Department of Classics

University of Colorado at Boulder

Fall 2010ClassicsAfter the actual budget cuts of

2009–10 and the scary rumorsabout future budgets, a planned bequestby Mary McClanahan, an alumna of theprogram (BA ’67 and MA ’69) was likea ray of sunshine among dark clouds.The gift’s purpose will be to benefitfuture graduate students in Classics.

Mary e-mailed the department in earlySeptember and expressed her desire “togive back to the university so that otherstudents can benefit from the rewards ofhaving a good education.” She added,“I’m obviously partial to the departmentin which I studied.” The beginning ofthe term is a busy time for everybody atthe university and especially a new chair,but this was the kind of e-mail tobrighten anybody’s day. It was, in addi-tion, a great pleasure to meet Mary, asmart, confident but unpretentious per-son, and to discuss the ways that her giftcould best serve the students’ needs.

The department faculty had long deter-mined that better support of graduatestudents was our top priority, even

From the ChairIt is a pleasure to write here for the firsttime. I have enjoyed an exciting andchallenging first year as chair of Classicshere at the University of Colorado.

On the one hand, it was a privilege totry to coordinate and nurture, with thehelp of our dedicated and able staff, thework of such a fine group of scholarsand teachers and such smart and enthu-siastic students. This year, we welcomedto Boulder and to our program CaroleNewlands, a distinguished Latinist for-merly of the University of Wisconsin(see article on page 7). She hit theground running with a Virgil seminar,a course on ancient comedy, and, inaddition, completed the manuscriptof her Cambridge commentary StatiusSilvae Book 2. Andrew Cain receivedtenure and was promoted to associateprofessor. If ever somebody made it easyfor a chair to supervise a successfultenure process, it was the über-produc-tive Cain with his several books, manyarticles, and cohorts of admiring andinspired students.

On the other hand, the budget crisis inColorado resulted in a reduction of statefunding of the university by 58 percentin the last year. State support now con-stitutes less than 6 percent of our rev-enue. This resulted in many painful cutsthroughout the university. The measurethat hit us hardest was the mandate to

continued on page 3

MaryMcClanahan

Alumna’s Planned Bequest toBenefit Future Graduate Students

trumping new faculty lines. Our abilityto attract the best graduate students andto train them well enough to competefor jobs with, for example, the productsof Ivy League schools has often beenhampered by funding constraints. Wepossess a fine group of faculty, but someof our best applicants end up going toprograms that pay them better—not thatanybody anywhere is getting rich as agraduate student! Even more important,our students often work as teachingassistants every semester. This providesexcellent teaching experience, but cutsinto the time they can spend on theirown development as scholars. So, whilea CU doctoral student might have oneyear “on fellowship” in a five-year pro-gram, a student in the Ivy League mightonly teach during two years in a six-yearprogram. This latter is probably closerto the optimal mix of teaching andscholarship to prepare students for thecompetitive academic job market. We arenot there yet, but Mary’s generosity—in

continued on page 2

Classics page 2

In the Iliad, Homer reports thatDiomedes “in his hand caught/up astone, a huge thing which no two mencould carry/such as men are now, butby himself he lightly hefted it” (5.302–4; trans. Lattimore). Few historiansbelieve that there was really a suddenand dramatic decline in the strengthand stone-hefting abilities of men inGreece during the interval betweenHector and Homer’s “today”—how-ever one wants to date these. Never-theless, the idea that people used to bebetter than they are today is ubiqui-tous and seemingly eternal. By chanceMary McClanahan still had andshowed me the doctoral Greek andLatin reading list, the basis of thecrucial Greek and Latin translationexams, from the late ’60s when shewas here. I’m happy to say that acomparison with our current readinglist of 40 years later does not reveal adecline in standards. The old list hasfour plays of Aeschylus, while the cur-rent list has only three; but the old listrequires preparation of eight books ofHomer, while we now include thewhole Iliad and Odyssey on the list.There is less Demosthenes now, butApollonius of Rhodes has been added.

So too, one can find this or thatchange on the Latin side, but little evi-dence of “Decline” much less “Fall.”Catullus and Virgil were assigned intheir entirety in 1969 and still are.More Ovid is included now (CouldPeter Knox be responsible?), butAugustine has dropped from the list(Noel? Andy?). Diehard believers indecline can, of course, argue that test-ing used to be more rigorous and thuswe cannot judge from the lists alone.Unless some graded exams of agespast surface we cannot rule this possi-bility out. One must admit that somethings have certainly changed, asMary’s notes on CU in the ’60s reveal:

“Women students had to either livein dormitories, university-approvedhousing, or with their families untilthey were 21, in which case theycould live where they pleased. Therewere no such restrictions on men stu-dents. Dormitories and university-approved housing arrangements hadcurfews, and men and women werephysically segregated. Doors werelocked at specific times and “bedchecks” were conducted to assure thatwomen students observed curfews.”

A Tale of Two Reading Lists (And No Pants Allowed)There was a swimming test and a PErequirement: “Cutting a PE class with-out an acceptable excuse and notmaking the class up resulted in an Ffor that semester.”

“Book bags, simple waterproof, can-vas bags with drawstring tops, werepopular. No one used backpacks,which were viewed as camping gear.Few students had cars, and there wasalmost no student parking on campus.

“Attire was much more formal.Women students were not allowed towear pants on campus during theweek . . . Men wore slacks, shirts, andsweaters. Jeans were rarely worn oncampus, and shorts never.

“The library had a large, physical cardcatalog system, and you had to fill outa small card for every book that youchecked out . . . . I used 3x5 or 4x6lined index cards to record notes forpapers, putting just one completethought or quote per card. I did amassive sort before I wrote thepaper.”

Alumna Makes Bequest, continued from page 1

conjunction with the educationalenhancements beyond CU provided bythe Diltz Swartz Graduate OpportunityFund, to which many of you contrib-uted—will help us train our talentedgraduate students at the level theydeserve.

Mary grew up in Illinois and attendedthe University of Colorado from 1963to 1969. Although she started out asa chemistry major, she converted toClassics after her sophomore year—andstill managed to finish in four years. Shewas offered an assistantship and contin-

ued with her MA degree here. Sheworked with John Coleman—the firstarchaeologist in the Department of Clas-sics—at a time when Hazel Barnes waschair, Harold and Haroula Evjen andErnst Fredricksmeyer were on the fac-ulty, and the graduate program included12 students. (Joy King was one of thosestudents.) Her advisor was to go on arescue excavation in Greece during thesummer of 1968, but “he told me thathe couldn’t include me in the crewbecause I was married!” Mary recalled.“This sort of thing would be unthink-able in today’s academic setting, but it

was not unusual then.” In addition, theprospects for Classics PhDs were gloomyat that time, so Mary finished her MAand went into computer support for thegovernment research centers in Boulder.After a long and varied career as the toptechnical manager of the computer sys-tems at the Department of CommerceLaboratories for NOAA and NIST, aswell as JILA and CIRES, she retired in1999.

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The Department of Classics, with the support of a generousdonation by Mary McClanahan, is presenting a lecture

series at the Boulder Public Library’s Canyon Theater (1001Arapahoe Avenue) this fall and winter. The first lecture was byPeter Hunt on “Was there a Trojan War?” on September 1.Noel Lenski talked about “Why did Rome Fall?” on October13.

Diane Conlin will discuss the colorful history of the excava-tions at Pompeii on November 10 at 7 p.m.

If you are signed up to receive the newsletter, you automati-cally receive announcements of these and other public lectures.To sign up for the announcements, go to classicsevents.blogspot.com and fill out the form there.

teach more students with less money. Inorder to encourage this, the universitybegan stringent enforcement of class sizelimits and required us to cancel somesmall language classes. Since the depart-ment prides itself on the individualattention it gives to students and believesthat much of the best learning at CUgoes on in small classes, this measure,however necessary, was a bitter pill toswallow. In response we have put evenmore emphasis on our traditional contri-bution of providing large lecture classes,especially in the core. Teaching thesetypes of courses not only exposes alarger number of students to the excite-

ment of classical culture and attractsthem into our language classes, but italso allows us to make stronger argu-ments to the administration for theoccasional small Latin or Greek class.

An alumna of the department, MaryMcClanahan, raised our collective spiritsconsiderably last year. Although hersubsequent career was in the field ofcomputer systems management forscientific research, mainly at the labora-tories of the Department of Commercehere in Boulder, Mary never forgot hertime in the Department of Classics. Shemade a substantial planned gift to

Free Public Lectures at the Boulder Public Library

From the Chair, continued from page 1

support graduate studies in the future.We are extremely grateful to Mary (seearticle on page 1) for her gift, whichprovides an upbeat end to this unfortu-nately mixed report and confirmed ourbelief in the value of the education weprovide.

Peter HuntChair

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Thanks to the generosity of our Classics alumna and long-time donor, Ms. Ann Nichols, the Undergraduate Studies

Committee was delighted to award five 2010–11 scholar-ships. With a focus in classical art and archaeology, AdamTabeling was awarded an Ann Nichols Scholarship and aRomulus Grant. This summer Adam has been studyingancient Greek through the University of Chicago’s intensivelanguage program. Adam will return to CU-Boulder for hisfinal year to complete an honors thesis on ancient Italianart and archaeology with Professor Conlin. Kristin Bruneralso received both the Ann Nichols Scholarship and theRomulus Grant. Kristin attended a CU study abroad pro-gram in Italy this past summer during which she visited

Rome and Pompeii. She delivered an on-site presentation ofthe Room of the Mysteries at the Villa of the Mysteries forher colleagues. Taylor DeLaura and Robert Kopperud wereeach awarded Ann Nichols Scholarships for their outstand-ing course performances as Classics majors. John Thiltgenwas awarded the first Undergraduate Travel Grant to covera portion of the costs of travel to present a paper at an aca-demic conference. John spoke about the sculptural programon the Arch of Constantine at a Classics undergraduatesymposium at the University of Michigan. Many congratu-lations to all of our exceptional Classics scholarshipawardees!

Ann Nichols Scholarship Winners Announced

This has been another outstandingyear for the undergraduate program

in Classics at CU. One of our highlightactivities this year was our group trip tosee the special effects extravaganzaClash of the Titans, a campy remake ofthe original 1981 film. Our undergradu-ate enhancement fund covered the ticketcosts for all interested Classics majors toattend the show with professors Conlin

and Reitzammer and severalgraduate students. The CUClassics Club, which helpedorganize the movie event, con-tinued to meet regularly thispast year for chats and pizzaunder the new leadership ofClassics Club president JenniferGreenberg.

In 2009–10, theundergraduate pro-gram in Classics atCU graduated 13majors and 8 minors.This year we bidfarewell to Classicsmajors ChelseaAyers-Morris, Lau-ren Brooks, MollyBurns, MatthewGoss, Jennifer Green-berg, Amanda Hensen,Mitchell Kosht, Rachel Plavi-dal, Gabriel Riddle, JohnThiltgen, William White, PeterYost, and Melissa Zepeda.Chelsea Ayers-Morris gradu-ated with distinction andplans to attend graduateschool at CU-Boulder. Witha focus in classical art and

archaeology and an alumna of the Villaof Maxentius archaeological field school,Lauren Brooks also plans on attendinggraduate school in Classics at CU-Boul-der. Molly Burns plans on staying inBoulder while she builds her creativework portfolio and continues to writefor Rooster Magazine, while Gabriel

Undergraduate News

Amanda Hensen receives her diploma from ProfessorGibert.

John Thiltgen

continued on page 5

Classics page 5

Riddle (double major with Studio Arts)also plans to work on his portfolio andapply for graduate school in photogra-phy. A double major in Classics andLinguistics and graduating summa cumlaude in Linguistics, Matthew Gossplans to serve as a research assistant in apsycholinguistics laboratory. Two Clas-sics honors students, Jen Greenberg(cum laude in Classics, Norlin Scholar,Phi Beta Kappa) and John Thiltgen(magna cum laude in Classics) willattend our graduate program in Classicsin the fall. A double major with English,Amanda Hensen plans on applying forlaw school after a year off from herstudies. Another outstanding Classicshonors student, Mitchell Kosht (summacum laude in Classics), will be pursuinga master’s in Theology from HarvardDivinity School with a course emphasisin literature and religion. Finally, twoClassics majors graduated with doublemajors, William White (with Philoso-phy) and Melissa Zapeda (Studio Arts).In 2010, the Classics Department alsograduated minors Rachel Ackerman,John Bevis, Annie Johnston, Arik King,

David Michalak, Megan Nashawaty,Hannah O’Brien, and Bryony Walter.

Three undergraduate students graduatedwith honors. They had to write aresearch paper which was evaluated by afaculty committee and which the studentthen had to defend in front of the samecommittee. These three students wereJennifer Greenberg, who submitted athesis on the connections betweenSophocles’ Oedipus Rex and the debate

between Hippocratic medicine and tem-ple medicine (cum laude); John Thiltgen,who wrote on travel in antiquity, whichwas even more cumbersome and full ofsurprises than traveling has becomerecently (magna cum laude); andMitchell Kosht, who took sides in a dis-pute in New Testament studies about thecorrect reading of a word in a letter ofSt. Paul (summa cum laude).

Graduate Molly Burns with (from left) her mother, cousin, and best friend

Peter Hunt, Chair, Department of Classics, introduces the graduates.

continued from page 4

Classics page 6

Graduate News

This year saw a real boost to the futureof the CU Classics graduate commu-

nity with news of Mary McClanahan’ssubstantial gift for graduate fellowshipsin the future (see www.cusys.edu/newsletter/2010/01-13/foundation.htmland the article on page 1). Improvedgraduate funding has long been the fac-ulty’s top priority for the department,and Mary’s generosity is deeplyappreciated.

This year saw three graduate students,Zach Fischer, Amanda Sherpe, and Jen-nifer Starkey, give well-received papersat the meeting of the Classical Associa-tion of the Midwest and South held inApril in Oklahoma City. All three wereawarded funding to support their atten-dance of the conference in campuswidecompetitions or by CAMWS itself, whiledepartmental grants supplemented thiswell-earned funding. Several CU alum-nae, Michelle Andrews (formerly Soufl,currently pursuing a PhD at Princeton),Mary Lovit (formerly Junkersfeld, cur-

rently teaching Latin at Mullen HighSchool in Denver), and Jessica Stephens(currently pursuing a PhD at Michigan),were also spotted giving successful andwell-attended papers. Jennifer Starkeywas accepted to the prestigious programof the American School of ClassicalStudies in Athens. Her performance onthe entry exam earned her a full fellow-ship for the program, while the depart-ment is delighted to support her studywith a summer travel grant. MicaelaBrown successfully applied to a potteryprogram at the American Academy atRome, as well as to the department forfunds to support her study there. Wewere thrilled to receive a visit in Marchfrom alumnus Scott Farrington (PhD’08, visiting assistant professor at theUniversity of North Dakota in fall2009). He gave a paper, “Action andReason: Polybius and the Gap betweenEncomium and History,” which wegreatly enjoyed hearing and which hehas since presented at an internationalconference, Genre in the Ancient World,in Sydney, Australia.

Nine people graduated this year withMAs: Diana Avelis, Reina Callier,Megan Gorman, David Jaeger, ErrolJones, Nora Moriarty, Mitch Pentzer,Travis Rupp, and Eric Shuman. JeffreyKahane is soon to join them. We cele-brate their achievements and, knowingthat we will miss them, wish them everysuccess as they move on into the worldsof teaching or further study. We aredelighted that Reina and Mitch havechosen to continue their studies at CU.They begin the road to the PhD in thefall. Best wishes and congratulationsto all.

This April saw the campuswide celebra-tion of graduate students’ contributionsto the educational mission and intellec-tual life of the university (www.colorado.edu/graduateschool/appreciation/index.html). We marked our appreciation,admiration, and gratitude in Classicswith a celebration including cake andcoffee and by a departmental hike at theend of the week.

(From left) Eric Shuman, Megan Gorman, Nora Moriarty, Reina Callier, Mitch Pentzer, and Travis Rupp celebrate graduation.

Classics page 7

Andy Cain taught undergraduatecourses on Greek and Roman comedyand the novel, and a graduate course onAugustine. He published eight articlesand three books. His book on the lettersof Jerome, which appeared with OxfordUniversity Press, won a Provost’s FacultyAchievement Award. He also publishedtwo edited volumes: Jerome of Stridon:His Life, Writings, and Legacy, and ThePower of Religion in Late Antiquity (onthis latter he collaborated with NoelLenski). He also completed an exten-sively annotated translation of Jerome’scommentary on Galatians, which willappear in fall 2010 with Catholic Uni-versity of America Press. Professor Cain

received a faculty fellowship and a LoebClassical Library Foundation grant, bothof which will support three semesters ofsabbatical. He plans to use this time tofinish a literary-historical commentaryon the “Life of Paula,” one of Jerome’smost important writings.

Diane Conlin is currently wrapping upher second book, Political Art in FlavianRome, for Cambridge University Pressand the publication of the 2008 seasonat the Villa of Maxentius. She also sub-mitted two lengthy entries on Julio-Clau-dian and Flavian Rome for the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of AncientHistory. In November 2009, she trav-

eled to Texas as a national speaker forthe Archaeological Institute of America,presenting talks on her excavationresearch in Rome. In 2009–10, Dianetaught courses on Pompeii, ancient Ital-ian painting, and Augustan Rome. Shealso finished up her second year as theassociate chair for undergraduate studiesin the Department of Classics. She wasawarded a LEAP Associate ProfessorGrowth Grant and is released fromteaching this spring to write up a publi-cation on the wall fresco fragments fromthe Villa of Maxentius. This past sum-mer, Diane and her husband spent their

Faculty News

continued on page 8

Carole Newlands Joins Faculty

Carole Newlands joined the Classicsfaculty this fall. She has a PhD in

Comparative Literature and MedievalStudies from UC Berkely; she previ-ously taught at Cornell, UCLA, andthe University of Wisconsin-Madison.Her specialty is Roman poetry andthe reception of classical poetry inliterature and art. This spring shewas a visiting NEH professor at the

University of Richmond where shehosted a conference on Ovid andOvidianism. She is currently workingon a book on Statius for the Duck-worth Literature and Society series;and is co-editing with Bill DominikThe Brill Companion to Literatureand, with John Miller, The BlackwellCompanion to the Reception of Ovidin Literature and Art. She is looking

forward to settling back into theClassics department in Boulder thisfall. She is thrilled to be part of sucha dynamic department in one of themost beautiful parts of the UnitedStates.

Classics page 8

first true vacation in Rome with theirdaughter while their son completed basictraining for the U.S. Army at Fort Knox,Kentucky.

Beth Dusinberre was on sabbatical in2009–2010, working on a book onAchaemenid Anatolia. Anatolia encom-passes so many different cultures andclimates that it functions well as a micro-cosm of the entire Achaemenid Persianempire, and the large amount of high-quality research done in the last 30 yearsmeans there is a great deal of informationto incorporate into a new syntheticstudy of the area. Wrestling with knottyquestions of approach and interpretationrequired Beth to learn a vast amount ofnew material as well as grapple withnew ideas and theoretical analyses. Shewallowed in the experience, as happy asa buffalo at a watering hole. Brieferstudies were completed in the form ofarticles on the Persepolis FortificationArchive and Lydian ivories and seal-stones. She was honored to be awardedthe “Best Should Teach Gold Award”last fall and is very much looking toreturning to teaching in 2010–2011.

Jackie Elliott spent the past year work-ing on a number of different projects,but focused primarily on her book-proj-ect, Ennius and the Architecture of theAnnales, which is nearing completion.2009 saw the publication in ClassicalQuarterly of two papers that examine

Livy’s use of Ennian tropes, in Books 22and 9 respectively. Another paper, on therelationship of Ennius’ Annales to uni-versal history, is appearing in Duck-worth’s new publication, HistoriaeMundi: Studies in Universal History,edd. P. Liddel & A. Fear (2010). Jackiegave a paper on the role of Ennius inLivy’s preface at a meeting of theRMMLA in October and one on oneaspect of Cicero’s view of Ennian histori-ography at CAMWS in March. She hasgreatly enjoyed her return to both grad-uate and undergraduate teaching, as wellas serving as graduate director for2009–10.

John Gibert was chosen as one of thefirst College Scholars in the fall andenjoyed a semester devoted to writingand research. The new program is sup-ported by private gifts to the College ofArts and Sciences. (Thank you, generousdonors!) He worked on various projects,including an article on “Hellenicity inLater Euripidean Tragedy,” forthcomingin Why Athens? A Reappraisal of TragicPolitics (ed. D.M. Carter, Oxford Uni-versity Press), a chapter on “Euripidesand the Development of Tragedy” forA Companion to Euripides (ed. R.Mitchell-Boyask, Blackwell); and anedition of Euripides’ Ion for the Cam-bridge Greek and Latin Classics. In thespring, he attended the CAMWS meet-ing in Oklahoma City and gave a paper

on “Cultic Aetiology in Euripides.” Healso taught the senior capstone seminarfor the first time, on Drama and Society.With his students, he enjoyed a perform-ance of Medea by The E Project Theaterin Lakewood, as well as visits by EdithHall and Sander Goldberg describedelsewhere in this newsletter.

At long last, Peter Hunt’s book on War,Peace, and Alliance in Demosthenes’Athens (Cambridge) came out this year.It uses the evidence of assembly speechesto reconstruct the wide variety of waysthat the Athenians in the fourth centuryBC thought and felt about foreign rela-tions. For the first time he offered anundergraduate/graduate class onHerodotus, which was a great pleasureof course. He introduced another newclass, on Greek and Roman Slavery, andis currently writing a textbook on thesubject for Blackwell-Wiley.

In the past year, Peter Knox’s Compan-ion to Ovid (Blackwell) finally appearedin bookstores and on the Internet, but heis still waiting for calls from Lettermanand Leno. Peter currently has severalother projects in the works, but for thepresent is concentrating on completingthe Oxford Anthology of Literature inthe Roman World, which he is editingwith J.C. McKeown of Wisconsin. In hisspare time he is translating the Greekand Latin epigrams of Angelo Polizianofor the I Tatti Renaissance Libraryseries. Peter spent much of last summerworking on about two dozen entries forthe forthcoming Virgil Encyclopedia inthe hospitable confines of the library ofthe American Academy in Rome, butspent most of this summer in Colorado,without complaint.

Recently back in Boulder after manyyears in Seattle, Tyler Lansford pub-lished his first book in 2009: The LatinInscriptions of Rome: A Walking Guide(The Johns Hopkins University Press;reviewed in The Times Literary Supple-ment, 16 April 2010). He has a fullteaching schedule in the current

Faculty News, continued from page 7

Travis Rupp andProfessor EckartSchütrumpf

Classics page 9

academic year, including The Riseand Fall of Rome, The Roman Empire,Roman Architecture, and Classical Epic;he is also offering a new class for theDepartment of Art History: Romethrough the Centuries. He is currentlyworking on a large-format illustratedbook on the Latin inscriptions of Romeand hosts a blog on the subject:www.romeinscribed.blogspot.com.

Noel Lenski has just returned from theWashington, D.C. area where he spentthe year combining fellowships fromDumbarton Oaks and the ACLS. Heworked on several projects and espe-cially his book on Slavery in Late Antiq-uity. He made tremendous progress andthoroughly enjoyed living in our nation’scapital, where he and his family took inmany of the sites. Since our last reporthe has published an article, “Schiaviarmati e formazione di eserciti privatinel mondo tardo antico,” in a volumeentitled Ordine e sovversione nel mondo

greco e romano as well as a translationof the ancient sources relevant to the cityof Oba-Novae (modern Svištov, Bul-garia). Together with Andy Cain, he alsocame out with the proceedings of theconference held in Boulder in 2007 onThe Power of Religion in Late Antiquity,a project made possible with the gener-ous help of many CU students. He alsospoke at Spello, Konstanz, DumbartonOaks, Fordham, Cornell, Catholic Uni-versity, and Oxford. Much as they lovedtheir year away, the Lenskis are happyto be back in Boulder.

This year Lauri Reitzammer enjoyedteaching undergraduate classes on GreekMythology, Lysias, and Greek andRoman Tragedy, as well as a graduateseminar on “Plato and Poetry.” In Octo-ber 2009, she gave a paper entitled“Sophocles’ Antigone as Metic” at theRocky Mountain Modern LanguageAssociation, which she plans to turn intoan article. She is finishing up a chapter

for a Blackwell Companion to Euripideson Bacchae as she continues work on abook on representations of the Adonisfestival.

Eckart Schütrumpf saw a book chapteron “Eduard Zeller und Werner JaegersAristoteles” published in a volume onthe 19th century historian of philosophyE. Zeller (publisher De Gruyter, Berlin).He spent two months this summer inBerlin where the excellent library hold-ings allowed him to complete threeentries for the Encyclopedia of AncientHistory (publisher Wiley-Blackwell), tosubmit a paper on Thucydides’ method-ology chapter (in press with Philologus),and to complete a review for Gnomon.He continues to work on an edition ofAristotle’s political fragments. He wasthe recipient of a “Chair of Excellence”at the University of Madrid where hewill spend the first six months of 2011in order to do research.

Professor Giuseppe La Bua, visiting from the University of Rome, taught Masterpieces of Roman Literature over the summer.

Classics page 10

Once again the department benefitedfrom a generous grant from the

Alexander S. Onassis Public BenefitFoundation’s University Seminars Pro-gram with a visit in February from EdithHall, professor in Classics and drama,Royal Holloway, University of London.Professor Hall, a prolific scholar whosework centers on ancient drama and epicand their reception and performance,gave an illustrated lecture entitled “WhyWas Iphigenia among the Taurians SoPopular in Antiquity?” She also visitedProfessor John Gibert’s undergraduatesenior seminar on Drama and Society,where she gave a preview of “Demetrios’Rolls and Dionysos’ Other Woman: ThePronomos Vase and Tragic Theatre,”soon to appear in Pronomos: His Vaseand its World, a collection of essaysedited by Oliver Taplin and Rosie Wylesfor the Oxford University Press. She also

tapped into the seminar students’ deep(indeed entirely unsuspected) reservoir ofthespian talent by leading them in a spir-ited rendition of the recognition scene inIphigenia among the Taurians.When Iphigenia and Orestesembraced at long last, there wasnot a dry eye in the house, thoughwhether the tears were of joy orlaughter is better left to the imagi-nation. While Edith was in Boul-der, she spent time getting to knowthe faculty, undergraduate majors,and graduate students, and shesampled some of Boulder’s fine cui-sine. It was a pleasure for everyone

to have a chance to speak with her, asher work intersects with the interests ofstudents and faculty alike, and she is alively and generous interlocutor.

Visit by Edith Hall

Orestes and Pylades in a scene fromEuripides Iphigenia among the

Taurians? Campanian rf. bell-krater,c. 330–320 bce, attributed to the

Group of BM F 63, Louvre K 404.

Sander Goldberg of UCLA visitedBoulder as a GCAH visiting scholar

April 21–24. We were delighted to wel-come Sander, himself a one-time memberof the CU-Boulder Classics faculty. OnApril 22 he gave a wonderful, stimulat-ing illustrated lecture on therelationship between actingand oratory to a large andappreciative audience drawnfrom the CU Classics, the-atre, and English communi-ties, as well as from thewider Boulder community,including a contingent fromthe Fairview High SchoolLatin program. During thecourse of his visit, he alsoaddressed Professor Gibert’ssenior “capstone” seminaron “Drama and Society.”The students had preparedfor his visit by reading Plau-tus’ Curculio, Terence’s

Adelphoe (as well as the prologues to allof his plays), and a half-dozen articlesand chapters on Roman comedy, withan emphasis on performance spaces,audiences, and the relevance of history(e.g., the life, accomplishments, and

funeral celebration of L. AemiliusPaullus) to literary interpretation. Alively discussion that delved further intoall these topics ensued. Professor Gold-berg also gave the class a glimpse of anexciting “virtual Roman forum” project

being developed at UCLAwith the help of the GoogleEarth application. Over thedays of his visit, ProfessorGoldberg spent time gettingto know students and col-leagues in Classics and shar-ing his insights on Romanliterary history, performanceissues, and the direction ofthe field of Latin literaturein the future. We thoroughlyenjoyed his visit and hopeto see him in Boulder againsoon.

Visit by Sander Goldberg

Cicero denounces Catiline, fresco by Cesare Maccari (1840–1919)

Classics page 11

We are so very grateful for all the past financial supportwe have received from our alumni and friends. The

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PAIDBoulder, CO

Permit No. 156

Will Martin (Minor ’03) hasjust accepted a job as a librar-ian at the University of NorthDakota in Grand Forks.

Leif Berg (BA ’08) tells usthat he “got married to awonderful woman in Apriland we moved to Glendale,CA. Now we both work at aconsulting firm, and I handlelogistics for the seminars wedeliver around the country.”

Matthew Mandich (BA Clas-sics ’06) has spent the lasttwo years living and workingin Rome as a research andteaching assistant on severalexcavation projects in thecity. Now fluent in Italian,Matt will start graduate workin classical art and archaeol-ogy at the University ofLeister, England, in October2010.

We heard great news aboutAaron Johnson (PhD ’03):This fall he began a tenuretrack appointment in theDepartment of History andPolitical Science at Lee Uni-versity in Cleveland, TN.

David Yates (MA ’03)recently completed his doc-toral thesis at Brown Univer-sity on “Remembering thePersian War Differently.”Despite the difficult job mar-ket this year, he landed aposition this year at MillsapsCollege in Mississippi.

Courtney Roby (MA ’05)won a fellowship at Stan-ford’s Center for the Humani-ties for this year; she’ll defendher doctoral thesis, “Theencounter of knowledge:technical ekphrasis fromAlexandria to Rome,” in thefall (also from Stanford).

In a switch of fields, GarrettRea recently defended his dis-sertation and finished his PhDin mathematics on “A Har-nack inequality and Holdercontinuity of weak solutionsto parabolic equations involv-ing Hormander vector fields,”which proves certain interest-ing properties regarding thediffusion of heat throughstrange materials.

Theresa Obyrne (MA ’05)visited Colorado in Maybefore she headed to Queen’sUniversity Belfast next yearon a teaching and researchfellowship. “Hopefully, I’ll beable to find some time tohead back to Colorado soonafter my return to the States,and I’ll look forward tocatching up with you then,”she says.

Alumni NewsRob Nichols (MA ’06) spentthis year at the AmericanSchool of Classical Studiesand will be taking part inexcavations at Corinth overthe summer before returningto his special author exams.He plans a dissertation onvengeance (timoria) in theAttic orators at the Universityof Indiana.