‘Classics in the news’ CategoryPage 2
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 […]
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 […]
Want “300”?
Read all about upcoming Greek film projects here “War of the Gods!” The first is they have landed director Tarsem Singh (“The Fall,” “The Cell”) to helm “War of Gods!” They say it’s another Greek film like “300” was. They say they’re going to use the stuff they learned on “300” to make the film […]
Yes We Can!…Read Latin
There’s Latin on Barack Obama’s new campaign logo. Take a look here. The seal includes the same bald eagle as the actual presidential seal clutching an olive branch and arrows in its talons, but instead of a shield covering the center of the eagle’s body, the Obama version displays the campaign’s trademark “O.” Unlike the […]
Marriage, Martial, and Newsweek
It’s not everyday that you see Martial quoted in Newsweek. as Ellen DeGeneres told John McCain on her show recently, “We are all the same people, all of us.” That’s what the California Supreme Court said when it ruled that gay couples should have the right to marry as a matter of basic equality. Before […]
This Time It’s Oedipal…
Another update of Classical theater onstage. And soon to be onscreen directed by none other than David Lynch. Filmmaker David Lynch is all set to make a new horror movie based on a Greek tragedy. Lynch, who has directed hits like “Blue Velvet” and “Mullholland Drive”, will team up with Werner Herzog to make “My […]
Homeric Moms–A Mother’s Day “Appreciation”
What better way to appreciate and support mothers on Mother’s Day than to reduce all maternal identities and behaviors into two universalizing and demeaning stereotypes–and to back it up with some Homer! Classic Moms The meddler and the martyr. That’s what Achilles and Odysseus had to deal with. On Achilles’ mother Thetis, who lobbies Zeus […]
Old and New Part 2–After Aristophanes
Aristophanes’ Frogs has been updated by the Classic Stage Company. Read the full review here. (thanks, Nick!) The play is “Old Comedy After Aristophanes’ Frogs,” and in it David Greenspan has, figuratively speaking, built himself a framework out of “The Frogs” and the Old Comedy conventions, then sprayed it with a machine gun. The bullets […]