‘Greek’ Category
Ancient Greek Alive
Before you let anyone say that Ancient Greek is a dead language, direct them to this article, which tells us that… …An isolated community near the Black Sea coast in a remote part of north-eastern Turkey has been found to speak a Greek dialect that is remarkably close to the extinct language of ancient Greece. As […]
This Just In…Greek Civilization a fraud!!
Required reading from the Onion: Historians Admit to Inventing Greece WASHINGTON—A group of leading historians held a press conference Monday at the National Geographic Society to announce they had “entirely fabricated” ancient Greece, a culture long thought to be the intellectual basis of Western civilization. The group acknowledged that the idea of a sophisticated, flourishing […]
dinner and a slide show
On Wednesday, Sept. 30, Eta Sigma Phi provided an Italian feast for hungry classicists. Globe-trotting Gusties Matt Panciera, Paula Wiggam, and Emma Ellingson shared slides and stories of their trips to Sicily and Florence. The event took place, fittingly, in the International Center–the perfect setting for inspiring wanderlust!
A Tipsy Hero–wine-drinking in the Odyssey
In connection with the previous post on feasting with good food and friends, here’s an article on wine-drinking in the Odyssey from the New York Times: A student in one of my English classes recently asked about the endless references to drinking wine in “The Odyssey.” The question, which had nothing to do with my […]
Eta Sigma Phi Hosts Toga Party
On Thursday October 30, 2008, Classicists as well as non-Classicists gathered in Old Main to have a Dionysian feast of pizza, lemonade, and Halloween decorated frost-your-own-cookies. Activities included: a Julius Caesar photo booth, Plato’s Play-doh sculpting, a Roman coloring station (designing your own ancient pottery), and Pin the Laurel on Caesar. Winners of the toga […]
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
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]