colleague. Two-person teams have been found to work well in such undertakings. Recent emeriti, who have expertise and time, might be among those recruited. Wherever feasible, distance education via teleconferencing should be combined with on-site instruction, for both economic and programmatic reasons. Learning the documentary disciplines benefits from specialist instruction by experts not always available on a single campus. In some cases, one co-director might join another on a single campus; in others, teleconferencing might allow two (or more) instructors in different locations to co-teach a seminar. Costs can be minimized and resources maximized by enabling willing experts on location with collections of primary materials to use them for instructing students at another site. Substantial funding will be needed, mainly for subsidies for students not supported by their home institutions (expected to be a majority). Likely sources of funding include (in addition to APA), NEH, ACLS, and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation. Students from well subsidized Ph.D. programs might be expected to seek funding for some or all of their expenses from their home institutions.
Other thoughts
Collaboration: For several of the ‘documentary’ disciplines, as well as archaeology itself, cooperation and, ideally, collaboration should be sought from the AIA. If reciprocal opportunities in philology were desired by archaeologists, APA could reciprocate.
Membership: Some committee members are in favor of extending the opportunity to groups other than active graduate students, such as post-docs.
Topics: Two committee members favor extending the range of possible topics to include interdisciplinary thematic seminars similar to those sponsored by NEH.
Task Force on Performance Archives (C. W. Marshall). (K. Bosher, Northwestern University, M.-K. Gamel, University of California (Santa Cruz)
C. W. Marshall (chair), University of British Columbia
Case for an Archive
In the past the APA through its Committee on Research has supported many worthwhile large projects, but none that clearly represent Reception Studies. Reception (the study of how the ancient world has been understood and disseminated within and since antiquity) has grown, especially since 1995, as a sub-discipline of the field, and offers great opportunities for interdisciplinary contact with other academic fields. Indeed, Reception provides a rubric within which many of the traditional fields of Classics can profitably be examined.
A particular focus of Reception has been in performance studies, particularly in theatre. Since theatre is by definition ephemeral, any opportunity to document or preserve information about such performances should be pursued, in order to preserve transient information for future generations of scholars and theatre practitioners.
The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD) in Oxford has compiled a useful, international, online computer database of performances and preserves some material on site, but it does focus on the U.K. and has not aggressively pursued detailed coverage in North America. The European Network of Research and Documentation of Performances of Ancient Greek Drama (Arc-Net, ) is engaged in a related project, using a multinational team to document European performances.
An Archive of Classical Performance for North America would be able to complement the UK and European initiatives, while providing a platform from which other reception projects could be launched.
Given limited resources, choices must always be made for coverage, and these choices shape the discussion. These choices may fall along three axes: time, geography, and medium. (Other axes could be devised, but these convey the point.) Is the time period to be constrained (e.g. “since 1950”)? What geographical limitations will be placed (all of North America? global? the state of Delaware)? Theatre only, or also cinema, comics, sculpture, architecture…?
The specific parameters of what the archive would cover will depend on the interests of the director. We suggest that in order best to complement parallel efforts, a performance archive might focus on theatre and cinema performances in North America – performances both of ancient texts and (more generally) that represent the ancient world. Conceivably, direct adaptations in other media of ancient performance texts could also be included.
Location and Resources
While any location could serve as an archive, for long-term viability and ease of consultation, an archive site would need
Staff, Space, Bandwidth
The greatest financial cost is likely to be staff, for maintaining archives and digital archives and for research. One model that would be worth pursuing would be doctoral fellowships and postdoctoral fellowships, a model that has proved successful for reception and database projects at Oxford, Northwestern, and Hamilton College, among others.
Opportunities
It must be asked what a North American Archive can accomplish that the APGRD cannot. Five things seem immediately relevant:
- A fuller archive and database of North American performances, both professional and amateur (with a better search interface).
- Digital encoding of posters, programs, production material, reviews, photos, notes, essays, and other archive works and contextual information, to increase accessibility for researchers. This could duplicate materials stored offsite.
- A digitized library of video performances (or excerpts).
- A location to house physical objects when a local one does not exist.
- Rather than waiting for information to come to the archive, researchers could be trained and employed to gather archive materials, and preserve them in a digital format.
An archive would not only look to the past. Given the rapidly growing number of productions of ancient drama on both amateur and professional stages in North America, one major function of the archive would be to preserve records of new productions. This might in itself encourage collaboration between directors, actors, and producers, and also serve to inspire directors/producers to look to antiquity for new productions.
There are also opportunities to build links with (and support) other projects. These might be based in Reception (such as Classicizing Chicago, based at Northwestern), or in Performance (such as the work of Aquila Theatre Company, based in New York). The APGRD has undertaken a successful programme of publications on reception that also should be emulated.
Recommendations.
- An Archive of Performances in North America is a viable, valuable Reception project that deserves support.
- Further study is needed, and the APA should support an ongoing ad hoc committee to investigate how much interest there is among the membership, what interested parties think about the parameters, etc. This could be done through the Committee on Research or through the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance (CAMP).
- Of chief importance in the first instance is the identification of a host institution. At present there is no single, obvious individual around whom an Archive could be established.
- The APA should not try to replicate the accomplishments of the APGRD, yet it should surely work to do more than fill the gaps it has left. One possibility is to develop more local archives, employing a centralized administration and online presence. Another option is to focus on research, and recruit individuals to gather materials actively. An online periodical might provide an appropriate venue for such materials.
- An accessible video archive and online journal are crucial needs. As long as performance studies as a field is seen as descriptive rather than analytical (and with print as the dominant medium that will likely remain the case) there is a black mark against the field. An archive could make significant, meaningful steps towards the maintenance of rigorous, analytical standards in Reception.
- Specific funding opportunities should also be pursued. The availability of the NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant () seems an ideal initial goal, though there is likely insufficient time to make this year’s deadline (5 Oct 2010). Other possibilities include the Partnership Development Grant from Canada’s SSHRC (, next deadline 25 Nov 2010), which would allow an initial small-scale pilot project to gauge interest and response if Canadians are somehow involved.
Task force on Prosopography (Richard Talbert and Charlotte Roueché)
The conclusion that we came to in London when we talked at length there last November stands, I think: namely, that APA should not seek to take any independent initiative in this area for the time being. Rather, it should aim to stay informed about the progress made by Charlotte and associates with the prospect in mind of offering or fostering assistance somehow to a major project of great potential value such as ePIR whenever this is launched, building on a satisfactory outcome #1 to RMMA.
Charlotte Roueché has been involved in Prosopography in two ways:
I. Graeco Roman
Through the individuals who appear in our online epigraphic corpora: Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (2004): http://insaph.kcl.ac.uk/ala2004/ includes an index of persons with references to PIR
Inscriptions of Aphrodisias (2007), http://insaph.kcl.ac.uk/iaph2007/index.html includes an index of names, but does not identify individuals, except for the imperial house.
Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania(2009), http://irt.kcl.ac.uk/irt2009 is based on a book published in 1952. It therefore includes persons who will have been included in PIR, although this is not indicated in the web publication.
A first edition ofInscriptions of Cyrenaicawill be published in 2010: it will include an index of names, but will not identify individuals, except for the imperial house. We intend to integrate information from PIR and from LGPN.
II. Byzantine
As chair of the UK, British Academy sponsored Committee for Byzantine Prosopography: this inherited the remit of PLRE, and has published:
PBW I, 641-867, published in 2001 on a CD
PBW, 1025-1180, published in 2006, online:http://pbw.kcl.ac.uk/
This material may fall outside our remit: but our experiences there are of considerable methodological and technological value. It is important to note that the Austrians published a prosopography of the Byzantine Empire, 1261-1453 http://verlag.oeaw.ac.at/products/Sachgebiete/Byzantinistik/Prosopograp… originally on paper, but since 2001 on CD. They are now working with colleagues in Thessaloniki to put this online.
Our current projects are driven principally by serendipity and research bids, as follows:
In hand.
- Byzantine/Arabic. We have just completed a project funded by the Leverhulme Trust to add Arabic materials to PBW http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/byzmodgreek/PABC/intro.html
- We are still adding materials to PBW, funded largely by the Leventis Foundation. The really important driver in the prosopography of this period comes from Byzantine lead seals: we are working to encourage the publication of these materials online. The key players here will be the CNRS and Dumbarton Oaks.
- RMMA We are also running a pilot project, funded by Mellon, exploring some of the managerial and protocol issues in developing online prosopography, and exploiting the collaborative aspects. Graeco-Roman scholars work in a fairly clear cut environment, focusing principally on only two languages. Working in the early medieval period makes it essential to work with other scholars, and to rely on trust: the Byzantine world impinges on experts in Latin, Slavonic, Georgian, Armenian, Arabic etc. We would like to explore how different subject specialists, constructing the prosopographies of their own sources, could exploit and contribute to the work of others. To this end we are proposing to explore what a Register of medical experts in the medieval period (say 700-1400) might look like. We have created an experimental database, and we are organising 4/5 workshops (with tentative dates): Paris November 2010; Chapel Hill December 2010; Granada (largely with Arabists) January 2011; Vienna (with, I hope, Byzantinists and Mitthof) February 2011; London (date tba).
In May 2011 I will be preparing a report to Mellon on how all that has worked out.
The expected outcomes should be:
- A set of protocols for setting up online prosopographic databases and other collaborative endeavours
- The foundations for a Register Medicorum Medii Aevi – or a decision that this is not the best way to proceed.
Possible future projects
ePIR. We are searching, with colleagues in Germany and elsewhere, for funding to pull together a range of projects in Roman prosopography: the aim is to start by taking the PIR database, upgrading its technology, and publishing it online.
Task Force on a Database of Classical Scholars (Ward Briggs)
The task force was charged with finding a means to create an online database of vital and professional information about classical scholars. At the outset there were three principal sources of information: The Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists (BDNAC), ed. Ward Briggs (Greenwood, 1994); The Dictionary of British Classicists (DBC) ed. Robert B. Todd (3 vols. Thoemmes, 2004) and the website “Catalogus Philologorum” supervised by Franco Montanari of Genoa.
The first two of the above-named reference works are not available in machine-readable form; the third is essentially a posting of .pdfs and .doc files that are not downloadable or searchable. Anticipating future contributions that would either be optically scanned or individually typed into a common format, I optically scanned letters “A,” “B,” and “C” of the BDNAC (122 pages) into .docx format and typed the “A” entry from the DBC (36 pages) in the same format. (N.B. The BDNAC copyright is owned by the APA; we do not have permission to use material from the DBC; I did this only for initial testing of our program.)
Conversion to TEI: With the source material in .docx format, the next step was to convert it into something approximating a TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) XML format, the standard markup language for this kind of project. This involved turning a document of words into consistent semantically-tagged fields, such as “name”, “born”, “died”, “education”, “experience”, “publications”, and so on.
A certain percentage of this work can be done automatically and will produce what is called a “medium-grade TEI” format (abbott_middle.xml) which has heading labels (“Born,” “Education,” etc.) [N.B.: This file can be opened with Wordpad vel sim.). The creation of a “high-grade TEI” format (abbott_high.xml) which breaks out each of the subfields as specific items, cannot realistically be done automatically, but will require clerical help to hand edit the source files, probably with the oXygen XML editor or some similar editor. The high-grade format would be most advantageous for the publications list, which, because of the varying use of colons and commas, font shifts, and the idiosyncrasies of citation style, need to be prepared by the human hand and eye.
Sample of formats:
Middle grade:
Born: 27 Mar. 1860, Redding, CT,
to Judge Thaddeus Marvin & Mary Jane A.
High grade:
Redding, CT to
key="#ABBOTT1-father">Judge Thaddeus Marvin and
Mary Jane A.
Merging of Sources:With both the BDNAC and DBC material in TEI format, we tweaked the program to read the files, combine them into one file, and present the material in a browser. Parsing the Word document requires a long list of special rules to accommodate the vagaries of whatever Word has used to format the text for that version of the document. This has been a tedious process and it will be vital that future entries be in a standardized Word format. In the future, we should have a template to capture user input, and the template would produce output data that had all the tags.
Output: The attached file, DCS.xml, opened in a browser such as Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer, gives an example of the current web display. While it is possible to include images (photos of the subject; book covers), we have not yet got to that stage. The file produces one long web page, which should ultimately be a series of individual web pages with discrete addresses, and there are some small tweaks (comma after surname in left panel) that need to be worked on, but all such improvements and even the basic format of the output can be readily modified with our program.
It would probably be reasonable to produce this as digital material for the web using the eXtensible Text Framework (xtf) for displaying and searching. xtf is a California Digital Library project that seems to be one of the emerging platforms of choice for this kind of project. File A_SearchScreen.pngis a screen shot of the xtf search page. We (the staff programmer from the USC Center for Digital Humanties and I) took abbott_high.xml, indexed it with xtf, and then searched for “abbott” as on this screen shot.
The result of that search is the file B_SearchResults.png, a file similar to the output of a Google search, with each of the search hits highlighted as a link. (The second search hit comes from our already having some sample data in the collection when we added the abbott_high.xmlfile to the collection.)
Finally, the screen shot that is file C_Display.pngshows the display of the abbott_high.xml entry in xtf. All this is in the browser, and the display format can be changed as desired.
There are other parts of xtf that would allow for indexing and for writing software for analytics (all the entries referencing Harvard in the “education” section, for example).
Conclusions: At this stage, we are very close to completing the necessary programming to create a workable database website. The next big step will be to find financing for the creation and editing of more source material.
Task Force on Translations (Susanna Braund)
The five members of the task force agreed each to take on a particular area and of these four members submitted reports to me, as requested, during the summer. This constitutes sterling work which will be invaluable for the APA Committee on Research as it decides how to proceed on this matter. I shall summarise briefly the results of their work.
Jeffrey Henderson took responsibility for investigating the availability of translations of non-Christian Greek and Latin texts in a number of series, including Loeb Classical Library, Penguin Classics, Aris & Phillips, Focus, Tusculum, and Budé, as well as translations available online. He submitted two lengthy documents (12 pages for the Greek and 10 pages for the Latin) consisting of lists with checks where translations already exist. These are attached as Appendices 2 and 3. A glance at this list reveals many gaps – and a moment’s thought suggests that even where translations exist, they may be outdated and in need of revision. I circulated Jeff’s lists to all members of the group, who were immensely grateful.
Jan Ziolkowski brought to the group his expertise as a member of the editorial board for the Fathers of the Christian Church, published by the Catholic University of America Press. He submitted a brief list of projects recently published, under way, commissioned, projected and desired. I do not attach this as it contains confidential material.
Carin Green offered to investigate collections of fragments of Latin literature, primarily Republican literature, and submitted a list of collections of fragments which have not been translated and which she believes should be, an opinion with which it is easy to concur. She also praised the ongoing (if slow) work on translating Festus in the UK and suggested that the Loeb Classical library volumes Remains of Old Latin are in need of updating.
Pramit Chaudhuri provided three different documents, one on Ancient Medical Texts, one on Greek Law and one on Roman Law, which I attach as Appendices 5-7. Of these, he finds that Roman Law is currently the best served in terms of translations. There is a huge gap in terms of English translations of ancient medical texts; the French Budé series is leaps ahead here. In all of these fields he identifies as a major concern the lack of translations of papyri and he convincingly argues that this area is a priority, followed closely by inscriptions.
Summary These investigations reveal a general pressing need for more online translations of classical texts, especially those of a more technical nature (medical texts, legal texts) and those collected as fragments or according to their mode of preservation (inscriptions, papyri). Had we received a report on epistolary texts, I consider that that area too would reveal enormous gaps in coverage. There is clearly awareness of the need for translations of the huge amount of patristic material.
Alongside the need to fill gaps there is also a constant need for the revision of outdated translations, ideally in online versions. In this regard, it will be important for the APA Committee on Research to talk to the editors of the Loeb Classical Library, to find out more about the ongoing process to digitise the series for searchable online availability. I believe it would also make sense to talk to the editors of the Perseus Project and any other similar online resources, to find out how it is decided which translations to post; maybe it is simply a matter of copyright.
I believe that the APA is the appropriate body to coordinate efforts in this area, to the extent that that is possible when dealing with commercial publishers. In promoting online availability of classical texts in translation, there may be less interference of commercial motives and it is in this arena that the APA could play a central role in coordinating activities, to avoid duplication of effort, for example. Maybe the APA could set up a body to oversee the online posting of particular types of text.
I realise that the work on this Task Force has in no way been comprehensive; that would be hard, if not impossible. However, I believe that the Task Force has done all it can to carry out the brief assigned. I therefore propose that its work be considered done and that it be considered dissolved. I wish to express my deepest thanks to the participating members.
In Memoriam
As a critic who significantly altered thinking on the classical subjects that engaged his attention, as a model of the classicist as man of letters and man of action, as a soldier who fought heroically and was wounded defending his principles and an oppressed people, as an intellectual who saw the eternal parallels between his war and the Peloponnesian conflict immortalized by Thucydides, as the first director of a research institution that has become a haven for classical scholars young and old, as the most significant public intellectual in the field of classics since Gilbert Highet, who continually attracted a wider audience for the legacy of the ancient world, as the trainer over decades of many eminent classicists from subsequent generations, as a scholar who produced accessible and rightly popular classroom texts that survived for generations, and, not least in his extraordinary longevity, B.M.W. Knox had a life and career that can fairly be compared in the twentieth century to Gildersleeve’s in the nineteenth.
Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England on 24 November 1914, to Bernard, a professional pianist, and Rowena Walker Knox. His father had fought at Passchendaele and when he died in 1926, Knox was sent to Battersea Grammar School in London, where he, like many British boys of his generation, was given compulsory military training both in the school year and in summer camps. In the Cadet Corps he learned to use Morse Code, the standard Lee-Enfield .303 rifle, and the Lewis light machine gun. In the classroom he started French at 12, chose Latin over German, and soon took up Italian and Russian. When caught by a teacher reading Doctor Smith’s First Greek Book during a study session and sent to the master, Knox found his enthusiasm not punished but rewarded with private tutorials in Greek.
In 1933 he entered St. John’s College as a scholarship student in the fiercely contentious political atmosphere of Depression Cambridge. He was never a firebrand like his friend John Cornford (son of Francis Cornford), but was radicalized when he and his colleagues, marching in Cambridge with the Anti-War Movement to lay a wreath on the War Memorial on 11 November 1933, were pelted with fruit and eggs and abused by toughs. The failure of the British government to answer the economic distress of the period led him to join the campus socialists. He also met an American student at Girton named Betty Baur, who planned a career as a writer. Knox’s mentor was Martin Charlesworth (1895-1950), then Laurence Reader in Classics (for Ancient History). Despite Charlesworth’s attentions, Knox was distracted by politics and anticipated no better than a third, though he nonetheless took an Upper Second (2.1) in the Tripos and received his BA in 1936. His career between leaving Cambridge and joining Yale presents a real-life For Whom the Bell Tolls.
With Franco poised to take Madrid in the fall of 1936, Knox was persuaded by Cornford to use his extensive military training in support of the Loyalist side. He arrived in Madrid’s University City neighborhood (above the Manzanares and the great park Casa de Campo to the west) in November of 1936, was assigned to a British machine-gun unit (16 men) attached to the Franco-Belgian battalion “Commune de Paris” of the XI International Brigade and given antiquated French machine guns that took three men each to operate. When the brigade commander offered to replace them with WWI-era Lewis guns, Knox and his friends leaped at the opportunity. A month later, in Boadilla del Monte near Madrid, a bullet struck him flush in the neck and shoulder, nicking his carotid artery and damaging his right arm. The blood spurted up like a fountain and Knox was left for dead by his friends Cornford and Griffin McLaurin , cursing his fate in what he later learned was Homeric fashion before he lost consciousness. He somehow revived and managed to rejoin his friends, but in the absence of ambulances he had to walk several miles to a field hospital dressing station and then go by car to a hospital in Madrid.
When he awakened in the hospital he was surrounded by a doctor and young interns. Remarking on the position of the entrance and exit wounds, the doctor asked his students to name all the organs that the bullet had missed. In other words, “Why is this man still alive?” The bullet had been at the end of its trajectory and did not have sufficient force to damage him further. Half of his troop of 16 were killed and three badly wounded. (McLaurin had been killed on 9 November; Cornford would be killed on 28 December)
Back in Britain with scanty job prospects, Knox renewed his acquaintance with Betty Baur, love ensued, and the two were married in her home state of New Jersey in April 1939. Knox took a job at the Edgewood School in Greenwich, Connecticut for $50.00 a month while Betty worked on her first novel. Her first two novels appeared under her maiden name, but she subsequently took the nom de plume Bianca Van Orden (Knox regularly dedicated his books to “Bianca.”).
Knox enlisted as a private in the United States Army as soon as the school year following Pearl Harbor ended. He graduated from Officer Candidate School in November 1942 and became a naturalized American citizen in September 1943. Meanwhile, he was sent to East Anglia as a B-17 base ground defense officer. Bored by this assignment, he signed up in March 1944 for a posting undescribed but listed only as hazardous and requiring knowledge of French. His early training in languages and his fierce courage fit him well for Operation Jedburgh, a joint British-American-French operation that began after D-Day. Teams comprised of a French, Belgian, or Dutch officer, an American or British officer, and a radioman parachuted into Nazi-occupied France, Belgium, and Holland. Working with the local Resistance, the teams arranged airdrops of weapons and supplies, trained Resistance members, and ran guerilla operations while evading capture by the Germans. Among his 300 Jedburgh colleagues were future CIA director William Colby; Newsweek columnist Stewart Alsop; Lucien Conein, who went on to coordinate the coup against South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963; and John Kirk Singlaub, who commanded Special Forces in Vietnam. Knox parachuted into Brittany on 7 July 1944 with his team (“GILES”) and worked with over 2000 members of the French resistance behind the lines until the Nazis were overrun by U.S. Army units advancing into Brittany, after which the team participated in the siege of Brest.
Operation Jedburgh was now to focus on China, but Knox pleaded for another European assignment. He was assigned to an OSS unit operating with Italian Partisans in the mountainous areas of North Italy. While pinned down in the cellar of a house in Fasano, Knox spied amid the crumbled brick and broken glass the corner of a book sticking out of the rubble. It turned out to be the 1938 text of Virgil, edited by J. Albini & H. Funaioli, published by the Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana with a title page that read, “iussu Benedicti Mussolini.” Wondering if he still retained his Cambridge Latin, Knox performed a sors Vergiliana and stuck his finger in at the following passage:
(Geo. 1.505-511)
The book was too large to carry with him but he swore then, “If I ever get out of this, I’m going back to the classics and study them seriously.” For his war service he received two Bronze Stars, the Croix de Guerre avec Palme a l’Ordre de l’Armée, and the notable British honor of being “Mentioned in Dispatches.”
Spared by providence and good fortune, Knox was de-mobbed in September 1945 and set about making good on his promise. Following the birth of his son, Bernard MacGregor Baur Knox (presently Stevenson Professor of International History at the London School of Economics) in 1945, he applied to the graduate program at Yale on the G.I. Bill. His Yale interviewer, whom Knox claimed to be the chair, Harry Mortimer Hubbell, but was probably Bradford Welles, called him to his face “a premature anti-fascist” (an FBI euphemism for communist), yet he was accepted. He was 32. Already hired by Yale as an instructor, he received his doctorate in 1948 with a dissertation on “Traditional Structure and Formula in the Tragic Narrative Speech.” He was named instructor (1947-8), then assistant professor and fellow of Branford College (1948-54), associate professor (1954-9) and professor (1959-61), with a specialty in the large lecture classes on the classics in translation, a burgeoning area following the war. At about this time he was induced by his Yale colleague Maynard Mack to contribute the classics portion of an anthology entitled World Masterpieces (1956), which became the Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces (1979) and now the Norton Anthology of World Literature. Knox also edited the Norton Book of Classical Literature (1993).
His ability to draw parallels between ancient wars and recent ones, to find modern counterparts to the sufferings of Prometheus or the self-discovery of Oedipus transfixed his students, one of whom, Dick Cavett, later had him on his television show for a full hour. Another was Robert Fagles, who as a graduate student in the late 1950s took Knox’s class on Sophocles’ Ajax. A friendship developed into a partnership when Knox wrote the introductions for Fagles’ translations of Sophocles’ Theban plays, Homer and Virgil.
In the Yale of Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks, Knox was attracted to their fresh ways of encountering a text and he was mindful of the debt he owed to Virgil. His first scholarly publication, “The Serpent and the Flame: The Imagery of the Second Book of the Aeneid,” AJP 71 (1950) 379-400, appeared in the same year as Pöschl’s Die Dichtkunst Vergils and both had wide influence. With it, Knox introduced New Criticism to the classical world and (with Pöschl) paved the way for numerous dissertations and studies that investigated patterns of imagery and thematic development in the works of ancient authors.
Knox applied New Critical techniques to tragedy in Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles’ Tragic Hero and His Time (1957). Characteristically, he was able to set Sophocles in his social context and to trace recurrent imagery in a way that was meaningful even to readers who knew no Greek. His translation of Oedipus Tyrannos (1959) was performed by the Canadian Stratford Shakespeare Festival for television and filmed by the Encyclopedia Britannica.
In 1961 he was named the first director of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington. His Sather Lectures of 1962-3 were published as The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy (1964). In this book Knox shows by linguistic analysis of the interchanges between the hero and his/her antagonists that structurally, Sophocles uses a similar pattern in all of his plays. Analysis of character and historical context in the Antigone, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus show that each of his heroes is unique within this recurring structure.
During his quarter-century at the CHS, Knox built a world-class home for scholars of the ancient Greek world while enlarging his own reputation. He published widely-read essays on the vitality of classics in the modern world in The New York Review of Books,The NewRepublic, The Atlantic Monthly, and many other journals.Most of these essays were collected in his later books, Word and Action: Essays on Ancient Theater (1979; repr. 1986), Essays Ancient and Modern (1989), The Oldest Dead White European Males and Other Reflections on the Classics (1993; repr. 1994), and Backing into the Future: The Classical Tradition and Its Renewal (1994).
In addition to his Sather Lectureship, he was Nellie Wallace Lecturer at Oxford (1975), Martin Lecturer at Oberlin (1981), West Lecturer at Stanford (1984) and Jefferson Lecturer for the NEH (1992). He won the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism (1978), the Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award from PEN (1990) for Essays Ancient and Modern, and the Frankel Prize from the NEH (1990). He received honorary degrees from Harvard (1962), Princeton (1964), George Washington University (1977), Yale (1983), Michigan (1985), and Georgetown (1988).
He was President of the APA (1980) and received its Distinguished Service Award (1996). He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a corresponding member of the British Academy, the Special Forces Club (London), and the Cosmos Club (Washington).
Despite his retirement from the CHS in 1985 at age 71, he maintained an active schedule of lecturing and writing. He edited with P.E. Easterling the Greek section of The Cambridge History of Classical Literature (1986), produced the Norton Anthology of Classical Literature, and the great introductions to Fagles’ Homer (1991, 1997) and Virgil (2006), as well as introductions to translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Catullus.
Betty Baur Knox died in 2006. Bernard Knox died of heart failure on 22 July 2010 in Bethesda, MD. He is survived by his son. His ashes and those of Betty Baur Knox will rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
Ward W. Briggs
The Yale University Department of Classics has reported the death of Gordon W. Williams. See the Department’s web site: http://www.yale.edu/classics/news_williams.html.
Deceased Members
During 2010 the Association learned of the deaths of the following members, some of whom, in fact, passed away before this year. We offer condolences to their families, friends, and colleagues. The names of life members are followed by an asterisk [*].
APA 50-Year Club
The APA salutes the following members who have supported its work for a half century or more. The year in which each joined the Association is given in parentheses. Please advise us if you observe any errors or omissions.
Announcements
New England Classical Journal, now in its 38th year of publication, invites articles and notes on all aspects of the ancient world, including history, literature, art, and pedagogy. We will consider proposals for special issues on selected topics. Submissions, encouraged via email, should be sent to Professor Nina C. Coppolino, NECJ Editor, 66 Elmhurst Avenue, Providence, RI 02908; email address ncoppolino@earthlink.net. Paper submissions should bear no indication of the author’s identity in the body of the manuscript. Scholarly essays are peer-reviewed, and publications are listed in classical bibliographies. For more information about New England Classical Journal please visit the web site of the Classical Association of New England: http://www.caneweb.org/index.asp. For tables of contents of recent issues, indices, sample articles, and style guidelines, see the NECJ archives at: http://www.caneweb.org/necj/necjarch.htm.
The Department of Classics at the University of Notre Dame is pleased to announce the establishment of a two-year Master’s Program in Classics. The sixteen regular and concurrent faculty of the department represent a wide array of specialties, including Greek and Roman literature and culture, history, linguistics, and archaeology, from Archaic Greece through Late Antiquity. Full tuition scholarships and stipends are available. For more information, go to classics.nd.edu or contact Brian Krostenko, Director of Graduate Studies, at Classics@nd.edu.
The John J. Winkler Memorial Trust invites all undergraduate and graduate students in North America (plus those currently unenrolled who have not as yet received a doctorate and who have never held a regular academic appointment) to enter the seventeenth competition for the John J. Winkler memorial prize. This year the Prize will be a cash award of $2,000, which may be split if more than one winner is chosen.
The Prize is intended to honor the memory of John J. ("Jack") Winkler, a classical scholar, teacher, and political activist for radical causes both within and outside the academy, who died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of 46. Jack believed that the profession as a whole discourages young scholars from exploring neglected or disreputable topics, and from applying unconventional or innovative methods to their scholarship. He wished to be remembered by means of an annual Prize that would encourage such efforts. In accordance with his wishes, the John J. Winkler Memorial trust awards a cash prize each year to the author of the best undergraduate or graduate essay in any risky or marginal field of classical studies. Topics include (but are not limited to) those that Jack himself explored: the ancient novel, the sex/gender systems of antiquity, the social meanings of Greek drama, and ancient Mediterranean culture and society. Approaches include (but are not limited to) those that Jack's own work exemplified: feminism, anthropology, narratology, semiotics, cultural studies, ethnic studies, and lesbian/gay studies.
The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2011. Essays should not exceed the length of 30 pages, including notes but excluding bibliography and illustrations or figures. Text should be double-spaced; notes may be single-spaced. Electronic submission is required. Essays may be submitted in any version of MS Word, PDF, or plain text format. Please include an email with your essay in which you provide the following information: your college/university, your department or program of study, whether you are a graduate or undergraduate, your email and regular mail addresses, a phone number where you can be reached in May of 2011, and the title of your work. Please note: Essays containing quotations in original Greek must be sent in PDF format, due to difficulties reading different Greek fonts and keyboarding programs.
The Prize is intended to encourage new work rather than to recognize scholarship that has already proven itself in more traditional venues. Essays submitted for the prize should not, therefore, be previously published or accepted for publication. Exceptions to this rule may be made in the case of the publication of conference proceedings, at the discretion of the prize administrator. The Trust reserves the right not to confer the Prize in any year in which the essays submitted to the competition are judged insufficiently prizeworthy.
Contestants may send their essays and address any inquiries to: Kirk Ormand, Dept. of Classics, Oberlin College; kirk.ormand@oberlin.edu.
Awards to Members
The following members received Rome Prizes for 2010-2011 from the American Academy in Rome:
· Seth G. Bernard, University of Pennsylvania, Men at Work: Public Construction, Labor, and Society in Middle Republican Rome
· M. Shane Bjornlie, Claremont McKenna College, Politics and Tradition in Sixth Century Italy: A Study of Cassiodorus and the Variae
· Andrew M. Riggsby, University of Texas at Austin, Think Like a Roman: Essays in Cognitive History
· Tyler T. Travilian, Boston University, The Corpus Priapeorum: A Textual Edition with Introduction and Commentary.
Meetings/Calls for Abstracts
Irony and Humour as Imperial Greek Literary Strategies: The Playful Plutarch, Ioannou Centre For Classical And Byzantine Studies, University Of Oxford, 12-13 July 2011. Plutarch of Chaeronea is always taken very seriously. The old image of a sober moralist, whose words should be taken at face value and whose ethical judgements are clear and simple, still dominates research. Even readers who are willing to grant him a sense of humour are seldom prepared to see this as anything more than a flash in the pan. Yet Plutarch often employs irony; almost no other ancient author is more receptive to the different intellectual and cultural uses of humour. From the Table Talk’s concern with identifying appropriate uses of jesting at the symposium, to the Political Precepts’ admonition to make measured use of witticism in political discourse; or from the lively interest exhibited by the Lives in joking as evidence of good or bad character, to the various effects that irony achieves in the Moralia, Plutarch’s corpus consistently testifies to the importance of humour as a means of intellectual engagement and communication in the period of the high Roman Empire.
This conference aims to examine the centrality of humour in Plutarch’s works, both as a literary device and as a topic in its own right. By ‘humour’, we wish to encompass a broad spectrum of discursive and intellectual practices, literary devices and manifestations of psychological processes: laughter, wit, anecdote, ridicule, joking and jesting, mockery, derision, satire and the satirical, parody and irony.
We welcome papers exploring specific passages in Plutarch’s writings where humour features, as well as papers tracing his views and works to broader cultural practices of playful engagement in public festivals or elite symposia. In particular, we suggest the following key topics for investigation:
-- Types and styles of humour in Plutarchan discourse, and their various uses: literary-aesthetic, ethical, philosophical, pedagogical, political and otherwise.
-- The role that laughter, jesting and humour play in various communicative contexts in Plutarch’s writings: their underlying psychology and their cultural significance.
-- Wit and humour as an appropriate technique in social encounters, and in the mode of self-presentation appropriate to those encounters, as seen in Plutarch’s works and other imperial Greek authors.
-- Irony within the Lives and the Moralia as manifested by narrative, style and phrasing, and displayed by the characters or the narrator.
-- Plutarch’s theoretical views on wit, humour, jesting, irony and their various media.
-- Plutarch and the various traditions of comic dialogue and satirical writing in the Roman Empire.
We welcome paper proposals by both professional scholars and postgraduate students. Abstracts of up to 300 words should be sent to the two conference organisers by the 20th of February 2011: Dr Eran Almagor (eranalmagor@gmail.com). Dr Katerina Oikonomopoulou (aikaterini.oikonomopoulou@linacre.ox.ac.uk)
Classics Triennial Conference, A Celebration of Classics, 25-28 July, 2011, University of Cambridge. The Celebration of Classics will see a remarkable line up of international scholars brought together in a novel format for such an event. There will, of course, be some very distinguished plenary lecturers, and there will also be two outreach evenings with well-known figures from the media and literary world. But the centre of the event is a set of seminars where leading classicists will be presenting their cutting edge work in a seminar format with extensive opportunities for discussion (each paper will have at least 45 minutes for comment and questions). Each day has only two such seminar slots, leaving plenty of time for debate as well as meeting old and new friends. We are hoping that you will want to come to Cambridge and participate in this event. For full details about the conference, registration, and graduate bursaries please see http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/seminars_conferences/triennial_conference/
Summer Programs
The Latin/Greek Institute of The City University of New York will offer basic programs in Latin and Greek from June 6 through August 16. These courses are intended for people with no (or very little) knowledge of the language. Two and a half to three years of college Latin or Greek will be taught in ten weeks of intensive, concentrated study. Twelve undergraduate credits will be awarded through Brooklyn College. The programs are team-taught by six faculty members, who are on 24-hour call. Students are trained in morphology and syntax and read representative ancient texts (through the Renaissance in Latin and Attic, Ionic, and koine texts in Greek). Graduate students are welcome to apply. Scholarship aid, funded entirely by donations from alumnae/i, is available to partially defray tuition. The Samuel H. Kress Foundation is offering competitive fellowships to beginning graduate students in art history who are focusing on European art history.
For information and application forms, write to: Latin/Greek Institute, City University Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10016, Telephone: (212) 817-2081. E-mail: rfleischer@gc.cuny.edu Web site: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/lginst
The American Classical League is sponsoring a technology workshop and study tour in Rome during the Summer of 2011: RomeIn Situ and In the Lab. Classics teachers of all levels (Elementary through College) are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity. Please check the ACL website for details (http://www.aclclassics.org/rome2011.html.
The Department of Classics of University College Cork, Ireland, offers an intensive 8-week summer school from June 27-August 18, 2011 for beginners with parallel courses in Latin and Greek. The courses are primarily aimed at postgraduate students in diverse disciplines who need to acquire a knowledge of either of the languages for further study and research, and at teachers whose schools would like to reintroduce Latin and Greek into their curriculum. In each language 6 weeks will be spent completing the basic grammar and a further 2 weeks will be spent reading simple, unadapted texts.
For further information and an application form see our website: http://www.ucc.ie/acad/classics/summ_sch.html or contact Vicky Janssens, Department of Classics, University College Cork, Ireland, tel.: +353 21 4903618/2359, fax: +353 21 4903277, email: v.janssens@ucc.ie
The Department of Classics, University of Reading, will host a Postgraduate Latin Summer School 18 July-19 August 2011. This summer school is open to students who have graduated or are in their final year of a BA. This is an ideal course for those planning to do postgraduate work or to pursue a career in Classics teaching.
Students will be expected to have read to the end of section 3 of Reading Latin, or equivalent, before the summer school begins, and will complete a course of study designed to enable them to read unmodified Latin texts. The Summer School is supported by the Institute of Classical Studies and the Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology, and is able to offer part-bursaries.
For further information, please contact Dr David Carter: d.m.carter@reading.ac.uk Please also see the web site: http://www.reading.ac.uk/classics/latinsummerschool.aspx.
Vergilian Society Study Tours for 2011. For further information, tour and scholarship applications and detailed itineraries, see the Vergilian Society website: http://vergil.clarku.edu/
BolognaUniversityGreek and Latin Summer School, 27 June-15 July 2011. The Department of Classics (http://www.classics.unibo.it) of Bologna University welcomes applications to its intensive Greek and Latin Summer School. The courses will be held in Bologna from 27th June to 15th July 2011 for a total of three weeks. The school offers Greek courses (for beginners only) and Latin courses (at different levels; beginners and intermediate) and the possibility of combining two courses (Latin & Greek) at a special rate. The teaching will be focused both on language and on literature; further classes will touch on moments of classical history and history of art, supplemented by visits to museums and archaeological sites (in Bologna and Rome). Participants must be aged 18 or over. All tuition will be in English. For further information and to register, please visit: http://www.unibo.it/summerschool/latin. E-mail: diri_school.latin@unibo.it
Intensive Workshops in Speaking and Reading Latin at Dickinson College, July 2011. July 5-11, 2011: Professors Milena Minkova and Terence Tunberg will return to Dickinson for the second annual Conventiculum Dickinsoniense, a week-long total immersion seminar in active Latin, designed specifically for all cultivators of Latin who wish to gain some ability to express themselves in correct Latin. Fee: $300, including lodging and two meals (breakfast and lunch) per day, as well as the opening dinner, and a special cookout at the Dickinson farm for one night. For more information to apply, see here: http://www.dickinson.edu/academics/programs/classical-studies/content/Teacher-Workshops/
July 13-17, 2011: Dickinson professors Francese and Reedy will lead a reading-based five day Dickinson Latin Workshop, during which participants will read Tacitus’ Germania in its entirety. Fee: $300, which includes lodging and three meals per day. To apply, please contact Mrs. Barbara McDonald, mcdonalb@dickinson.edu. For more information, please contact me at francese@dickinson.edu. Full flyer will be posted on the Dickinson website soon, so watch this space: http://www.dickinson.edu/academics/programs/classical-studies/
You will note there there is a day left between, July 12, designed as a day of rest and recovery for anyone who might want to participate in both experiences. Lodging and meals will be covered for those people for the interim day. Both workshops are supported and subsidized by the Roberts Fund for Classical Studies at Dickinson College.
Conventiculum Latinum Lexintoniense, University of Kentucky from 21–29 July 2011. The Conventiculum Latinum Lexintoniense has become internationally known for providing a stimulating occasion in which participants can live for an extended period of time in an all-Latin environment, speaking and hearing no language but Latin. People who have never experienced Latin as a spoken language are cordially invited and welcome, but we ask that all participants be able to read Latin, and feel reasonably secure in their knowledge of basic morphology and syntax. The purpose of our seminars is to add an active dimension to the experience of those who already possess a certain passive knowledge of Latin. We also invite participants who are already experienced in the active use of Latin. It is our intention that the conventiculum will provide such participants with a pleasant opportunity to practice their skills in spoken and written Latin, and meet like-minded others. For further details, please see the Conventiculum website at:
http://www.as.uky.edu/ACADEMICS/DEPARTMENTS_PROGRAMS/MCLLC/MCLLC/CLASSICS/CONVERSATIONAL/Pages/ConversationalEnglish.aspx. And write to Professor Terence Tunberg at: terence.tunberg@gmail.com
Funding Opportunities
The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, one of America’s most distinguished centers devoted to advanced teaching and research, was founded in 1881 to provide graduate students and scholars a base for their studies in the history and civilization of the Greek world. Today, 130 years later, it is still a teaching institution, providing graduate students a unique opportunity to study firsthand the sites and monuments of Greece. The School is also a superb resource for senior scholars pursuing research in fields ranging from antiquity to modern Greece, thanks to its excellent facilities, including internationally renowned libraries, the Blegen, dedicated to classical antiquity, and the Gennadius, which concentrates on the Greek world after the end of antiquity. Visit the school’s web site (http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/programs/) for information on its programs and fellowships for 2011-2012.
Memoria Romanaand the Max Planck Institute Research Award are pleased to invite proposals for eight doctoral fellowshipsand international research stipends primarily for younger scholars on subjects relating to memory and memorialization in the areas of Roman history, literature, archaeology, art, and religion, with a tenure of one year (with a possibility of renewal for a second year). Recipients can pursue their research at any location of their choice but will collaborate with Prof. Karl Galinsky and come to Austin or Bochum, Germany, periodically for colloquia and discussion with other recipients. Costs of such travel will be defrayed by the Project.
Research stipends will support projects in the subject areas listed in the call for dissertation fellowship awards. These are subventions of maximally $5,000, especially for projects leading to publication. They may include, for example, travel to museums, libraries, and archaeological sites. Applicants from all countries are eligible for the awards. More information about the requirements and application procedures can be found at http://www.utexas.edu/research/memoria/. Applications will be considered every three months. Deadlines for receiving applications are 1 November 2010, 1 February 2011, 1 May 2011, and 1 August 2011. Applications should be sent to Ms. Sarah Davies electronically (s_davies@mail.utexas.edu) with the words "Memoria Proposal" in the subject line or to Max-Planck Award Project, Department of Classics, C3400, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-0308. The grant project will be continued until 2012.
The American Research Center in Sofia (ARCS), Bulgaria, offers three programs with accompanying fellowships for the academic year 2011-2012: a Fall term program (September-November 2011) focusing on the history and archaeology of Bulgaria and neighboring countries, from prehistory to the present day; a Spring term program (February-April 2012) focusing on the history of religion in Bulgaria and neighboring countries; and a nine-month program (September 2011-May 2012) which incorporates both Fall and Spring term programs. The programs combine a formal academic curriculum with independent research. ARCS hosts the programs' lectures and seminars; organizes related study trips; facilitates opportunities for taking Bulgarian and other Balkan language classes; and provides logistical support and access to local libraries, museums, and other educational institutions. The Center engages the participants with eminent local scholars relevant to the field of their study and makes arrangements for specialized research at local institutions. Further details about these programs are available on the ARCS webpage (www.einaudi.cornell.edu/arcs) and the ARCS facebook group page (www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106253216070705).
Please direct any questions about ARCS academic programs, fellowships, or application procedures to Professor Denver Graninger (graninger.arcs@gmail.com), Director of ARCS. American Research Center in Sofia, 75 Vasil Petleshkov St., Sofia 1510, Bulgaria. Tel. (+359 2) 947 9498; FAX: (+359 2) 840 1962. http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/arcs/
NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes for College and University Teachers. Application Deadline: March 1, 2011. Each summer, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports national residential seminars and institutes for faculty who teach American undergraduates. These study opportunities allow faculty and a select number of graduate students to increase their knowledge of current scholarship and advance their own teaching and research. Participants in these two- to six-week projects receive stipends to help cover travel and living expenses. Many seminars and institutes take place on American campuses; others are held at sites in Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, India, and Italy. For a list of the seminars and institutes to be offered in the summer of 2011, along with eligibility requirements and contact information for the directors, please visit www.neh.gov/projects/si-university.html.
The Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies at The Ohio State University offers short-term fellowships (of one to four months duration) to support visitors pursuing post-doctoral research in Greek and Latin epigraphy. The fellowships pay a stipend of $1,500 per month and recipients are expected to be in residence during the tenure of the award and are encouraged to participate in the activities of the University. Current students, faculty, and staff of the Ohio State University are not ordinarily considered for the award.
The Center's holdings include, in addition to a comprehensive library to support the study of Greek and Latin inscriptions, has a number of special collections. The focus of the Greek collection is Attica, but there are numerous squeezes from other sites. There is no application form. Applicants are requested to submit a curriculum vitae and a brief research proposal (not to exceed three pages) to the Director, Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies, The Ohio State University, 190 Pressey Hall, 1070 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210-1002. The applicant should also arrange to have two letters of recommendation sent to the Director. All application materials must be received by January 31, 2011. For more information, please visit our website: http://epigraphy.osu.edu/fellowships/
The University of Southern California invites applications for the Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholars Program in the Humanities. Appointments are for two years, with a start date of August 15, 2011. Provost’s scholars will teach three courses over four semesters, with one semester free for full-time research. They are expected to reside in the Los Angeles area during the academic year and to participate in the scholarly life of the host department and the university through seminars and other scholarly activities. The salary is $50,000 per year plus fringe benefits, with a research and travel account of $6,000 per year. Candidates may choose one of the following programs as their proposed host department: American Studies, Art History, Classics, Comparative Literature, Critical Studies (Cinema), East Asian Languages and Cultures, English, French, History, Linguistics, Musicology, Philosophy, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Spanish and Portuguese.
Applicants will be evaluated based on their prior academic accomplishments, the significance and intellectual merit of the proposed project, and their potential to contribute to the intellectual life of their host department and the community of scholars at USC. Candidates must have received the Ph.D. no earlier than July 1, 2007 and must have the degree in hand by July 1, 2011. The program expects to make five to eight postdoctoral awards per year. The application deadline is February 1, 2011. Application guidelines are available at the program website: http://grad.usc.edu/postdocapp .
Inquiries about the USC Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholars Program in the Humanities should be directed to Vice Provost Sarah Pratt at vpgp@usc.edu.
Capital Campaign News
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has granted an extension of time to the APA to claim funds available under its current Challenge Grant. To date over 650 donors have pledged over $1,900,000 to the APA’s Campaign for Classics for the 21st Century, and the Association has received and is investing more than $1,700,000 of the amount pledged.
The NEH Challenge Grant calls for the APA to raise a total of $2,600,000 in order to receive $650,000 in matching funds. By meeting earlier grant deadlines, the APA was able to claim $460,000 of this amount. Thanks to this recent NEH action, the APA has until July 31, 2011, to raise an additional $150,000 and claim the final installment ($190,000) of matching funds. Pledges of support are sufficient to meet the July 2011 deadline but all existing and new pledges must be paid, and the APA must raise an additional $500,000 (for the total of $2,600,000) by July 31, 2012, if it is to retain the matching funds it has claimed.
At the end of October the Association made an excellent start at reaching its next goal by holding a fund-raising event at New York University's Center for Ancient Studies. Thanks to the magnificent cooperation and assistance of Dean Matthew S. Santirocco, his staff, and the Aquila Theatre Company in residence at the Center, the APA was able to host a performance of several scenes from Greek epic and tragedy. Dean Santirocco and APA President Dee L. Clayman chaired an event committee that attracted an audience that was largely new to the Association and its activities. The event generated over $40,000 in net proceeds that can also be used to claim NEH matching funds. The event Program is posted on the APA web site and photographs will follow soon.
Starting next Summer the endowment being generated by this Campaign will begin to support important Association activities. First of all, it will ensure the uninterrupted operation of the American Office of L’Année philologique when its current grant funding expires in June. In addition, endowment funds will permit us to offer two fully-funded minority scholarships this coming Summer and to offer more substantial teaching awards in January 2012. The recent appointment of the APA's first Information Architect, Prof. Samuel Huskey of the University of Oklahoma signals that the APA is ready to start fulfilling the Campaign's promise of making its web site and other electronic media a gateway to information of high scholarly quality about classical antiquity. There is a great deal that can be done in this area with existing resources and volunteer labor, particularly with Prof. Huskey as coordinator. Even more will be possible once the full $2,600,000 is raised.
About 20% of all APA members have made a contribution to the Campaign for Classics; as this figure indicates, however, about 80% have not. If you have not yet made a contribution to the Campaign, now is an important time to do so. Please use either our secure online donation mechanism or this pledge form to make your pledge and set up a comfortable schedule of payments.
Table of Contents
- Newsletter Publication Schedule
- Appointment of Information Architect
- Dues Notice and Distribution of Publications in 2011
- Election Results
- Report of the 2008-2009 TLL Fellow
- Report of the 2009-2010 Pearson Fellow
- Call for Nominations for 2011 Coffin Traveling Fellowship
- Minutes of Board of Directors Meetings
- Vice President Reports (Fall 2010)
- Education
- Outreach
- Professional Matters
- Program
- Publications
- Research
- In Memoriam
- Deceased Members
- 50-Year Club
- Acknowledgment of Annual Giving and Capital Campaign Gifts
- Announcements
- Awards to Members
- Meetings/Calls for Abstracts
- Summer Programs
- Funding Opportunities/Fellowships
- Capital Campaign News
Newsletter Publication Schedule
I apologize for the late publication of this issue which combines what should have been separate issues for Summer and Fall 2010. I appreciate members' patience with the disruption caused by our office move last August and their willingness to rely on announcements sent via e-mail and posted on our web site and - more recently - the news blog established by outgoing Web Editor Robin Mitchell-Boyask and the Association Facebook page organized by Outreach Vice President Judith Hallett. Still, I am mindful that some members still prefer and others are only able to read about Association activities in this printed form. I anticipate a return to regular publication of four issues during 2011.
Appointment of Information Architect
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the American Phililogical Association (APA), I am pleased to announce the appointment of Samuel J. Huskey of the University of Oklahoma to be its first Information Architect. Prof. Huskey will begin his four-year term at the end of the APA's Annual Meeting this January in San Antonio. He will succeed Prof. Robin Mitchell-Boyask of Temple University who has provided extraordinary service to the Association since 1998 as the first and only Editor of its web site.
Prof. Huskey's appointment and the expansion of the duties of his office are among the products of a recent review of the Association's publications program. One result of this process, funded by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, was a decision to use the APA web site and other vehicles for electronic communication more aggressively to increase awareness of and access to the new scholarship generated in its various programs. The Search Committee I led felt that Prof. Huskey had the scholarly, pedagogical, and technological expertise that would enable him to carry out this expansion of the Association's electronic presence. Further, as the Association's Gatekeeper to Gateway Capital Campaign enters its final stages, the Search Committee felt that Prof. Huskey would be the appropriate person to coordinate efforts to fulfill the Campaign's commitment to provide the highest quality scholarship about classical antiquity to the widest possible audience in the format appropriate to each segment of that audience.
Another development that also makes possible the expansion of Prof. Huskey's position is the acquisition a few months ago of a new content management system for the Association's web site. As a result of this new system, APA Office staff is now able to post information about regular society activities themselves. This was an advantage that Prof. Mitchell-Boyask was able to enjoy only in the last few months of his tenure, and we are especially grateful to him for performing all the work of keeping the site up to date for so many years. We also appreciate his taking the first steps to expand our electronic presence by creating an APA news blog (http://apaclassics.blogspot.com/) earlier this year. Our next such expansion will be the creation of a Facebook page for the Association to be overseen by Prof. Judith P. Hallett, Vice President for Outreach.
I look forward to working with Prof. Huskey on increasing our ability to communicate electronically with both our members and all others interested in classical antiquity.
Dues Rates, Publications, and Member Communications in 2011
Dues Rates. Dues invoices for 2011 have been mailed to members. Please inform the Association Office if you have not received your invoice. The rates for 2011 are as follows:
In June 2010 the Board of Directors approved an increase in dues that was recommended by the Finance Committee. This is the first dues increase for individual members in three years, and it will allow us to conduct normal operations during our current extraordinary effort to raise an endowment that will both preserve the American Office of l'Année philologique after NEH funding ends and deliver valuable scholarly and teaching resources far beyond our current limited audience. We are drawing as much from existing endowment as is prudent. In the long run the capital campaign will enable us to do more for our members without having to have excessive dues. The dues structure adopted by the Board for 2001, which calculates dues for all except student members on the basis of a single percentage rate, has been retained. APA members who joined the society before 1980 and who have paid dues for 30 consecutive years are eligible for a lower dues rate. That rate for 2011 is $60.
Payment of dues is requested by December 31, 2010, to ensure an uninterrupted listing in the online Directory of Members and to permit continued access to the members only section of the APA web site. Before submitting your dues payment, please turn over the dues invoice and respond to the survey of members' fields of interest that has been prepared by the Committee on Research. The Committee's goal is to make it possible for members to use the APA's online Directory of Members to find other classicists working in areas of common interest.
Publications. By action of the Board of Directors, APA members will receive printed versions of three Association publications (TAPA, the Newsletter, and Amphora) only on request. The Board has taken this action in order to achieve both financial and environmental savings. In the upper left-hand corner of the invoice you will find check boxes you may use to request copies of these publications in the mail. The Newsletter and Amphora will continue to appear on the APA web site; TAPA will continue to be available to APA members via Project MUSE (click on the "Members Only" link on the main page of our web site).
Communication with Members. If you do not regularly receive e-mails from my office, the APA probably does not have your current e-mail address in the membership records that the Johns Hopkins University Press maintains for us. If you have not provided that address, I urge you to do so either by noting it when you pay your dues or by sending an e-mail to the Press at jrnlcirc@mail.press.jhu.edu. The Board of Directors has instructed me, first of all, not to share members' e-mail addresses with any other organization or individual, and, second, to make communications with the entire membership as brief and as infrequent as possible. By providing your e-mail address to us, you will be sure of receiving important Association announcements.
Report of the 2008-2009 TLL Fellow
This report was originally published in The Times Literary Supplement, February 4, 2010, and is reprinted by permission.
You say 'putator'. In the middle of Munich, just a few metres away from the site of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, unnoticed, though not hidden, is a "treasure" that the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities has quietly overseen for more than half a century.
"The Treasure of the Latin Language", or, in its own tongue, Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL for short), is "probably the most scholarly dictionary in the world" (or so claims the article "Dictionary" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica). It is most probably also the longest-running, and most certainly the longest-conceived. Ever since the fourteenth century, Latin philologists dreamed of a comprehensive Latin lexicon, to contain all Latin words used during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire with all their meanings.
It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that such a dream could be realized - and then only as a collaborative project. In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the great Swiss philologist Eduard Wölfflin recruited colleagues for this dictionary. And in 1884 he published the first volume of the "Archive for Latin Lexicography and Grammar". Intended as a bait, it presented several specimens of articles which were to be included in the future lexicon. But authorities were slow to bite. It would take another decade until five German-speaking academies of sciences agreed to produce jointly a Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. The schedule anticipated five years for the collection of the materials - that is, all the documentation of all the different words - and fifteen for the writing of the lexicon.
A hundred-and-fourteen years after this plan was conceived, I showed up on my first day to begin work at the TLL as the American Fellow. The first words I would work on started with "p". The visitor, or new Fellow, in the Academy enters the sandstone wing of the Residence through large, wooden double doors. Across the shining marble floor, the porter may, on a good day, mention the elevator.
Otherwise, the circular, open staircase, decorated with portraits of presidents of the Academy, will take you eventually to what seems to be the fourth floor (but was misleadingly said to be the second). And there, at the end of an inconspicuous corridor, behind another wooden door, lies the "treasure": the archive of millions of paper slips, the "material", stored in the second room of the impeccably sorted library of Latin texts and documents. The rooms are light but decidedly stuffy with the smell of old books, which, arranged by the authors' dates as opposed to their names, reach up to the ceiling. Portraits of famous lexicographers, a bust of Eduard Wölfflin, and the first contract for the publication of the Thesaurus remind all who enter of the long history of the project.
The history of the Thesaurus is intertwined with the history of Europe. From 1900, the year of publication of the first fascicle, until the outbreak of the First World War, work progressed comparatively swiftly: the lexicographers published more than 500 "columns", almost three fascicles, annually. But the war and the subsequent recession brought the project to the brink of abandonment. In 1915, in the middle of Volume Five, publication stopped, not to be resumed until 1924. In 1922 an American scholar with close ties to the lexicographers in Munich made an impassioned plea in Boston in front of members of the American Classical League. The salary of the director of the Thesaurus, he complained, was below the average salary of an American high school teacher, and the secretary paid his bills with the help of his retirement allowances; worse still, many of the staff scraped together less than a living. "Is it possible that America, wealthy, unselfish, beneficent America, should willingly allow the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae to perish?" Yet the situation had to worsen before it could improve. At the last minute support from abroad, and in particular Swiss Latin lovers and the Rockefeller Foundation, restored the project to life. In the 1930s, a steady stream of national and international Fellows raised the output almost to the pre-war level. These were the golden years of the Thesaurus: the output was high, higher still its quality. But, like everything else, the Thesaurus fell victim to the Nazi regime and the Second World War. Several of the Fellows were Jews. The executive board of the Thesaurus, confronted in 1933 with the requirement that government employees provide documentation of their "Aryan bloodline", refused to account for the Fellows' religion, and many were able to keep a low profile and stay. But sooner or later they all had to leave, like Karl Oskar Brink, a Fellow supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, in 1938. Oral history relates that he was accompanied to Munich's central station by Hans Rubenbauer, editor and friend. Rubenbauer later became a member of the Wehrmacht: the future German soldier saw off his Jewish friend, who would flee to London. When after the war Charles Brink, as he then called himself, recommenced his contributions to the Thesaurus, he would speak only English. He was later to become Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge.
The scholarly correspondence that continued during the years of war often carries an eerie tone. Early in 1943 a letter from the TLL informs a Dr Staedler that the form "vinlage" (the Latin "vincus") as an alternative to "village" ("vicus") was not found "in our material". It begs the recipient's pardon for the delay, laconically alluding to the now difficult access to the Thesaurus material. And difficult it certainly was: the millions of slips had left the centre of Munich. Before the Second World War, the Thesaurus was housed in the Maximilianeum, the terracotta palace on the bank of the Isar, now the seat of the Bavarian state parliament. When in September 1942 a flak-station was set up on the high-rise building, Rubenbauer, the acting General Editor, knew that they had to pack up. At the time, there was no copy of the archive; a fire would have annihilated the Thesaurus, its millions of slips, and the valuable books. But the archive went north into safe exile behind the walls of the Benedictine monastery in Scheyern. The library, irreplaceable - as many of the books contain the notes of generations of scholars working on the Thesaurus - soon followed; a German entrepreneur provided his company's vehicles for the transfer.
Several years passed before, in 1949, the International Thesaurus Commission was founded. Today, thirty-one academies from twenty-three countries support the work of the Thesaurus, contributing money or dispatching Fellows, like me, who usually work in Munich for up to three years. To work on the Thesaurus requires knowledge not only of Latin, but of ancient Greek (since Roman high culture was mostly bilingual), German, English, French, Italian and (ideally) Spanish, as translations and commentaries on Latin literature are published in all these modern languages. The staff of over twenty has recently included people from Austria, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. Like its language, the Thesaurus is international.
On my first day as a Fellow I learned that "pruner" was to be my first word: putator - a seven-lettered probe of my limited familiarity with the Romans' horticultural texts and practices. Assistance came in the form of thirty or so paper slips. These, vintage 1890s, patiently waited for me in a grey cardboard box. Tinged with age, grey with a hint of yellow, they carried the passages, sometimes as a handwritten copy, sometimes as a beguiling reference, in which my word figured. Comprehensiveness is a relative term. The original Commission at the end of the nineteenth century decided that the Thesaurus should contain all Latin texts, literary and non-literary, from the beginnings to the second century ce. From then, the Antonine Age, to the sixth century, a representative selection seemed a sensible compromise.
Later Latin - medieval, humanistic and neo - was to be excluded. Of the first period, every text, however fragmentary, by every author, however obscure, was to be fully excerpted and indexed: classical literature like Cicero, Ovid and Tacitus, inscriptions, ostraca (potsherds used as writing surfaces), Pompeian graffiti - everything that carried a letter. This was a Herculean task in the non-computerized age. Distinguished scholars revised all these texts to ensure accuracy and noted alternative readings. Then all these texts were copied by hand on cards, passage after passage. These, in turn, were copied lithographically as many times as individual words occurred. On each slip a different word was underlined in red, and that word was entered as the lemma in the top right corner. Finally, all cards with the same lemma were shuffled into chronological order and filed. When in the autumn of 1899 the initial collection was completed, the Thesaurus counted five million slips. Since then it has doubled its number: new texts have been discovered (mostly inscriptions and papyri), and texts later than the second century ad have been excerpted more fully. To those ten million slips new ones are occasionally added even today.
When I flipped through my slips to get a first impression, I was not surprised to find my word discussed in an ancient linguistic treatise, repeatedly used in agricultural texts, mentioned in an encyclopedia, and defined in commentaries and scholia (ancient marginal notes). But what was it doing in legal texts so frequently? "Should a putator fail to alert passersby when he throws down a branch from the tree, and should one of them be hit by the branch and die, the putator is sentenced to the mines." Apparently, one fine day somewhere in the far reaches of the Roman Empire, an unsuspecting man or woman was killed by a careless cutter of trees.
A lexicon like the Thesaurus is different from a concordance, which simply lists all occurrences of a word. It should not be confused with the common notion of a dictionary either, the task of which is usually confined to providing translations. Eduard Wölfflin wanted his lexicographers to write the history of a word, "its struggle with competitors, the changes of its meanings, the phases of its decline or continuance". Such biographies will have to be written for all the 50,000 Latin lemmata, which have been written in the top corners of the paper slips and will eventually make up the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. This number is comparatively small: ancient Greek calls more than twice that number its own, and the vocabulary of modern languages, especially English, exceeds ancient Greek by far. But much writing was lost, and with it words. When the "Edict on maximum prices" was discovered - issued by the Emperor Diocletian at the beginning of the fourth century ad - it revealed fifty lexemes previously unknown.
For Wölfflin, the cardinal virtue of the biographer of Latin words was impartial, patient observation. In this spirit, Claudia Wick, currently one of six full-time editors at the TLL, pointedly writes that "lexicographers do not translate". Rather, they try to establish the significance of a word, and set out to understand its various meanings and their connections. She uses a relatively simple example: pullinus literally means "that which belongs to the hen" - "hennish". It is used in expressions ranging from a hen's egg (ovum pullinum) and chicken soup (ius pullinum) to chicken dung (fimus pullinus). Contrary to what one might like to think, the egg is closer to the dung than to the soup: the two former are produced by the hen, whereas the latter is made from the hen as an ingredient. And if there were the Latin equivalent to chicken fodder, it would belong to a third category. For chicken fodder is not made of, but provided for, chickens. The three English prepositions - "by", "from", "for" - neatly represent the differences in meaning of the three usages of the Latin "pullinus". At the TLL, the word-biographer always starts with the name. And so, in writing down my results, I started with my word, the lemma, set in bold in its most common spelling, with its long vowel marked: putàtor.
Then follows a section lexicographers refer to as the "head". There the reader will learn about the word's origin, ancient comments on its etymology and meanings, sometimes in the form of a Greek gloss (an explicatory, often marginal, annotation), alternative forms and spellings, and alia similia or "other things of a similar kind"). Since two ancient authors define "putator", and it is glossed in Greek, this is what I put up front. Then comes the history of the word: its meanings, literal and metaphorical, general and particular, normally presented in chronological order. Here before the reader's eyes a life unfolds: when is the word attested for the first time? When, if at all, is it used metaphorically? Which meanings occur, which dominate? Does it simply vanish from the records at some point (which would be indicative of its disuse, maybe even death)? "Putator" led a relatively simple life: it enters the scene during the first century BC in its literal and general use as "one who cuts branches." But soon it is further specified: the putator cuts either trees or vines. Both the general and the particular usage can be traced into late antiquity. But there was more: for in inscriptions we find two men, father and son, the former most likely a slave, who upon his manumission had taken as his name his former profession: and so the putator became Putator.
The lexicon is as good as its lexicographers. Neither speed nor sensation is their business. Though less studied texts, such as inscriptions and medical or botanical treatises, still yield the occasional surprising discovery of a word or an unknown meaning, it is rather the painstaking, slow-footed, elementary, foundational research that is their daily bread. The articles go through various editorial stages to ensure quality. Fellows work under the supervision of the editors. Together they discuss particularly difficult passages, possible structures of the article, which passages to include, which to leave out. Once a Fellow has written the article, the editor edits it, sometimes rather heavily. The revised version is read by another editor, whose suggestions are also taken into account. In the next stage, external readers, mostly senior Latinists, comment on it. But the fascicle in which it appears does not go into print before all its articles have met the approval of the General Editor. All of this takes time, and the actual writing of the articles will probably take ten times longer than anticipated. This gross underestimation has raised the eyebrows of observers and funders more than once. When questioned in the past, the staff of the Thesaurus have explained that when Wölfflin and his collaborators drew up the plan, they simply did not know what they were getting into. And most often, whenever articles were rushed, they fell short in quality. As every reader of biographies knows - and those on words are no different - good ones require not only careful research, but also circumspect arrangement and diligent writing.
Before I started, my editor, John Blundell, asked at the end of our first meeting whether I had any presumptions about the putator. Now, putator was not a word that I actually had thought much about before. Nevertheless, I ventured that I expected to find the division of the verb "putare", which can mean "to prune" and "to believe", in the noun as well as the verb. Two days later I had learnt that I had been (almost) entirely wrong. I further suggested that, given the widespread metaphorical use of agricultural terms in Roman culture, such was certainly to be expected in this case, too; again, if it had not been for a late Christian writer, I would have been completely mistaken. But in one Christian text, God is the "most knowledgeable putator", a metaphorical use, and in one passage in Augustine the putator is a believer. Why it took the putator some 600 years to discover this other aspect of his personality is beyond the reach of inquiry; at least for now, because maybe one day a newly discovered fragment somewhere in the sands of Egypt will reveal an earlier instance of it.
The TLL remains a work in progress. On the one hand, about one third of the alphabet is still waiting in cardboard boxes to be studied and transformed into articles. Deadlines have been missed so often that predictions for the conclusion are expressed tentatively. But 2050 seems reasonable. On the other hand, the slips are safely stored even after the fascicle with their word, "putator" say, has been published (once the word biography has appeared in a fascicle, no changes are possible). References to the latest scholarly articles that deal with the word in question are added to the slips, and new conjectures noted. Thus the archive continues to be updated, so that a future scholar, maybe interested in trees, will be able to take advantage of its riches, or perhaps one day, after the last volume has been completed, a supplement will be produced. In any case, it will remain a treasure.
Christophe B. Krebs
Report of the 2009-2010 Pearson Fellow
My career as a graduate student at Oxford University did not begin at orientation or with my first step beyond the iron gate of Lincoln College or the moment I put on my graduate robe. It began the moment my father-in-law missed the exit to the Raleigh airport as my husband and I, running a tad late, raced to catch our one-way flight to London. This brief moment of panic returned to me throughout my first year as I ran through Turl Street in sub fusc to make Matriculation, when I found myself locked in the graveyard surrounding Lincoln’s library, and as I looked up from my notes right before my first presentation. Oxford is an intimidating place that feels, many times, like somewhere down the rabbit hole. The only way to thrive among this wonderland of porters, staircases, bulldogs, formal halls, and each library’s particular set of rules is to do the only thing I could do as I watched that missed exit fade into the distance: keep calm and carry on. Oxford has required from me a new degree of confidence and tenaciousness that I now realize are necessary assets for the student of Classical languages in the 21st century.
I mention these qualities because this time last year I was crestfallen when another student referred to my work as ‘part of the frivolous humanities’ and I was embarrassed to describe my studies when others spoke of their work on mapping brain patterns in patients with language disorders, treating Glaucoma in Africa, and researching drug trafficking in South America. In the same way I was mortified when a porter sharply interrogated me as to whether I knew how staircases worked and I was terrified to raise my hand in a class of Oxford students. Nevertheless I indeed learned how staircases work in Oxford and the more I spoke in class the less my heart felt like it would explode. I had hoped to breeze into Oxford with no trouble save for remembering my umbrella in the morning. That didn’t happen. I struggled throughout the year and at times I questioned my desire, my ability to continue in the field of Classics. Nevertheless I completed my first year of graduate work and I am now just a few days from first week of my second year with a passion I have not experienced before in my studies. Although this journey has led me completely outside of my comfort zone, I could not have progressed this far without it and for that I am sincerely grateful to the APA and its support which made this experience possible.
My time in Oxford has afforded me the opportunity the travel throughout the United Kingdom. During the unusual snowstorm that we experienced last winter, I visited Cardiff University and attended a lecture on the revival of the Welsh language. The university graciously provided me with resources regarding manuscripts of Latin texts translated into Welsh which proved incredibly useful as I researched the transmission of ancient and Medieval Latin throughout the British Isles. Once the sun returned at the beginning of a magnificent English summer, I travelled to Scotland where I visited the universities of Edinburgh and Stirling along with Stirling Castle and climbed the 246 steps of the William Wallace Monument.
I am currently in my second year of the Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature. In my first year I was required to submit two essays and sit two exams in Latin palaeography and textual criticism. I prepared for these by attending seminars and tutorials with Tobias Reinhardt and Stephen Heyworth. Now in my second year I am reading Comedy with Peter Brown and attending a seminar on literary papyrology with Dirk Obbink. I am also writing my thesis this year on Greek and Roman characteristics in the twelfth century comedy Geta by Vitalis de Blois (Vitalis Blesensis) from the Loire Valley under the supervision of Matthew Leigh. I hope to continue my time at Oxford and I am applying for the Doctorate of Philosophy (DPhil) program this January. I look forward to furthering my work in manuscripts and I hope to produce a critical edition as part of that degree. I then anticipate returning to the United States to begin a career as a university professor in Classics.
Megan Elizabeth Miller
David D. and Rosemary H. Coffin Fellowship for Travel in Classical Lands
In 2011 the American Philological Association (APA) will again award the David D. and Rosemary H. Coffin Fellowship for study and travel in classical lands. The Fellowship was established in 2004 by the friends and students of David and Rosemary Coffin to honor the skill, devotion, learning, and kindness with which they educated students at Phillips Exeter Academy for more than thirty years.
The Fellowship is intended to recognize secondary-school teachers of Greek or Latin who are as dedicated to their students as the Coffins themselves by giving them the opportunity to enrich their teaching and their lives through direct acquaintance with the classical world. It will support study in classical lands (not limited to Greece and Italy); the recipient may use it to attend an educational program in (e.g. American Academy, American School) or to undertake an individual plan of study or research. It may be used either for summer study or during a sabbatical leave, and it may be used to supplement other awards or prizes.
Candidates for the Fellowship must have been teaching Latin or Ancient Greek at the secondary level (grades 9-12) in North America as a significant part of their academic responsibilities for three years out of the five prior to the award. Membership in the APA is not a requirement for application, although it is expected that applicants will have demonstrated an active interest in the profession and in their own professional development. Selection will be made on the basis of written applications by the Coffin Fellowship Committee. The amount of the award for 2011 will be $2,500. Recipients of the award will be expected to file a written report on their use of the Fellowship, which the Association may include in one of its publications.
Applications should consist of a) a curriculum vitae; b) a statement of how the Fellowship will be used and how it will further the applicant’s teaching; c) three letters of recommendation, at least one of them from the applicant’s chair or principal, and at least one from a former student. Applicants should send four copies of the c.v., the statement, and the letters of recommendation to the APA Office so that they arrive in the Office no later than Monday, January 31, 2011. American Philological Association ·University of Pennsylvania ·220 S. 40th Street · Suite 201E · Philadelphia, PA 19104-3512. Telephone: 215-898-4975 ·FAX: 215-573-7874 ·E-mail: info@classicalstudies.org ·Web Site: http://www.classicalstudies.org
Board of Directors’ Minutes
The Board of Directors of the American Philological Association met via conference call on June 10, 2010. Those participating were Profs. Dee L. Clayman, President, and Peter Bing, Dr. Adam D. Blistein, Profs. Kathleen Mary Coleman, Bruce W. Frier, Alain M. Gowing, Judith P. Hallett, Robert A. Kaster, James M. May, Carole E. Newlands, S. Georgia Nugent, and Ann Vasaly. Profs. Ronnie Ancona, Roger S. Bagnall, Barbara Weiden Boyd, John Marincola, Josiah Ober, and James J. O’Donnell were absent.
Prof. Clayman called the meeting to order at 10:05 a.m. The Directors had previously received an agenda for the meeting as well as minutes of their meetings on January 6 and 9, 2010.
Action: The agenda for the meeting was approved.
Action: After the correction of typographical errors, the minutes of the meetings of January 6, and 9, 2010, were approved.
Report of the Finance Committee
In advance of the call, Directors had received minutes of the Finance Committee's meeting of May 24, 2010, the auditors’ report for the fiscal year that had ended on June 30, 2009, a table showing investment results for the fiscal year that would end on June 30, 2010, a projected financial statement for that fiscal year, and a budget for the next fiscal year. At its meeting the Committee had met with representatives of both the APA’s auditing firm and its financial management firm, and Prof. Nugent, Chair of the Committee, described those meetings for the Directors.
She stated that the auditors had issued an unqualified statement, had had no disagreements with Association staff about the content of the statement, and had not needed to issue any letters describing management deficiencies. Like many small organizations, the Association was unable to achieve an optimal distribution of responsibility for financial processing among several staff members. However, it mitigated these problems by having the Financial Trustees receive monthly statements directly from the APA’s bank and its investment advisor. Also, Profs. Nugent and Frier had discussed procedures they would follow in response to problems in financial management that they observed or that were reported to them. Because the Association’s investments were in fairly traditional instruments, it did not need to report any uncertain valuations of its assets in either its financial statements or its filings with the Internal Revenue Service. At the suggestion of the auditors, the Association would consult its attorney to get a better understanding of its responsibilities when endowments fell below the level of their permanently restricted net assets value as a result of investment losses.
The Committee had also had a satisfactory meeting with its investment advisor, and had discussed with her a gradual change in the investment guidelines for the Research and Teaching Fund. Income from the Fund would be needed to support the American Office of L’Année philologique beginning in July 2011, and the Committee had agreed that the advisor should gradually move the portfolio to the 60% equity/40% fixed income investment ratio used for the Pearson and Coffin Funds.
Prof. Nugent noted that the projected financial statement for the 2010 fiscal year anticipated a deficit of about $37,000 not including investment gains or losses. This figure would have been even higher except for the implementation of a number of cost saving measures. Dr. Blistein described two new grants received during the year from the Mellon and Kress Foundations. The former had provided $215,000 to support work that would link records in L’Année philologique to online versions of ancient texts cited in those records. The former had made a planning grant of $6,500 to explore the possibility of linking images mentioned in l’Année records to online photographs of those images. He also explained how staff had been able to reduce the level of expenditures for food and audiovisual services at the annual meeting.
The Board then reviewed the budget for the 2011 fiscal year proposed by the Finance Committee. Prof. Nugent noted that it contained only a few new expenditures: a set-aside of $15,000 to fund a thorough redesign of the web site in about three years, an increase in rent to $25,000 with one-time expenditures of $5,000 to move the APA Office, and an allowance of $8,000 for course release for the Editor of TAPA. The Association had raised neither dues nor registration rates since 2008, and the budget proposed increases in both of these rates for 2011 (with the understanding that any increase in registration fees required approval from AIA as well). The budget projected a year-ending deficit of just under $18,000.
Action: After reducing the proposed late registration rate for member students by $5, the Board approved the budget recommended by the Finance Committee.
Development
Dr. Blistein reported that to date 519 donors had pledged $1.675 million to the capital campaign, but that the Association needed to raise about $400,000 more to claim the full amount of the final installment of matching funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and then an additional $500,000 to meet all outstanding matching requirements. While the Association continued to receive a good number of small and medium-sized gifts from individual donors, the decline in financial markets had made it much more difficult to secure large donations, especially from foundations.
The Development Committee had decided to make its Spring mailing a combined appeal for annual giving and the capital campaign. To date, the appeal had generated $27,000 in pledges to the campaign and just under $2,000 in annual giving donations. Overall, 316 donors had contributed $36,617 to annual giving during the 2010 fiscal year as compared to $46,073 received from 337 donors in the previous year.
Prof. Coleman had distributed to the Directors a proposal that she was making in collaboration with TLL Fellowship Committee Chair, Anthony Corbeill, to make a fund in memory of Prof. George Goold a part of the capital campaign. As long as the amount contributed to the fund surpassed $50,000, income from it would be used, first to supplement the stipend provided to each year’s TLL Fellow and, if the fund grew, to support other research in Latin lexicography, particularly at the TLL itself in Munich.
Action: The Board approved the institution of the George Goold Fund to support research in Latin lexicography provided that it received at least $50,000 in donations designated for this Fund.
Prof. Clayman described plans for a fund-raising event for the campaign to take place at New York University in the Fall. The event would feature a performance by the Aquila Theatre Company. She cited former Director, Matthew Santirocco for his assistance in organizing this event and in providing venues and personnel to assist the APA. A local committee would develop an invitation list of people outside the Classics community, and, if the event were successful, it might be repeated in other cities.
Executive Director's Report
Dr. Blistein reported that the Penn Classical Studies Department would definitely need to reclaim the APA’s office space in Claudia Cohen Hall for the coming semester, but the School of Arts and Sciences had not yet offered any substitute space. Staff would soon have access to the web site’s new, more flexible content management system. The change to this system required new URLs for specific web pages, but, with the assistance of information technology staff in the School, he had found a programmer to write “redirect rules” for the site that would allow users to continue to use older URLs. Dr. Blistein also described changes in the leadership of the AIA and progress staff had made to find annual meeting sites for 2013 and beyond after the Joint Management Committee for the meeting had decided to have staff negotiate contracts themselves without the assistance of an outside meeting planning firm.
Dr. Blistein reminded Directors that their next meeting would take place in Philadelphia on October 1-2. The Penn Classical Studies Department would invite one of the Directors to give a talk immediately before the meeting.
There being no further business, the call was concluded at 11:55 a.m.
Reports of Vice Presidents (Fall 2010)
Education
The Education Division has been busy on a number of fronts. Publication of and publicity for the new Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation, publication of a Preliminary Bibliography on Caesar for AP Latin teachers (and others), an updated guide to Latin teacher certification in the United States (currently in final revision stage), and the forthcoming publication of the APA Guide to Graduate Education have been taking much of the Division’s time. Those matters will be discussed below, along with several additional items from the Division, including the ongoing work of its committees.
(1) After approval by the APA Board, Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation was published in both hard copy format and in electronic form.
The following information is what appears currently on the Education page of the APA website:
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Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation
Dear APA Colleagues:
The recently published document, Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation, is a joint effort by APA and the American Classical League to describe the skills and knowledge that beginning Latin teachers should have. The Standards are intended to inform colleges and universities, state accrediting agencies, and individuals who plan to teach or are currently teaching Latin. The Standards should be of interest to all those involved in teaching Latin since they incorporate valuable pedagogical aims and practices. In addition, knowing what is expected of a beginning Latin teacher can help us all to support the development of the next generation of Latin teachers.
Ronnie Ancona
APA Vice President for Education
This is the link to an electronic version of the Standards:
http://www.aclclassics.org/pdf/LatTeachPrep2010Stand.pdf
This is the link for ordering a hard copy:
http://www.aclclassics.org/pdf/standards_order.pdf
For "Perspectives" on the new Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation, see the relevant sections under that title in the Spring 2010 issue of Teaching Classical Languages.
http://tcl.camws.org/spring2010.html
Please note that at the end of each perspective you may add comments.
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It should be noted that Standards was featured in the Spring 2010 issue of Teaching Classical Languages, for which we thank John Gruber-Miller, editor of the journal and member of the Task Force that wrote the Standards. Seven classics professionals offer their perspectives on Standards after an introduction by the editor. These include two members of the Task Force (Ronnie Ancona and Lee Pearcy), a past President of the ACL (Ken Kitchell), a former World Languages District Supervisor (Cathy Daugherty), new Latin teachers (Cory Holec and Erik Collins), and a veteran Latin teacher (Bob Patrick). An interesting feature of TCL’s coverage is its mechanism for journal readers to post online their reactions to the published responses.
Copies of the Standards are currently being sent by the APA office to foreign language supervisors and Departments of Education in institutions where Latin certification is offered. In addition, there will be a workshop on the Standards sponsored by the APA Committee on Education and organized by Lee Pearcy, former APA Education Vice President and Co-Chair of the Task Force, at the 2011 Annual Meeting of APA in San Antonio on Sunday, January 9, from 8:30-11:00 a.m. Speakers, in addition to Dr. Pearcy, will be Sherwin Little (Task Force Co-Chair), Ronnie Ancona, John Gruber-Miller, and Susan Shelmerdine, all Task Force members. A plenary session on the Standards was held at the Annual Institute of the American Classical League at Wake Forest University in June 2010. Speakers were Ronnie Ancona, Sherwin Little, and Susan Shelmerdine. The session included questions and lively discussion.
(2) In response to the upcoming addition of Caesar to the Advanced Placement Latin curriculum, the APA Board in January endorsed the development of a preliminary bibliography to help AP Latin teachers prepare for their future teaching. As APA Vice President for Education, I appointed Board members John Marincola and Ann Vasaly to take on this task and am very appreciative of their efforts. The bibliography is now posted on the APA website and has been publicized to ACL as well. Thanks are due to APA President-Elect Kathleen Coleman for her successful effort to secure copyrighted material for inclusion from Oxford University Press (and to OUP itself). Thanks also to Wiley for its copyrighted contribution, obtained with the help of John Marincola. The bibliography was mentioned at a plenary session of the ACL Institute and was met with enthusiasm.
(3) The updated information on Latin teacher certification in the United States, state-by-state, should be available on the Education page of the APA website this winter. Some final revision is taking place based on feedback after circulation to the Joint Committee on Classics in American Education, the APA Board, and select other individuals. This will replace the material presently there, which dates back to 2004. Most of the work was completed by Hunter College students, Christopher Amanna and Manuel Andino, with the help of a Student-Faculty Research Initiative Grant from Hunter College. I will write some additional information on the nature of teaching at the college level vs. the secondary level and the typical training required/expected for each. Information specific to teaching Classics at the community college will be included, if it becomes available. Initial inquiries have not produced much information in that area so far.
(4) The next APA Guide to Graduate Education is currently being produced. This version will continue to have a small print run, but will also be available online for the first time. This is a very important change, which reflects how those of us already in the profession and students investigating graduate schools typically seek information. The Guide will now include information about Post-Baccalaureate programs as well as Ph. D and M.A. programs.
In the future, we hope to encourage departments to include even more information. This might include number of degrees awarded, job placement records/information, teaching experience available, time to degree etc. Self-reporting via departmental websites would have the advantage of providing a context for this information, e.g., a lot of teaching experience can lead to longer time to degree etc.
There has been discussion with James May, APA VP for Professional Matters, about what to include. Joseph Farrell, chair of the unofficial committee of Classics Ph.D. program department heads, has been involved in discussion as well. It may be useful for the Education and Professional Matters Divisions, Joseph Farrell, and the head of the unofficial committee on terminal M.A. programs to devise a statement for APA Board consideration and possible adoption about what they would recommend departments include in the future.
Additional Items:
The Joint Committee on Classics in American Education met in June at the ACL Institute. The primary focus of discussion was how to follow up on the Standards in order to help those seeking Latin teacher certification. Efforts will be made to identify institutions that offer the required training and to expand the number of and access to Latin teaching methods courses.
Ann Vasaly has been serving as the APA’s representative on the College Board’s AP Latin curriculum committee, which has recently released preliminary information about the forthcoming single AP Latin (Vergil-Caesar) course.
The Education Committee received an inquiry from an APA member about ways in which adjuncts or other temporary college Classics faculty might gain training to teach courses for which they may have had little preparation. The Committee acknowledged that this could be a problem, particularly in geographical areas where such faculty may not have the Ph.D., but thought that, in general, the APA was not necessarily the appropriate source of such training in terms of time and resources. One suggestion was made that the APA might provide a list of possible mentors, especially perhaps from the ranks of retired faculty, who could provide some quick free advice on teaching.
The Ancient History Committee and the Women’s Classical Caucus will be co-sponsoring a session for the Annual Meeting in San Antonio, “What Became of Lily Ross Taylor? Women and Ancient History in North America,” organized by Celia Schultz and Michele Salzman. Speakers will be Nathan Rosenstein, Elizabeth Carney, Ellen Bauerle, and Sara Forsdyke. The session will take place on Saturday, January 8, from 8:30-11:00 a.m.
The Joint Committee (with AIA) on Minority Student Scholarships will again hold its scholarship raffle at the Annual Meeting. The raffle of books and book gift certificates will take place this year immediately prior to the opening of the Exhibition Hall on Sunday, January 9. Tickets for the raffle are $10 each or three for $25 and can be purchased at the time of advance registration or at the meeting in the Registration Area. You do not need to be present at the event to win the raffle. The scholarship winners for 2010 were Timothy Castillo of Trinity University and Mario Morales of University of Rochester. Mr. Castillo took an intensive Greek program at the University of Texas, Austin, while Mr. Morales attended Father Reginald Foster’s Aestiva Latinitas summer program in East Milwaukee.
The 2010 winner of the David D. and Rosemary H. Coffin Fellowship for Travel in Classical Lands was Jeffrey Brickler, teacher at Turpin High School in Cincinnati. He used the award to attend the American Academy in Rome's Classical Summer School.
The winners of the 2009 Awards for Excellence in Teaching at the College Level were Gregory Aldrete, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Ronnie Ancona, HunterCollege and CUNYGraduate Center, and Denise McCoskey, Miami University. The winner of the 2009 Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Pre-Collegiate Level was Stergios Lazos, St.Edward High School, Cleveland, Ohio. Starting this year (2010), winners will be announced in the December preceding the Annual Meeting, and will appear in the January Vice President’s report.
Outreach
Thanks to a host of individuals who generously contribute time, talents and energies, the Division of Outreach has enjoyed a busy and productive year. Among its major activities are projects organized by the three committees under the purview of Outreach: the Outreach Committee itself, the Committee on the Classical Tradition (COCT), and the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance (CAMP), to be described in fuller detail below. The Outreach portfolio also includes the APA publication Amphora, of which T. Davina McClain, of Louisiana Scholars’ College at Northwestern State University, has been reappointed as its editor, and Diane Johnson, of Western Washington University, as its assistant editor. There are a number of other initiatives in the area of outreach taking shape that warrant attention first since, they bring both classical antiquity and the APA to a wider audience.
NEH Grant of $800,000 for Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives
I am delighted to report that Peter Meineck, Artistic Director of the Aquila Theatre Company and clinical professor at New York University’s Center for Ancient Studies, has received a highly prestigious Chairman’s Special Award of $800,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. One of the two largest grants made by the NEH this year—and indeed the sole grant in this category made to a theater company—it is also the largest award that the NEH has ever given to any theater company. The award will fund “Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives”, a major national humanities program slated to travel to one hundred public libraries and arts centers across the USA. Its mission is to bring the writings and insights of Greco-Roman antiquity to communities of veterans and their families in inner cities and rural areas. Meineck will oversee this program in conjunction with the American Philological Association, the Urban Library Council, Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. and New York University’s Center for Ancient Studies.
“Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives” is modeled on Aquila’s 2009 NEH-funded “Page and Stage” program, which drew on the expertise of sixteen program scholars selected by the APA. It will focus on the staging of scenes from the Homeric epics and Athenian tragedy that treat themes of special relevance to modern Americans, and in particular address issues faced by military veterans and their families. CAMP, chaired by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz of Hamilton College, has been helping to recruit 40-50 scholars to present lectures, coordinate reading groups, and chair discussions at the varied program venues. These program scholars, solicited by a widely circulated call for self-nomination, will be selected on the basis of such criteria as area of academic specialization, teaching experience, record of involvement in public outreach, and geographic proximity.
Those selected as program scholars will undergo training at the 2011 APA annual meeting, and receive a $2000 stipend, which includes a subvention to assist with travel to San Antonio. In addition to planning the training session at the APA, program consultants will also produce and distribute a scholars’ guide. In their own communities, program scholars will work closely with both the sponsoring libraries and the program directors on developing and implementing this ground breaking new public program in classics.
Classical Reception Studies Network at the Open University
Another burgeoning Outreach initiative involves the Classical Reception Studies Network, based at the Open University (UK), which the Outreach Division, representing the APA as a whole, joined in 2009 as an Overseas Affiliate Partner. A number of US classics and comparative literature programs—among them those at the University of Michigan, the University of California at Irvine, and Northwestern University—joined in this same capacity at approximately the same time, as did classics departments at universities in Ireland and South Africa, and the Classical Reception Studies Network in Australia. I have been working with the director of the CRSN, Lorna Hardwick on the CRSN Steering Group along with representatives from other partnering organizations, among them Sara Monoson of Northwestern University. We are extending the scope of CRSN to include exchange of information and ideas, in part through a website, on the teaching of classical reception to undergraduate students and “taught Masters’ students” (and thereby complement the work CRSN currently undertakes to organize national and international workshops for research student). We are also formulating proposals for expanding research collaborations between groups of scholars in different countries.
A conference on Classics in the modern world: a ‘Democratic Turn’?, held at the OU in June 2010, provided a further forum for researchers from the US and Canada to meet and debate with CRSN colleagues literally from all over the world: Australia, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Poland and South Africa as well as the UK. In the fall of 2009 an email seminar was held to identify and discuss some of the underlying research questions relating to this topic. Several North American scholars were on the circulation list; several others presented papers at the conference itself. Three participated in a panel, sponsored by the APA CAMP committee, on “Democracy as Popular and Political”: Kathryn Bosher, Northwestern University; Dorota Dutsch, University of California, Santa Barbara; and Nancy Rabinowitz. A panel on African-Americans and the Classics, which evolved from a project developed by COCT, included papers by Kenneth Goings and Eugene O’Connor, Ohio State University; Margaret Malamud, New Mexico State University; and Michele Ronnick, Wayne State University. Among the other presenters were Bracht Branham, Emory University; Robert Davis, City University of New York; Mary-Kay Gamel, University of California, Santa Cruz; Judith P. Hallett, University of Maryland, College Park; George Kovacs, Trent University; and Barbara Lawatsch-Melton, Emory University.