By Olivia Roberts
The Classics department may be one of the smallest at UC Santa Barbara, yet it houses one of the most highly sophisticated and intensive fields of study. For graduate student and classics PhD candidate Olga Faccani, a passion for studying friendship ties within Greek tragedies has earned her a spot as a participant in Harvard University’s Institute for World Literature (IWL) this upcoming summer.
IWL is a highly selective four-week program that explores the study of literature in a globalizing world, and how world literature travels across cultures. The program, which was to take place in Belgrade, Serbia, has been moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will run from July 6 through July 30.
UCSB graduate student Olga Faccani studies the development of emotional bonds among characters in Greek tragedies.
Faccani, who did her undergraduate studies at the University of Bologna, has recently been studying Euripides’ Trojan Women, a story about the experience of female prisoners during the Trojan war. She applied for the Harvard institute summer program hoping to further explore these captives' struggle to retain their identities and sense of community while confronting violence and displacement.
She recently spoke to HFA student reporter Olivia Roberts about her work.
Q: What initially sparked your interest in classics and Greek tragedy?
A: I started studying classics pretty early in my life because in Italy there are different types of high schools. I've always loved to read and write, so I started taking Latin and Ancient Greek in high school. I was very fascinated by the ancient languages and the fact that they provide us access to a world that is gone but speaks to us in so many different ways. The way that it spoke to me personally the most was through Greek tragedy. These tragedies prompt a response from us. They are very intellectually engaging texts, but you also connect with the characters from an emotional standpoint: you suffer with them, you are surprised with them, and you learn with this.
Q: Do you have any specific goals in attending the Institute for World Literature?
A: My goals have shifted so much given that the program was originally going to be offered in Belgrade and now is being offered online. One of my goals was to establish an interdisciplinary network, which is very hard to cultivate just going to conferences in my own field. I had the opportunity to do some of this by taking classes at UCSB with the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. I have met so many people from different departments and my research has become so much richer from these interactions. Of course, another goal is to be able to include some of these theoretical frameworks and interdisciplinary lenses into my own research and learn from the amazing professors that are going to offer these seminars.
Q: What types of seminars will you be taking during the program?
A: For the first part of the workshop I am going to be taking [Oxford scholar] Stefano Evangelista’s seminar called Citizens of Nowhere, and the second half will be [Danish] professor Mads Rosendhal’s seminar called Between Nations, which will be on migrants, writing, and cultural meeting in the text. With these two seminars I am hoping to achieve a broader notion of these concepts that are constantly thrown around in my research like ‘affect’ and ‘empathy’ and to put them in conversation with more broad frameworks.
Q: Why do you think that it is important to apply Classics and Greek tragedy to the world we live in today?
A: I pose myself that question a lot and I think that part of the answer is also the answer to the question ‘Why is it important to study humanities in the world we live in today?’ I really think that just engaging with the ideas and the works that I study leads me to have a different perspective on things. It makes me reflect on the choices I make every day, and adds to my perception of some of the problems that other people are going through. This is the side that I love about the work that I do. So much of my work allows me to be in conversation with people who have never even heard of Classics before. I try to remind myself that even if looking at an Ancient Greek text gives the impression that these things are just dead and gone, the way you can apply some of the ideas and concepts to unite people and to open a conversation and debate around topics is very modern and very captivating.
Photo courtesy of Hector Andrade.
Olivia Roberts is a third-year sociology major at UC Santa Barbara. She wrote this piece for her Writing Program class Journalism for Web and Social Media.