Classics at Gustavus the Annual Newsletter of the Department of Classics at Gustavus Adolphus College
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Classics at Gustavus The annual newsletter of the Department of Classics at Gustavus Adolphus College October 2009 (forteenth edition) Editors: Eric K. Dugdale and William K. Freiert • Layout: Andy Biedermann establishing a long-term partner relationship with a Editor’s corner field school to offer students hands-on archaeological experience, and providing alumni with opportunities With a year as department chair under my belt, I am to interact with current majors, to keep up their surprised to find that I actually quite enjoy it, despite interest in classics, and to get together with each my natural aversion to multitasking and paperwork. other and with us on a (semi-)regular basis. We now Being part of a group that feels more like a family than have a group Facebook page (Friends of Gustavus a department has a lot to Classics), with photos and do with it. This year, each news of events. Please department at Gustavus become our ‘friend’. We was asked to develop a are planning an alumni strategic plan. As we took event in the Twin Cities stock of the department’s in February. And we hope history, its current state, for a big turn-out for the and our vision for the celebration of Will on the future, I was reminded occasion of his retirement of the magnitude of in May. But we would like the feat that Will, Pat, to hear from you: what Marleen, and Stewart have would YOU like to see in accomplished, building a the future of classics at department that is so well Gustavus? respected by outsiders and so dearly loved by those within. And how fortunate we are to have found in Matt, Mary, Seán, and Yurie colleagues who In this issue have made such an impact since their arrival—not Editor’s Corner . 1 only in their many contributions to campus life and News of Old Main . 2. to the profession, but also in the relationships that The Class of 2009 . 3. they have built with students. And how privileged Varusschlacht (by Mary McHugh) . 4 we are, too, to have a delightful and intellectually Honors and Awards . 7. curious group of majors (27 this year!) who play such Woman Warrior (by Seán Easton) . 8 an active part in the life of the department. Current Classics Majors . .10 As for the future, we were told to dream ‘blue sky’ Alumni in the Spotlight: Michael Adkins . 11 about what we might like to accomplish, and we did Alumni in the Spotlight: Amy Sommer . .14 just that. Our ideas include putting on trips to classical News of our Alums . .16 lands for alums, getting out into the community to News of the Faculty . 24 spread awareness of classics, funding a scholarship Books . 29 to allow students to fulfill their classical ambitions, Alumni/ae Directory . 31 “Classics at Gustavus” is published yearly by the Department of Classics for its alumni. Please send interesting items, news, and updates to Eric Dugdale at [email protected]. 1 own myths of identity. The lecture illustrated how News of Old Main deep-seated and yet volatile constructions of cultural identity generally are. The whole visit was organized As all of our majors and alums know from lip-smacking by Seán Easton, whose grand vision and meticulous experience, food is important to us classicists at organization turned this into a high-profile event Gustavus. In our case, our nickname as Gusties delivered to a packed house in Alumni Hall, made seems to be derived not so much from allegiance to possible by collaboration from six other departments a bearded Swedish monarch as from our gustatory and programs. passions. The academic year was inaugurated and In March, Susan Shapiro (Utah State University) closed in the most classical of ways—with food returned to Gustavus (she taught here as a leave aplenty at the villa urbana of Seán and Yurie; at the replacement in 1994-95) to give a paper on Italian fall opener everybody ended up out on their huge filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who brought together deck with views over the valley. Mary offered a very his love of classics and an interest in contemporary popular immersion course in Roman cuisine (A Taste societal issues in works such as his 1969 film Medea. of Roman Food) in January, culminating in a Roman Among other things, she uncovered an uncanny banquet co-sponsored by Eta Sigma Phi (you may resemblance in his Argonauts to the Beatles, already have read about it in a featured article in the inspired perhaps by their hit, Yellow Submarine, Gustavus Quarterly). which came out at the same time as Pasolini’s film. The menu of departmental lectures was equally Her visit coincided with the arrival in the Twin Cities rich. In September, K.O. Chong-Gossard (University of the annual conference of the national classical of Melbourne) gave a talk on Euripides’ Hypsipyle. His organization CAMWS, the grandest show in town lecture offered a fascinating case study, drawn from a since the Republican convention in September! play that survives only in fragments, of an approach The ancient world featured in other Gustavus that combines a keen interest in performance events too. The Department of Art and Art History studies and gender studies with more “traditional” brought to campus Donny George, the former philological and papyrological methodologies. director of the National Museum in Baghdad, whose Students commented that they were amazed at how first-person account of his staff’s courageous efforts they were able to get so much out of his analysis of to save the museum’s precious artifacts from looting such a fragmentary and complex text. and success in retrieving many of the missing pieces In October, Stephen Berard (Wenatchee Valley had the audience on the edge of their seats. And Phi College) gave a riveting and eclectic overview of the Beta Kappa brought to campus Tom Palaima (U. of history of Latin as the primary language of academic Texas, Austin), a distinguished classicist and public inquiry from antiquity until modern times, with figure, who gave a talk on war stories from Homer to examples drawn from everybody from Galileo and Jesse Odom. At the inauguration of President Ohle, our Copernicus to Newton, Descartes, Hobbes, and our own Will Freiert delivered an address characterizing own Linnaeus. Dr. Berard is a fluent speaker of Latin, the role of president as that of Roman pontifex or publishes all his scholarship in Latin, and is currently bridge-maker. And perhaps the most mind-expanding writing a Latin novel. He also offered a workshop lecture of all was the Hanson-Peterson lecture that in which students practiced speaking Latin over Will organized, in which Arthur Zajonc reported on prandium (lunch). his participation in the Mind and Life conference The biggest event of the year was a lecture by in which five leading physicists discussed with the Patrice Rankine (Purdue University) entitled “Black Dalai Lama current thought in theoretical quantum Athena and Myths of African Diaspora Identity in Latin physics, in the context of Buddhist philosophy. America and Brazil” in February. The lecture offered Eta Sigma Phi had one of the most active years a provocative analysis of the reasons why Martin on record, thanks to the energy and creativity of its Bernal’s argument for the possible African and Near officers, Ahna Gilbertson, Nick Harper, Sarah Hulke, Eastern origins of Classical Greek civilization provoked Sybylla Yeoman Hendrix, and Laura Ofstad. Ably such controversy, with intellectual capital and cultural advised by Mary McHugh, they put on a wide array of identity so heavily invested in the Eurocentric model. events—everything from a toga-party and the annual Dr. Rankine also offered a fascinating glimpse into how Hellenists vs. Latinists broomball game to a trip to the scholars in Latin America have responded to Bernal’s Minneapolis Institute of Arts, just to mention a few arguments for an African origin of Greek civilization highlights. Fourteen new members were inducted and how communities in Brazil have constructed their 2 into the chapter this year. Our majors had another very productive year in other respects. Paula Wiggam, who studied with Matt in the ICCS-Sicily program this fall, presented research that developed out of her studies in Sicily (a comparative study of temple sculpture and its ethnographic implications) at the Carleton Symposium on Colonization and Cultural Exchange whose proceedings will be published in the Carleton Classical Review. Two majors wrote and successfully defended honors theses, both under the guidance of Seán Easton. Dan Barthell’s thesis, entitled “Freedom or Slavery? The Problem of 1 Corinthians 7:21,” brought to bear both close textual philology and broader socio-historical arguments on the vexed question of Paul’s position on the freeing of slaves. Sarah Hulke thesis was titled “Feminine Influence: Transformation in Ancient Epic,” and examined A few of our seniors at graduation. Left to right: Ahna, Shayla, Sybylla, Laura, Laura, Sarah, Henry instances of transformation and disguise among goddesses in epic (Homer, Virgil, Apollonius), an analysis of broad scope that included instances of The Class of 2009 enhanced appearance and of psychological change. Nine students took Yurie’s capstone seminar on sex and gender in the ancient world. The capstone course, Dan Barthell sorely misses Gustavus and the Classics which we began four years ago, gives our students Department, but plans to dissipate those feelings by the opportunity to engage in a major research taking a year of classes at the Univ. of Minnesota in project as well as be exposed to the full range of both Greek and Latin as a non-degree student.