Viewing entries tagged
Classics Department
UC Davis professor Kathleen Cruz was hosted by UCSB Classice for a lecture on modern Latine writers who draw on classical mythology, particularly the story of Ariadne, to explore themes of ethnic identity, feminism, and social exclusion. In her lecture, Cruz highlighted works by Chicana poet Analicia Sotelo and Puerto Rican poet Etnairis Rivera, showing how these poets use Ariadne’s myth to reflect on experiences of “othering,” reclaiming identity, and the challenges of diasporic life.
Ingela Nilsson, a scholar from Sweden, gave a talk at UC Santa Barbara titled Ekphrastic and Embodied, on spatial form in fiction. It was hosted by the Classics department’s Center for the Study of Ancient Fiction.
The UCSB Classic department’s Erin Lam, who is the UC President’s Post-Doctoral Fellow, spoke about the poet Ovid’s Arms Amatoria through a new lens in the talk, “Cruising Rome: Queer Orientations in Ovid’s Ars Amatoria,” which examined the poet’s work as it related to eroticism and queerness.
The UC Santa Barbara Classics Department began the school year with an event that brought ancient myth to life. Interested students participated in a play through of the video game “Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical.” During the session, organized by Classics Ph.D. student Rick Castle, participants examined how contemporary adaptations of ancient stories portray marginalized communities, such people of color and queer people.
Writing Program lecturer Christian Thomas recently developed UCSB’s first interactive, choose-your-own-adventure game for an undergraduate writing course. The game responds to the player’s choices, and exposes students to Rome’s rich history of art and archaeology,
UCLA Classics professor Ella Haselswerdt said that the chorus from the Greek Tragedy Agamemnon gradually transforms from a distant bystander to an active participant in the play’s action, at an event sponsored by UCSB’s Classics and Theater and Dance departments. She said that this metamorphosis is “unparalleled” in surviving Greek Tragedy.
Patrick Hunt, a Stanford University medieval studies scholar came to UC Santa Barbara last week to give a lecture on Hannibal, a military commander from the Second Punic War, and how his tactics are still used today in modern military intelligence. The lecture, “Hannibal’s Secret Weapon,” was co-sponsored by UCSB’s Department of Classics, Department of History and History of Art & Architecture.
Migrant workers have been filling gaps in the economy and industries as far back as in the fifth century B.C. in ancient Rome, said UCLA ancient history professor Greg Woolf at a recent event hosted by UC Santa Barbara’s Classics and History departments and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
Reed College Classics scholar Sonia Sabnis spoke on the love story between the Roman gods Cupid and Psyche, and how this second-century myth’s darker themes impacted 20th-century American literature at an annual lecture sponsored by Center for the Study of Ancient Fiction at UC Santa Barbara.
This spring, UC Santa Barbara is launching the Center for the Study of Ancient Fiction – the first scholarly center of its kind in North America.
Its goal is to foster collaborative research and interdisciplinary connections about prose fiction that dates from the earliest written literature to the modern era. Until now, scholarship in this field has come primarily from Europe.
Classics departments often struggle against the perception that they are stuck in the past. Focusing on ancient stories has nothing to do with us today, right? Visiting professor Stephen Trzaskoma argues otherwise, and his efforts are among the many ways UCSB Classics is engaging with contemporary life.
In a time when a global pandemic has forced educators to design creative solutions to learning at home, UC Santa Barbara Classics professor Dorota Dutsch has partnered with the Goleta Valley Library to digitally recreate Greek Myths for children. The recreations are offered to the public virtually each Friday as part of the library’s newest program: Special Guest Storytime.
HFA conducted an interview with this year’s recipient of the Dean’s Prize Teaching award, Julio Vega. Vega, a PhD candidate teaching assistant in the Classics department, discusses his passion for the classics, his teaching techniques, and his work with the UCSB-Howard University Initiative.
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.
UC Santa Barbara’s Classics department’s work with historically black colleges and universities has been recognized by the Society for Classical Studies with its 2019 Equity Award. Classics professor Brice Erickson discusses the department’s groundbreaking summer project with Howard University students.
Ranj Atur, is currently a PhD candidate at UC Santa Barbara, focusing on Greek religion and Greek polytheism. She is also working closely with Professor Christine Thomas, an archeologist from Harvard who teaches religious studies courses at UCSB. Atur, looks at language in ancient religions by way of archeological artifacts: statues, clay tablets, pottery, and paintings from between the first century BCE and first century CE.
In a recent interview, Atur discussed how ancient religions have influenced the development of language and religion over the centuries.
Decades before Colin Kaepernick played for the National Football League, world champion boxer Muhammad Ali publicly opposed the Vietnam War and was stripped of his heavyweight title and banned from boxing for years. Recently, Kaepernick has followed in his footsteps and knelt in silence during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, hoping to garner support and promote change as Ali did in 1971.
To Brown University professor Bonnie Honig, Kaepernick and Ali’s actions that demonstrated their refusal to comply to society’s expectations reflects a “long tradition of American citizenship.”
“The societal changes of the Late Roman Republic’s aristocratic class has implications for how historians compare the past to our current political landscape,” scholar Noah Segal said in a recent talk to faculty and students of the Classics department. A decline in military background among those who serve in office is one trend in ancient Rome that echoes today.
Segal, who specializes in populism in democratic societies, will represent UC Santa Barbara at an international Classics convention in early January.
Sasha Nasir, a student in our new Journalism for Web and Social Media course, has produced a video featuring undergraduates in UC Santa Barbara's division of Humanities and Fine Arts explaining what they love about their majors - Classics, Black Studies, Film and Media Studies, and English.
