12 BU Classical Studies Summer 2014 A Newsletter for Alumni and Friends Chair’s Welcome degree in Ancient Greek (in 1877!). Hi Alumnae and Alumni! The humanistic project of uncovering the past and contemplating its In May we had the pleasure of connections to and discontinuities celebrating the graduation of another from the present remains central to stellar class of Classical Studies majors. our mission. We look to a future, The group was, as usual, marked by the however, that will include ever- many graduates from our department closer collaboration with other who had compiled an outstanding record academic areas, such as Archaeology, at BU, and we already miss them. The History of Art and Architecture, Class of 2015 has much to live up to! Comparative Literature, and You may read in the pages that follow Linguistics, as we respond to the new about the interesting paths these new academic opportunities that alumni have chosen. We have also characterize our deeply cross- received intriguing reports from older disciplinary field. In order to Contents alumni whom we had not heard from in understand this broad integration of the past. If you have not yet let us classics with a variety of intellectual Chair’s Welcome 1 know about your life after BU, please do pursuits, one has only to look at our so! From Your Professors 2 current self-study, in which we have compiled a list of the extraordinary From the Graduate Students 5 The coming academic year promises to range of activities pursued by our be an especially busy one, as the Event Recap 6 students over the last ten years: department is scheduled to undergo a from graduate programs in classics, From Your Fellow Alumni 9 review of its academic program. I law, medicine, business, art history, realize that the verb “undergo” sounds and history, to jobs in teaching, Upcoming Events 12 a bit ominous, but we actually look business, government, publishing, forward to the chance to sum up our media, and the arts. I close this strengths and weaknesses as we plan for message with the hope that all of our the next decade. Helping us in this alumni will continue to be part of our process will be a small panel of eminent future, as they have been a part of classics faculty from other institutions, our past. who will read our self-study, look at statistics, and speak with faculty and students. We are especially grateful to those alumni who have helped in this process by filling out a questionnaire about their experiences in the program. Ann Vasaly Chair, Department of Classical This moment of assessment helps to Studies underscore the twin themes that mark our history as a department: continuity and change. We always have been and continue to be deeply committed to the close study of ancient texts, and we remember with pride that the first female PhD in the country, Helen Magill (White), graduated from BU with a 231 2 4 From Your Professors… Professor Esposito writes: "The Professor Golder: Still working (now Professor Henderson was presented main event for me this summer is in the thick of a third, much with a volume entitled Ancient teaching Intensive Beginning expanded draft) on my memoir and Comedy and Reception: Essays in Ancient Greek at the American study of the films I worked on with Honor of Jeffrey Henderson, ed. S. D. College in Athens for four weeks Werner Herzog over the years and the Olson (De Gruyter: Berlin/Boston to nine B.U. students who are experiences I had making them, 2014) at the APA convention in Philhellenes. I am really looking entitled Shooting on the Lam. A first Chicago. Originally the idea of forward to the experience. My installment, in the form of a brief Professor Haase, the volume contains wife Madeline and daughter excerpt, will appear this August as a 50 essays by scholars worldwide in Rhiannon are coming along as well chapter in the second edition of English, French, German, Italian, and so it should be a blast!" Herzog on Herzog, to be published by Spanish, some by former students and Faber and Faber in the UK. I will also colleagues, on Greek and Roman be working this summer on producing comedy from antiquity to the present an edition of the late William – and it can be yours for a mere $420! Arrowsmith’s collected essays, Professor Henderson continues to tentatively titled A Poetry of humiliate himself in Department Criticism, which will comprise not theatricals, and wishes to express his only Arrowsmith’s essays on classics, bewilderment at being typecast all but also Renaissance literature, year in grouchy-old-man roles. modern Italian literature, T.S.Eliot, John Ruskin, and filmmakers such as Antonioni and Kurosawa, et. al. In my Professor Johnson: I’ve just finished spare time, I will be finishing post- my term in CAS Dean’s office, and production on a small feature-length now for a year’s sabbatical, still based documentary film I made entitled in Boston but traveling around a bit: Ballad of a Righteous Merchant. August Classics conference in France, October Women’s Studies conference I am delighted to report that BU in Finland, and travel later in the year students, past and present, have to Italy and Germany to look for worked with and continue to work Arachne in 15th C. Renaissance Prof. Golder and recent with me on all these projects. A palaces. Wish me luck! graduate Sarah Weiskettel current student in CAS/COM, Tyler Lecturer Sophie Klein writes “After in the Plautus play Lay, has been working with me on the earning my Ph.D. from Boston Herzog book and will continue to University in May 2013, I was assist me throughout the summer; delighted to return as a Lecturer this another student, Katie Rice, just won year. I taught four courses – Beginning a summer UROP fellowship to help Latin I and II, Intermediate Latin, and me with the Arrowsmith project; and Roman Comedy – and had the privilege a former classics student, now a of organizing the department’s annual graduate student in Theology, our “Aristophanes” Reading. For the first own Dan Carman, will avail me of his time in the event’s history, we invaluable talents as a film editor in performed a Roman comedy, adapted producing my final cut of the movie. by the talented students in CL229. Other recent/ current projects Hard to think past the summer, with include: papers delivered at Colgate so much on my plate, but I am University and CAMWS, and articles already starting to think and getting and chapters on subjects ranging from nervous about a lecture I will deliver the role of mute characters in Roman at the MFA in December 2014 to comedy to modern performances of inaugurate the opening of three new ancient Greek drama.” galleries dedicated to the arts of ancient Greece. 465 3 From Your Professors…ContinuedSchool Newsletter Professor Sasha Nikolaev: Professor Nelson: Not surprising Professor Ruck- On December 9th Professor Nikolaev thoroughly my new position as Director of of the previous year in the village enjoyed his first year at BU and is Core is proving pretty all- of Elefsina, Greece,Page we 3 launchedof 4 looking forward to the second consuming, but I am trying to hold the Gaia Project, proposed as the one. One of the highlights this my own in Classics as much as world international center for the year for Hellenists was the possible -- not least by getting as study of environmental renewal, discovery of new poems by many Classics professors as I can as a renegotiation of our contract Sappho, and Nikolaev remembers into Core! Steve Esposito is now with the planet that is the home fondly reading these texts with his leading the first semester of Core of humankind. There is additional students in "Greek Lyric Poetry", Humanities and Jay Samons is information available on my just a couple days after they hit coordinating the second semester faculty page. the Internet, and then discussing -- but still giving his famous them in a special workshop with Trireme Lecture in the fall. We With a former student of our all colleagues at the department have way too many things going Department (Moira Luthin), we in February. In the Fall he will be on, including a plan for third year are preparing a study of the teaching "The World of Greece" Core classes (I'd want to cross list employment of psychoactive (CL 101) along with a new course my Classical Reception class on sacraments by the elite of "Origins of Writing" (CL 205): the Joyce's Ulysses of course) and Victorian England for spiritual plan is that Classics and maybe even a Core Minor -- and quests. Our contributions will Linguistics majors enrolled in this all alumni should take note that present similar evidence of such course will join their efforts and next year is Core's 25th employment in America, focusing decipher Linear A (or something Anniversary, so we'll be having a on Mabel Dodge Luhan of Taos, else). At the moment he is blow-out celebration, complete New Mexico, who married a indulging in the guilty pleasure of with banquet, May 1-2, Huichol shaman and introduced Greek etymology, using the 2015. Save the Date! But even many artists and writers to the summer to put together a rather before that Core and Classics are peyote sacrament, and on similar massive database and write up joining in on a reception for groups of the elite who vacationed some ideas that have emerged Alumni Weekend, Saturday Sept.