Archive for 2008Page 2
Missing Matt?
Check out the family blog here and leave a note!
Fragments of a Greek Tragedy
Monday evening, Oct. 13th Dr. KO Chong-Gossard from University of Melbourne delivered a lecture entitled “Pavane for a Dead Infant: Consolation in Euripides’ Hypsipyle” to a packed house . Euripides is perhaps best known as an avant-garde playwright whose plays (Medea, Bacchae, Trojan Women) offer powerful female protagonists, bold new handlings of myth and an […]
Myth and Music
It’s not everyday that you hear explicit recountings of Greek myth in contemporary pop music. Listen to Jay Brannan’s 38-second shout out to the stories of Zeus, Metis, Athena, and Hephaestus in this excerpt: goddamned-Jay Brannan
Back from the Dead and More Relevant Than Ever
When an op-ed piece in the New York Times is entitled “Are We Rome? Tu Betchus!” you know it’s a good day to be a classicist. When it continues on to note that, “the decline and fall of the American Empire echoes the experience of the Romans,” you know that your appreciation of classics and […]
“It’s cool to say, ‘I take Latin’”
…the New York Times confirms. Latin enrollments are on the rise. Read about it here. NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — The Latin class at Isaac E. Young Middle School here was reading a story the other day with a familiar ring: Boy annoys girl, girl scolds boy. Only in this version, the characters were named Sextus […]
Opening Ceremonies (Gustavus Classics Style)
Earlier this September, the Classics Department welcomed back Gustie classics majors, old and new, at the annual Departmental Classics Reception. Much barbecue, tzatziki, and merriment were had by all! Missing Matt? Go visit his blog: http://pancierasinsicily.blogspot.com/
Roman Holiday
A Salon article on the experience of traveling in Rome. Read more here On the Fourth of July, a little group of Americans held a patriotic celebration in Rome’s Piazza Farnese. We chose a spot near one of the two monumental fountains, huge basins that were originally in the Baths of Caracalla, built around A.D. […]
Workings of Ancient ‘Computer’ Deciphered
Hot off the presses: After a closer examination of the Antikythera Mechanism, a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games. The new findings, reported Wednesday in the […]
Pompeii: When Ruins Face Ruin
This just in the New York Times: Citing threats to public security and to the site itself, the Italian government has for the first time declared a yearlong state of emergency for the ancient city of Pompeii. Nearly 2,000 years after Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii under pumice and steaming volcanic ash, some 2.6 million tourists […]
The Labors of Barack Obama
Proving that classical mythology never goes out of style and that you can never take an analogy too far, Maureen Dowd compares Barack Obama’s upcoming political trials to the Labors of Hercules. Barack Obama is about to embark on his own Feats of Strength…In the next six weeks, he will have to successfully complete a […]