Juno's Peacock
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CLASSICAL STUDIES AT WESLEYAN Cindie Cagenello (’88) JUNO’S PEACOCK Or The Eyes Have It Newsletter of the Department of Classical Studies Issue 21 Academic Year 2015-2016 When Argus, the hundred-eyed guard animal (and also the name of Wesleyan’s student newspaper) was killed by Hermes (Jupiter’s hit-man, and the name of Wesleyan’s alternative campus paper), some part of him survived death. His eyes were saved by Juno and set in the tail of her peacock. Argus, you lie low; the light you had in so many eyes is extinguished, And your hundred points of light are now all dark. But Juno saved the eyes, and set them in the feathers of her peacock: She filled its tail with jewels as bright as stars. (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1,720-23) FACULTY NEWS KATHLEEN BIRNEY. This past year in at Ashkelon with me in the preceding summer the fall I taught the First Year continued their archaeological explorations with Seminar “Single Combat in research projects - in individual tutorials and senior the Ancient World”, which theses - ranging from an archaeological study of uses combat and warfare as a religious tolerance in Crusader period Ashkelon lens through which to grapple to a study of 5th - and 4th century B.C. ancient (!) with customs and political amulets from the site. structure in ancient societies. I also taught a larger course on Death and the Afterlife in Egypt in Greece, which combines archaeological Inside this issue: and mythological study to see how these two great cultures engaged with immortality and managed Faculty News . .. 1 the care and feeding of the dead. This course Student Achievements . 5 was punctuated by a visit to the Egyptian exhibit Study Abroad . 8 at the Boston Museum of Fine arts, and also to Student Internships. 9 Harvard’s 3D visualization laboratories where New York City Field Trip . 12 students were given an overview of the Digital Outreach Programs. .13 Giza project, a virtual model of the pyramids and The Homerathon . 14 surrounding tombs that incorporates the most Class Projects. .15 up-to-date archaeological data. Alongside these Classical Studies Lecture Series . 16 official courses, a number of students who had Alumnae/Alumni News. 17 participated in the archaeological field school Commencement/Reunion . 20 Wesleyan Classical Studies Faculty News Continued 2. In the spring, as always I was delighted to class on Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, delved into introduce students to the challenge and delights modern scholarship on the ancient novel and of ancient Greek in Greek 101, and also taught on the circulation of texts in the ancient world the seminar the Greek Vase as Art and Artifact. as students simultaneously read Apuleius’ Students in the Greek Vase Seminar participated challenging and entertaining Latin text. In both in ceramic workshops with a master potter courses, students experimented by creating Stephen Rodriguez from New Haven’s Creative research posters for their final projects, as part Arts Workshop to take a stab at producing their of an effort to make humanities research visible own pots, and to better understand the technol- to a wider audience on the Wesleyan campus. ogy - and technique - involved in creating such (The research poster is a common format in the vases. One student based her senior essay in this natural and social sciences.) Students presented class, and mounted online exhibit in Olin Li- their findings at a poster display session in brary, “Collecting at Wesleyan”, featuring South Exley Science Center in May 2016. As part of Italian vases from Wesleyan’s own Archaeology the research for my new book project, I had and Anthropology Collections. On the research the chance to visit the Villa I Tatti (Harvard front, we returned to Ashkelon in June for a University Center for Renaissance Studies) final season of excavation, this year working on in Florence, Italy in March 2016 to consult two neighborhoods: the 7th century merchant’s with the faculty fellows about the reception neighborhood destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, of classical texts by readers in 15th- and 16th- and an Iron Age Philistine cemetery. This is the century Italy and tour the grounds of the only Philistine cemetery ever excavated and beautiful villa. Back on campus, I organized will have a huge imapct on our scholarship and with Sarah McCully ‘16 the mythology program understanding of the Philistines, their burial for volunteers at Macdonough Elementary customs and their migration into Israel. Six School and Green Street Teaching and Learning Wesleyan students participated in the excavation Center. I also helped supervise an internship this season, including one recently graduated for three students in the department at CCIV and Archaeology major Sarah McCully Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of who returned to Ashkelon as staff member to Art in May-June 2016. The internship involved work in the cemetery. Outside of the field, most researching an uncatalogued collection of of my time has been spent working on my book, Hellenistic and Roman imperial gems donated “From Ashkelon to Ascalon: the Archaeological to the museum by J.P. Morgan (see more on History of the Hellenistic period.” I presented a the internship elsewhere in this newsletter!). It paper at the fall meeting of the Annual Schools was supported by the Department of Classical of Oriental Research on Phoenician bathing Studies Squire Fund. The partnership between in the Hellenistic east, comparing previously our department’s students and the Atheneum is unrecognized Phoenician bathing styles with the a new venture and one we hope will continue in practices common in mainland Greece. I was also the future. honored to give invited talk for the University of Connecticut Archaeology Program entitled CHRISTOPHER PARSLOW. I taught “Wrestling with -ization yet again: Hellenization two archaeology classes this year, my Roman and Material identity in Persian and Hellenistic Villa Life course and the Survey of Roman period Ashkelon.” Archaeology, and I returned to teaching the full- year of introductory Latin, which I had not done LAUREN CALDWELL. I taught two in several years and enjoyed doing a great deal. Latin courses on Metamorphoses The Villa Life class was especially rewarding in Spring 2016. The first, a fourth- because the students gave such wonderful semester course on Ovid, combined seminar presentations on topics relating to the translation with broader discussion villa we had “excavated.” A Wesleyan project of the place of Greek myth in the grant allowed me to go to Italy again this Roman world and in today’s world summer to work on two projects relating to -- with the hilarious writings of the author/ my research in Pompeii and Herculaneum. In humorist Mallory Ortberg (of the website “The Naples I examined the “orologio di prosciutto,” Toast”) providing a contemporary case in a portable sundial in the shape of a ham leg point. The second Latin course, an advanced recovered in the famous Villa dei Papiri in Wesleyan Classical Studies Faculty News Continued 3. Herculaneum. I’m in the process of creating next year on Paulinus of Nola, a review for Gnomon a working model of it, based on photographs of a new edition of the biblical cento of the female converted into 3D digital model, and will give poet Proba, and an extended encyclopedia article two papers on it this coming year. I also spent on Venantius Fortunatus. As to the future, I’m time in Pompeii and the neighboring ancient city anticipating next year with mixed feelings, as I will of Stabiae, wrapping up some loose ends of my be retiring at the end of the academic year. I look never-ending project on the Praedia (Properties) of forward, though, to having the pleasure one last Julia Felix in Pompeii. There, and subsequently time of teaching the lively and engaging students in Rome, I took hundreds of photos of sites and we attract to our department. in museums that will help better illustrate my courses. ANDY SZEGEDY-MASZAK. In the fall I taught the Greek History survey, MICHAEL ROBERTS. It’s been a full and which is an old stand-by, but this entertaining year. It began time I used my online Coursera with my participation in MOOC as a supplementary video the International Medieval textbook. The students seem to have Conference held in Leeds liked it. I also continued as faculty last July, where I was mentor for the first group of 10 Posse respondent in a session on veterans, who were sophomores. Venantius Fortunatus. In In the spring we converted our weekly meetings the fall I taught our upper- into a group tutorial on the general subject of level Catullus course for leadership. For each session one of the vets had the first time. It gave me a to choose a topic, assign the readings or other chance to get to grips with material, and lead the discussion. They selected two of Catullus’ remarkable leaders who ranged from Alexander the Great to longer poems, his Attis and Marriage of Peleus Hitler to Steve Jobs, and it was a great experience. and Thetis, in the company of a group of energetic Working with these folks has been one of the and engaged students. The poetry of Catullus highlights of my now very long career at Wesleyan. was nicely complemented by my other course, I chaired the Department during an active and, I’m in which I taught the letters of Seneca and Pliny happy to say, productive year. We had a full roster to a class of promising Latinists. Spring brought of lectures and presentations, which consistently me a sabbatical and a chance to catch up on my drew good-sized, enthusiastic audiences. We scholarship.