Category Archives: Uncategorized

Théâtre du Soleil performs “Iphigenia in Aulis” (1990, Magnum Photos)

It’s the first Rutgers Classics Graduate Student Association lecture of spring semester 2013—and you’re invited. The place? Ruth Adams Building 003 on Rutgers’ beautiful Douglass Campus in New Brunswick. The time? 4 PM on Thursday 7 February. There and then Professor Emily Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania will present a lecture entitled “Puns, Laughs, and Lamentations: Some Problems in Translating Euripides.” Continue reading →

Dr Henry V. Bender, with some of the Lincolniana he rescued from oblivion, in the John M. Levis 2d Memorial Room of the Ryan Library, The Hill School

It still seems incredible, to anyone who knows—or has even heard of—Henry V. Bender (Rutgers Classics PhD 1987). In June 2012 Henry Bender retired from full-time teaching at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, after a career of  teaching, scholarship and service that defies hyperbole. This milestone, and the fact that 2012 marks the 25th anniversary of Henry’s doctorate at Rutgers, make it practically obligatory for us here at Rutgers to reflect on Henry Bender’s more than four decades in the Classics field.

What follows below is an attempt to capture at least some facets of Henry Bender’s long and storied career, with contributions by colleagues such as Judith Hallett (Professor of Classics, University of Maryland-College Park), Patrick G. Lake (Instructor of Classics, Hill School), and Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway (Rhys Carpenter Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology emerita, Bryn Mawr College). In the digital medium there is no limit on space, so your contributions are welcome here too.

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Dr Liz Gloyn (Rutgers PhD in Classics, 2011) is now in her second year as a Teaching Fellow in Roman Literature at the University of Birmingham‘s Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity. A native of London, Liz received a BA Hons. and MPhil in Classics from Newnham College, Cambridge University. In addition to her PhD, at Rutgers she also was awarded the rare distinction of a MPhil by our Department of Classics. Here is a very welcome missive from Liz, writing from the West Midlands:

“I have to admit that it doesn’t feel like I’ve been back in the UK for slightly over eighteen months. I keep on finding myself thinking and saying things that reveal I spent the previous the six years at Rutgers Classics. The other day, for instance, I caught myself thinking grumpily that it was far too early for shops to have Christmas merchandise out, especially since we’d not had Thanksgiving yet; my friends also tease me mercilessly when they catch me talking about the first floor instead of the ground floor, which I do more often than you would think. But it’s hard to forget that I’ve changed continents when I’m teaching and researching.” Continue reading →

GPS work at Vacone, Italy: Neil Terry (left) and Prof. Gary Farney

You’ve got to tip your broad-brimmed sunhat to Rutgers—Newark History chair (and member of the Rutgers—NB Classics Graduate Faculty) Professor Gary Farney. For six consecutive summers (2005-2010) he led a Rutgers summer study-abroad program in Greece. In summer 2012 Gary Farney took the idea to the next level:  the creation of a summer archaeological field school in Italy. This multi-year initiative—known as the the Upper Sabina Tiberina Archaeological Field School—allows students from Rutgers and elsewhere to gain hands-on experience in surveying, excavation and conservation.

The dates for the 2013 field school (see here for the official website) are 9 July through 9 August 2013. How to apply? It couldn’t be easier. Through 15 December 2012 Rutgers students can apply through the university’s Study Abroad website. Applicants will be accepted on a rolling basis. Non-Rutgers applicants are urged to contact Prof. Farney as soon as possible by email. The final deadline for all applicants is 1 March 2013. Continue reading →

Imaginative bust of Sicilian lyric poet Stesichorus (c. 640-555 BC) in Catania

On Thursday evening 29 November 2012, as everyone in these parts knows, Rutgers battles Louisville in an epic struggle for an outright Big East football championship title.  So it seems particularly apt that before the game the Rutgers Classics Graduate Student Association is sponsoring a lecture on the archetype of all such mythic tasks.

Two and a half hours before kickoff, at 5.00 PM in Douglass Campus Center Meeting Room E, Professor Raymond Capra from Seton Hall University will deliver a lecture entitled, “Stesichorus and the Labors of Herakles: Post-Homeric Poesis and Muthos.” Continue reading →

It’s all over the news today. Maryland and Rutgers are in serious talks to exit their respective sports conferences (ACC, Big East) for the Big Ten. An announcement may come as early as Monday 19 November 2012.

Here at RU we’ve been down this road before, as Steve Politi pointed out Saturday 17 November in the Star-Ledger. And it wouldn’t be cheap. Still, as Politi writes, “the $10 million fee to get out of the Big East would be the happiest divorce settlement in college sports history. This is more than just replacing USF and Memphis with, potentially, Michigan and Ohio State on the schedule. This is the way countless future students will view the university.” Continue reading →

Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion. Credit: Gjon Mili, LIFE/Google

Recent (2008) Rutgers Classics PhD Ryan Fowler has positioned himself at the very cutting edge of top-quality interactive on-line instruction in the humanities, a pedagogical wave that none of us can afford to ignore.

After teaching Classics and Philosophy as a visiting assistant professor at two selective liberal arts colleges—Grinnell College (2008-2009) and Knox College (2009-12)—Ryan has taken up an appointment at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC as a Sunoikisis Fellow for Curricular Development. Continue reading →

Our RU undergraduates have done it again. This Tuesday night—at 9 PM on 13 November 2012, to be exact—the Rutgers Classics Club launches the latest installment of its sensational “Professors Talk” series. You’ll want to head over to historic Scott Hall (Room 105) on the Rutgers College Avenue campus for this great event.

The professor in question? None other than Classics Department Chair James F. McGlew, who came to Rutgers in 2011 from the University of Missouri. His specialty is ancient Greece, especially its political culture and notions of citizenship in the Classical period. Continue reading →