Monthly Archives: October 2009

Representation of Cato the Censor, from an 18th century edition of Plutarch’s Lives. Source: LIFE

Rutgers Classics turned out in force for the 2009 annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, 8-10 October, at the storied Doubletree Hotel in downtown Wilmington Delaware.

The conference program featured Liz Gloyn, a Rutgers Classics PhD candidate, presenting her talk “Life in Plastic, It’s Fantastic: Classical Reception and Barbie”. Gloyn, currently the holder of a University and Bevier dissertation fellowship, is now back to working on her PhD thesis on the ethics of the family in Seneca. But she has promised the RU Classics blog a peak at her “Plastic, Fantastic” conclusions—watch this space!

RU alumnae also made a considerable contribution to the papers at the meeting. Deborah Lemieur (Saint Joseph’s University), MA 2006 spoke on using Apollonius, King of Tyre as an intermediate Latin text. Marice Rose (Fairfield University), who completed her PhD in art history at Rutgers, spoke on how to use current events in archeology to encourage significant learning.

As if that wasn’t enough, Sarolta Takács, Dean of the SAS Honors Program and Professor of History at Rutgers, was elected CAAS First Vice President during the business meeting of the Association in its Saturday session.

Also seen: Katherine Wasdin, Rutgers Classics visiting assistant professor, and RU Classics graduate students Charles George and Kate Whitcomb. The 2010 CAAS meeting will be in Newark, NJ, right in Rutgers’ home territory—we look forward to seeing an equally strong turnout then!

But that’s not all. In Hamilton, Ontario, on 3 October 2009, Eleanor Jefferson, a second year graduate specializing in Roman history, presented a paper “United We Stand?: Cultural Negotiation in Cato’s Origines” at the McMaster University graduate student conference “Cross Cultural Influence In The Roman World.” The keynote speaker at that conference was Emma Dench of Harvard University, who spoke on “Roman and Local Conceptualizations of Time”.

Left to right: S. Takács, K. Wasdin, E. Gloyn, at the 2009 CAAS annual meeting

What’s new with Rutgers Classics Professor Emeritus William W. Fortenbaugh—founder of Project Theophrastus and of Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities (RUSCH)?  He writes,

“From September 10-12 a well-attended conference on the philosopher and musical theorist Aristoxenus was held at DePauw University.  The organizer and host was Carl Huffmann.”

“Thanks to his efforts, Project Theophrastus pulled off a first: there had never been a conference devoted entirely to Aristoxenus, but now there has been. The old boy must be pleased, and he will be even happier when the conference proceedings are published in RUSCH. Biography and musical theory will be well covered, and there will be a new and complete edition of the fragments together with an English translation and notes.”

The next biennial conference for Project Theophrastus is already scheduled for 24-27 July 2011. It will be held in Germany, at Trier, where it is being organized by Georg Wöhrle and Oliver Hellmann. The title of the conference is “Phaenias of Eresus and the Early Peripatos: Specialization and Differentiation in Research.”

Professor Fortenbaugh continues, “Papers focused on Phaenias will be most welcome, but presenters may also consider other members of the early Peripatos like Theophrastus and Aristoxenus. ‘Research’ suggests natural science, but presenters need not confine themselves to science narrowly construed. They may take an inclusive approach, so that other areas of research are covered.”

Persons interested in the conference should contact Oliver Hellmann: his email address is hellmann@uni-trier.de.