Labors and Lesson Plans

® A publication of the American Philological Association Vol. 11 • Issue 1 • Spring 2014 Labors and Lesson Plans: Book Review: Educating Young Hercules in The Classical Cookbook by Larry Ball Two 1990s Children’s Television Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger, The Programs Classical Cookbook: Revised Edition. Los by Angeline Chiu Angeles: Getty Publications, 2012. Pp. 160. $24.95 ISBN 1606061100. ero to Hero, in no time flat … Zero to Hero, just like that!” he field of ancient cookery, as a schol- “ZThe Muses’ song from the Tarly and popular publication topic, has Disney film Hercules could apply equally a long and proud tradition. Study of the well to the sudden, spectacular rise of subject works like field archaeology, in so Hercules in pop entertainment of the far as the scholar must dig up (literally or late 1990s. Those proved lively years for figuratively) what information there is, rec- the hero in American film and TV, spearheaded by the 1997 Disney ani- ognize its usually egregious gaps, and fill mated movie and by television’s Her- them in as best he or she can. The latter is cules: The Legendary Journeys, starring commonly achieved via comparison with Kevin Sorbo (1995-99). The two quickly better preserved examples from related spun off more TV series: Disney’s Her- fields or sites, with a lot of (usually) logical cules: The Animated Series (1998-99, 65 ratiocination to sew it all together. In this episodes of 30 minutes each) and Young Hercules (1998-99, 50 episodes also of 30 regard, the field archaeologist has a slight- minutes each) starring Ryan Gosling.* ly easier row to hoe, in that irremediable Both spinoffs reimagined the mytholog- gaps in the information can simply be left ical hero specifically for younger viewers books and, increasingly, film and televi- as unanswerable questions. Scholars of and gave him unprecedented exposure sion.§ These early interactions are often ancient cookery, in contrast, usually hope in children’s weekday TV.† formative for how young people perceive to recreate the cuisine of antiquity. Here a In terms of the target audience, grade and relate to mythological figures, so with school and middle school years are very gap in the information can be disastrous, that in mind, a closer look at Hercules: The resulting in concrete, sludge, or flavors so impressionable times for encounters with Animated Series and Young Hercules abominable that not even the Romans cultural influences. Every spring I teach a becomes an illuminating excursion into large myth course, and my students often often-unappreciated aspects of classical could figure out a way to enjoy them. This reminisce about their first contact with reception in children’s entertainment. powerful caveat must be kept in mind, mythological stories: it almost always Both shows focus on the education of since it explains why so much speculation, comes at that age and in the form of teenage Hercules before he becomes substitution, and invention are both justified entertainment geared for children— continued on page 6 and necessary. If we adhere strictly to available information, we would end up My Path to Classics: My Teacher, Flipping a coin: building a Alfred V. Morro. 2 numismatic database with only with translations of terse ancient texts, undergraduate researchers . 12 few of which provide enough information A New Incarnation of Latin in China . 3 where do we come from? to allow anything appealing to be cooked e what are we? Where are The Kids Are Alright, or, Nobody we going? . 17 today. Killed the Liberal Arts . 4 The authors of this book are well aware Linking Course to Production: The Stakes are High: Tragedy and The “Oresteia” Project . 19 of the challenges, of course. The division of Transformation within Prison labor between them exploits their respec- Walls . 5 The APA Blog opens for business . 21 Insid tive expertise, the translations of ancient lit- Capital Campaign News . 9 From Your Editors . 23 erature being by Andrew Dalby and the Vera Lachmann, the Classics, and GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS. 24 actual cookery the work of Sally Grainger. Camp Catawba . 10 continued on page 8 My Path to Classics: My Teacher, Alfred V. Morro by Adam Blistein became a Classicist because of IAlfred V. Morro (1920-2005, Fig. 1). Almost everyone in the state of Rhode Island above a certain age would (a) recognize Al’s name, and (b) be sur- prised by my statement because he was almost exclusively known as a football and track coach of great success and rare ferocity at Providence Classical High School. If you can remember what college football fans outside of Ohio State thought about the late Woody Hayes, or, more recently, what college basket- ball fans outside of Indiana University thought about Bobby Knight in his chair-throwing days, you have some idea of Al’s reputation in Rhode Island. In the background of Fig. 2 you can see him haranguing his troops in a pose that was familiar to all who knew him. In fact, Fig. 2 shows me becoming familiar with that pose because I was an assis- tant manager on the football team, and I am the young man in the gray sweat- shirt with his back to the camera. In the late 1930s and early 1940s Al was a legendary football player and track and field athlete first at LaSalle High School in Providence and then at Boston College. In consecutive years he played in the Cotton and Sugar Bowls for B.C., and he was captain of its Fig. 2. Classical High School’s football team on its sidelines, Fall 1966. football team in 1941. He went on to a read a classical author in translation for successful career as a football and track 30 minutes outside of class. That extra coach in Providence and was athletic credit—especially extra credit so easily director at Classical for many years. The earned—was pretty attractive. Al also School’s athletic complex is named for offered extra credit for short reports on him. His citation in the Hall of Fame of ancient civilization, but I rarely took the Rhode Island Track and Field him up on that offer even though the Coaches Association reads in part: “The report could be nothing more than an State’s most successful coach of all time. article copied out of an encyclopedia. His Classical H.S. teams were virtually Instead, since he was good enough to unbeatable over his many years of give me an additional reward for some- coaching.” thing I’d be doing anyway, i.e., reading, Despite this eminence, the School that year I went through every Penguin District of the City of Providence and Loeb I could lay my hands on, usu- required him to do more than coach in ally in thirty-minute segments. In some return for a full paycheck. For many cases, however, I kept on reading long years that additional work was to teach past the point that the book generated ancient history to ninth graders, and in extra credit, just because I couldn’t put that position in 1963-64 he introduced it down. For example, in Al’s system, me to mens sana in corpore sano. I can’t you could get a credit for each play of think of a better person to have done Euripides you read, but exactly one Fig. 1. Teacher/Coach Alfred V. Morro this. Al taught ancient history as he did credit for all of the Iliad or of Herod- in the former Classical High School everything—forcefully and idiosyncrati- otus. I still read all of Herodotus. building, circa 1965. cally. Among his idiosyncrasies was to That’s how I became addicted to offer extra credit to anyone who would classical literature and how, after a 2 number of detours, I became Executive Director of the APA. My high-school A New Incarnation of Latin teachers ranged from competent to inspiring, but it was Al’s encourage- Latin in China ment that I sample the entire smorgas- by Yongyi Li bord of classical literature that made me want to keep reading Latin, which I n a wintry day in 1996, I was began the same year I studied history thumbing through catalogues in with him, and to start reading Greek O a deserted corner of the library once I got to college. As I told him of Beijing Normal University when my while I was still in graduate school, “I attention was suddenly seized by some wanted to be a history teacher until I titles in a language strangely familiar. I met you.” could easily decipher them because of The conventional wisdom is that their resemblance to English words, and coaches cannot make the transition I knew the names of the authors as I from the field, court, or rink to the class- had read them in translations. Latin! room. I’ve heard my colleagues who My instinct told me. I relayed this dis- manage learned societies for historians covery to my teacher of Shakespearean despair of coaches teaching their sub- plays, a BA in Classics who had just ject in high school. For years the comic graduated from Oxford. The next morn- Yongyi Li. Photograph courtesy of the strip Funky Winkerbean made a running ing saw us standing in front of a counter author and Dept. of Classics, University joke out of the football coach who in the most secluded part of the library, of Washington. shows films in health class because he’s after spiraling flights of gloomy stairs. A incapable of teaching the actual subject long silence ensued before the books Eight years later, already a faculty matter.

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