2021 Ovatio: Anthony Fauci, MD

Ovatio : Anthony Fauci, MD – January 4, 2021

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Hodie virum praecellentem, sanandi peritissimum, de terra pila ludentium derelictorum[1] egressum culmen investigationis medicinae publicaeque sanitatis ut perveniret, laudamus. Deo et patriae Academia Regis dedicationem erexit,[2] optimam disciplinam apud universitatem Sanctae Crucis, ubi ad percipiendam colendamque virtutem litteris Latinis et Graecis atque scientiis praemedicinis se contulisset.[3] Gradu perfecto medicinae doctoris apud universitatem in urbe commemorante patriam Ulixis,[4] experimenta magna rerum novarum de morbis contagiosis persequebatur, transformans investigationes in salubritatem.[5] Experimentorum peritia consuetudinibus eruditioneque fictis inter vitam totam usus, meritus est Coronam Libertatis, a Praeside Patriae Nostrae tributam. Cum ratio nova morborum, mortifer aestus,[6] apparuit, via laeta patuit,[7] itaque deservivit Concilio Domus Albae Pestilentiam Novam Investiganti. Conclaremus carminibus almae matris tuae.[8] Plaudamus igitur Anthony Fauci, MD.

Today we praise a most distinguished man, having left the land of the Brooklyn Dodgers to arrive at the summit of medical research and public health. Regis High School built up his dedication to God and country, the best preparation for courses at the College of the Holy Cross, where, for the appreciation and cultivation of excellence, he devoted himself to the Latin and Greek classics as well as to the pre-medical sciences. After he completed his M.D. degree at Cornell University, he pursued major innovative experiments on infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, turning discovery into health. Using experimental skills and the knowledge and habits formed throughout his entire life, he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom. When a new kind of disease, a deadly fever, occurred, a fortunate path lay open, and he therefore served zealously on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Let us shout out with “another Hoya and a Choo-Choo-Rah-Rah.” Let us thus applaud Anthony Fauci, M.D.

Stephen Rojcewicz, Jr. AB (Holy Cross), MD (Georgetown), PhD (Maryland), in conjunction with Judith Peller Hallett, AB (Wellesley), MA and PhD (Harvard), Professor of Classics and Distinguished Scholar Emerita, University of Maryland, College Park

With the participation of Luigi De Luca, MA (Maryland), PhD (Pavia), PhD (CUA), the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, formerly of the National Cancer Institute, NIH; Inna Kunz, BA (Michigan), MA (Maryland), Easton High School; Alan P. Vollmann, JD (CUA), previously partner at Holland and Knight, LLP; Mark Weadon, BA (Cornell), MA (Maryland), PhD (Michigan); Benjamin White, BA (Harvard), MD (Columbia).


[1] In Brooklyn the Dodgers were affectionately known as the “Bums.”

[2] Deo et Patriae Pietas Christiana Erexit, “Christian Devotion Built This for God and Country,” is the motto of Regis High School, New York City.

[3] ad percipiendam colendamque virtutem litteris . . . se contulissent, “they applied themselves . . . through literary studies to the appreciation and cultivation of excellence,” Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta 16.

[4] The main campus of Cornell University is located at Ithaca, NY.

[5] The motto of the National Institutes of Health is “Turning Discovery into Health.”

[6] ratio quondam morborum et mortifer aestus, “a certain kind of diseases and a deadly fever,” Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 6.1138.

[7] caelum certe patet, “at least the sky lies open,” Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.186.

[8] “Give another Hoya and a Choo-Choo-Rah-Rah,” is the major song and cheer for school spirit at the College of the Holy Cross.

Call for Papers: CAAS 2021 Annual Meeting

Where: Heldrich Hotel and Conference Center, New Brunswick, NJ

When: October 14-16, 2021

Submission Deadline: March 22, 2021

Submit here: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=caas2021

We invite individual and group proposals on all aspects of the Classical world and Classical reception, and on new strategies and resources for improved teaching.  Especially welcome are presentations that aim at maximum audience participation and integrate the concerns of K-12 and college faculty, that consider ways of communicating about ancient Greece and Rome beyond our discipline and profession, and that reflect on the past, present, and future of Classical studies in the CAAS region.

The 2021 Jerry Clack Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Donald Lateiner, John R. Wright Professor of Greek, Emeritus, at Ohio Wesleyan University. Professor Lateiner entitles his presentation “Epizêlos’ Tale: The Phantom Killer at the Battle of Marathon (Herodotos Histories 6.117)”. He advertises his lecture (perhaps illustrated, surely a handout) as follows: Herodotos briefly recounts the preparations and battle of Marathon, the resulting casualties, other consequences and especially a “wonder” (thauma) experienced by the Athenian hoplite Epizêlos. The presentation considers Hellenic battle-trauma, visions, deceptions, and Herodotos’ tricky, far from gullible, so far inimitable techniques to preserve past voices while distancing himself from questionable war-stories. When his battle-line hit the Persian invaders, Epizêlos became blind, although not struck or otherwise harmed. The traumatized battler then “saw” a large and bearded enemy apparition (phasma) pass him by and kill his next-in-line comrade. The startled blind man repeated for decades his tale of suffering (pathos) and vision. Herodotos heard it. What can and should Herodotos and his modern historiographer do with this soldier’s appended logos of battle-trauma? Our sampling of ancient uncanniness will briefly canvass the many modern physiological (hormonal), psychological, and emotional, explanations of Epizêlos’ eerie experiences.

All submitters of proposals for the meeting must be current members of CAAS. Participants in the 2021 Annual Meeting must be members when they submit proposals and must renew their memberships for 2021-2022 (the membership year is September 1-August 31).  All authors of proposals that are accepted by the Program Committee for presentation at the 2021 meeting are expected to attend and deliver their presentations in on-ground, fully virtual, or hybrid Zoom format.  At this time, due to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, all meeting participants are expected to be flexible in preparing for and adjusting to on-ground, fully virtual, or hybrid annual meeting in October 2021.  All authors of accepted proposals are required to send a full draft of their presentations to their presider(s) by the end of September.  Submitters of accepted proposals who are unable to attend should arrange to have their presentations delivered by another CAAS member.

All authors of paper and panel presentations, presiders/co-presiders are advised to read the CAAS Antiracism Committee statement on condemning the use of the texts, ideals, and images of the Greek and Roman world to promote hateful ideology, as follows:

The Classical Association of the Atlantic States is committed to fighting against all forms of racism and bigotry, including anti-Blackness, anti-Semitism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, ableism and all other kinds of bias, in order to make our discipline fairer and more inclusive for all, as we strengthen the position of Classics through the development of better methods of teaching and the fostering of public support of the Classics. In addition, CAAS expects that all Annual Meeting participants will be treated with respect and afforded the dignity of being included in presentations and public discussions and not targeted, disrespected, or excluded. The Program Committee therefore asks authors to be mindful of the language used in preparing abstracts and papers and to take care to avoid biased phrasing and diction that are discriminatory or harmful to historically marginalized groups (be they economic, ethnic, financial, religious or social). We call to the attention of all authors CAAS’s statement on anti-racism; the Society for Classical Studies’ statement on systemic racism, which CAAS also endorses; and the Principles of Antiracist Teaching and Reflection curated by the Multiculturalism, Race and Ethnicity in Classics Consortium (MRECC), which offers pathways for educators to advance learning and scholarship while building equity and inclusivity for historically marginalized groups in furtherance of the mission of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States. Abstracts and proposals that run counter to these values will not be accepted.

Panel and Workshop Proposals may be 1 ½ or 2 hours in length, depending on the number of speakers. Submissions must be uploaded as a single PDF (.pdf) or Word 97-2010 (.doc/docx) file of no more than 700 words and must include:

  • a description of the proposed panel or workshop and brief abstracts of the individual presentations. Each abstract of an individual presentation must be accompanied by a bibliography or a list of resources consulted of up to five items (not included in the word limit). The proposal must clearly indicate the thesis and original contribution made by the panel or workshop and situate this contribution in a larger scholarly context (see https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/suggestions-authors-abstracts-program-committee and https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/guidelines-authors-abstracts)
  • The proposal must be anonymousThe names of the organizer and presenters must not appear anywhere in this file except when citing a publication by the organizer or presenters.Those abstracts which include the names and/or institutional affiliations of their organizers and presenters will not be considered.
  • title of the session and titles of each individual presentation.
  • specific audio-visual needs for the session. CAAS is able to supply only a screen and a digital light projector (those bringing MACs will need to bring their special adapter plug to connect to the projector).  DVDs can be played only from your laptop.  Be advised that sound played from a laptop without special speakers may not be audible in the room.

Deadline for panel and workshop proposals is Monday, March 22, 2021.

Individual Proposals must be no more than 15 minutes in length. Each author must not submit more than one abstract.  Submissions must be uploaded as a single PDF (.pdf) OR Word 97-2010 (.doc/docx) file of no more than 300 words and must include:

  • clearly indicated thesis and original contribution(s) made by your presentation, situating it in a larger scholarly context (see https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/suggestions-authors-abstracts-program-committee). Submissions must be accompanied by a bibliography or a list of resources consulted of up to five items (not included in the word limit). The proposal must be anonymous. The author’s name should not appear anywhere in this file except when citing a publication by the author. Those abstracts which include the names and/or institutional affiliations of their authors will not be considered.  
  • specific audio-visual needs for your presentation. CAAS is able to supply only a screen and a digital light projector (those bringing MACs will need to bring their special adapter plug to connect to the projector).  DVDs can be played only from your laptop.  Be advised that sound played from a laptop without special speakers may not be audible in the room.
  • If you are an undergraduate, please indicate this by selecting “undergraduate paper” as the submission type, so that undergraduate submissions can be read separately, and in relation to one another.

Deadline for individual proposals is Monday, March 22, 2021.

Submit here: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=caas2021

For further information, please contact CAAS Program Coordinator Maria S. Marsilio (marsilio@sju.edu). Please contact CAAS Webmaster (Jennifer Ranck) (webmaster@caas-cw.org) if you experience difficulties with the online forms.

A Way Forward: A Conversation about Classics and Racism in the CAAS Region – Sat 1/16 3PM EST

The Anti-Racism Committee of The Classical Association of the Atlantic States invites you to a conversation about Classics and racism in the CAAS region moderated by Patrice Rankine (University of Richmond):

When: Saturday, January 16, 2021 – 3:00PM – 5:15PM EST

Where: (virtual) – Zoom

Registration (free): Click here to register via Google Form

Event flyer (PDF): Click here to view event flyer