Archive for 2011

Modern-Day Amazons. Love it!

Modern-day Amazons.  Love it.       http://teenagefilm.com/archives/youth-happenings/asgarda-power/ Riot grrrls of the Amazon variety. Amidst the Ukraine’s high rates of sex trafficking and gender oppression, a new movement of empowered women takes form—Asgarda—a tribe of Ukrainian women, mostly students, who live together in the Carpathian Mountains seeking complete autonomy from men. Approximately 150 women live together […]

J.K Rowling speaks of classics at Harvard graduation but not for the reasons you’d think

In 2008, J.K. Rowling delivered the commencement address at Harvard  on the lessons of failure and the importance of imagination, but not in the ways you’d expect.  By now most people are familiar with J.K.Rowling’s rags-to-riches story of how she went from being a single mother on welfare to becoming one of the wealthiest women […]

Update from Trinity Classics Department

Some of you may recall that the Classics Department at Trinity College was under threat of closure.  Sometimes the voices of students, faculty, alumni, and other concerned citizens can make a difference. Read the update below: ——————— I am writing with good news from Trinity College. Dean Rena Fraden has accepted the Educational Policy Committee’s […]

The Classical Education and the Parental Units

HT Clara Hardy Just in case you’ve missed the memo that classics is cool, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin are looking for a tutor for their kids with some classical expertise: The tutor must be fluent in ancient Greek, Latin, French and Spanish, able to play two instruments and athletic. (If you’re wondering about the […]

Off Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Congratulations to our graduating seniors Karl Boettcher, Katie Webster, Patty O’Connor, and Jericho Westendorf!  We’ll miss you and wish you all the best on this exciting new phase of your lives.

Classicists Nearly Defeat Philosophers in Annual Kickball Game

Members of the classics and philosophy departments met on the battle–I mean, kickball–field for a nail-biting, suspenseful match-up.  Though the game didn’t come out in our favor, this was our closest game yet.  Watch out philosophy, Zeus/Jupiter may have granted you success this time, but your days on top are numbered.  The classicists will be […]

Move Over Indiana Jones, It’s Space-Age Technology to the Rescue!

Very cool!  Just when you thought all the big stuff had already been found, it looks like the swash-buckling archaeologist days of Howard Carter and  Heinrich Schliemann are back again.  Kind of.  Armed with infrared technology that has already led to exciting discoveries and has the potential to discourage looting (ahem), archaeologists are excited to […]

Damnatio Memoriae before our very eyes…

An interesting column from the New York Times about a practice as old as Egypt itself–the attempt to expunge the names and images of ousted political rulers from public spaces.  See below for an excerpt on the practice in Rome. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15bond.html?_r=3 Erasing the Face of History LAST month, a Cairo court ordered that images of […]

MSU’s production of the Odyssey takes top honors at American College Theatre Festival

Some of us were lucky enough to catch MSU’s production of Mary Zimmerman’s Odyssey last fall.  We all knew we had a top notch theatrical/classical experience, and apparently the judges at the American College Theatre Festival agreed.   This just in from the Phi Beta Kappa blog: Who’d dare to put on the stage in […]

Green and Yellows: A Hip-Hop Shout-out to the Cambridge Commentaries

A clever classics-themed parody of wiz khalifa’s “black and yellow” adapted to praise the Cambridge “green and yellow” classical commentary series, complete with agonistic put-downs of rival Oxford Classical Texts (OCT).   yeah, uh huh you know what it is green and yellows (x4) everything i read i read in green OCTs nothin’ cambridge green […]