The Department of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with the support of the UMass College of Humanities and Fine Arts, will host a one-day colloquium on the theme of “Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination”, Saturday, November 7, 2015. Speakers are Brigitte Libby (Harvard University), “Out of the Ashes: Rome’s Beginnings at Troy”; Tom Zanker (Amherst College), “Horace and the Rhetoric of Decline”; Virginia Closs (University of Massachusetts Amherst), “The Unmaking of Rome: Clades Publica and Censorship in Senecan Thought”; Joseph Farrell (University of Pennsylvania), “The Sacks of Rome”; Andrew Johnston (Yale University), “Ruin, Reconstruction and History”; Jessica Clark (Florida State University), “The Spoils of War: Victory as Urban Disaster”; Elizabeth Keitel (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Caesar and the Urbs Capta at Massilia”; and Honora Chapman (California State University, Fresno), “Josephus’ Memory of Jerusalem: A Study in Urban Disaster.” For more information and to register, go to https://www.umass.edu/classics/disaster.

The Department of Classics and the College of the Holy Cross offer competitive merit-based scholarships to outstanding high school graduates who will major in the Classics at Holy Cross. Each year we award two Rev. Henry Bean, S.J., Scholarships, which are four-year, full-tuition, merit-based scholarships. Every four years, including for the Class of 2020, we also award a full-tuition, merit-based Rev. William Fitzgerald, S.J., Scholarship. For more details, visit http://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/classics/scholarships

NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies is organizing the Ranieri Colloquium on Ancient Studiesfor Thursday and Friday, October 22-23, 2015.  The conference is entitled, “Telling Mesopotamian History: Bringing to Life the Stories of Cuneiform Writing,” in Honor of Jack M. Sasson.  The conference is presented by the NYU Center for Ancient Studies, in conjunction with the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, the Dean of the College of Arts and Science, and Vanderbilt University and The Vanderbilt Divinity School.  It is free and open to the public. Additional information is available here.

The full program may be viewed here:

http://ancientstudies.fas.nyu.edu/object/CenterforAncientStudies_Fall2015_Ranieri_Colloquium.html

With great sadness and heavy hearts, we report that Barbara F. McManus passed away in the early morning of June 19, 2015, from complications related to cancer. Her death is a particularly painful loss to CAAS. She served our organization in many capacities, with a rare combination of dedication and vision: as President in 2005 and Webmaster from 2005-2010; and as a member of its Awards and Program Committees. CAAS was proud to honor her with an ovatio in 2001, and by establishing the Barbara F. McManus Leadership Award in 2011.

After graduating from the College of New Rochelle summa cum laude in 1964, Barbara joined its faculty in 1967, while still a graduate student in Comparative Literature at Harvard, which awarded her a PhD in 1975. Before retiring from CNR as a full professor in 2000, she made a distinctive mark on its academic landscape by teaching innovative courses in classics, comparative literature and women’s studies; directing the writing program in its School of Arts and Sciences; and leading efforts to integrate technology into classroom teaching.

Barbara’s impressive roster of vanguard scholarly publications includes books on women in early modern England, feminist theory and classics, and the pioneering American classicist Grace Harriet Macurdy, as well as articles in several learned journals. In 2012, the Women’s Classical Caucus, for which she labored impressively as its co-chair and secretary-treasurer, recognized her outstanding achievements in research by launching the annual Barbara McManus Award for the best published article in gender studies each year. She won major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities: her NEH-funded Teaching with Technology initiative led to the creation of the VRoma Project, a virtual city and community for classics students worldwide, on which she collaborated closely with her longtime CNR classics colleague Ann Raia.

In 1994 she received the CNR Alumnae Association’s Ursula Laurus award; in 2014 its Woman of Achievement award, as a shining example of “Wisdom for Life”. In 2012, the Classics Department at the University of Maryland, College Park, hosted an international interdisciplinary conference in her name to recognize her scholarship and teaching, with the support of grants from the National Science Foundation and CAAS itself.

On the morning of her death, Adam Blistein,  Executive Director of the Society of Classical Studies (formerly the American Philological Association), paid warm and moving tribute to Barbara’s valuable contributions [http://apaclassics.org/apa-blog/memoriam-barbara-f-mcmanus] from 1983 onwards: on its Committees on the Status of Women and Minorities, ad hoc Committee on Outreach and Outreach Prize; on its Board of Directors; and as its Vice President for Professional Matters, where she single handedly created the APA census on classics department staffing and enrollments. In 2009 the APA honored her with its Distinguished Service Award for her extraordinary achievements on behalf of our discipline and profession.

Barbara’s devoted work for CAAS on many fronts, and in particular her caring support of CAAS colleagues, ranks high among her stellar accomplishments. According to an ancient Greek maxim, the measure of one’s life is not its length but its goodness. Barbara F. McManus—exemplary daughter, sister, wife, mother, colleague, scholar and beloved friend—illustrates those words, in all that she has done and been. Her invincible spirit abides, and we strive to fulfill the ideals that she so memorably embodied.

Written by:

Mary Brown, Judith P. Hallett, Maria S. Marsilio, Ann R. Raia

Watchung Hills Regional High School is currently seeking a part-time (with benefits) teacher of Latin. Interested applicants should contact Beth Scheiderman, Director of Human Resources & Professional Development, bscheiderman@whrhs.org

Maria Marsilio, 2nd vice president of CAAS, and Professor of Modern and Classical Languages and Honors Program Director at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, has been awarded the Christian and Mary Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. Follow this link for more information on the award and the Lindback Foundation: www.lindbackfoundation.org

Judith P. Hallett, Program Coordinator of CAAS and Professor of Classics and distinguished scholar-teacher at the University of Maryland ,College Park, has been awarded the 2015 Lambda Classical Caucus Activism Award in recognition of her work promoting the rights and well-being of sexual minorities. Follow this link for more information about the award and the Lambda Classical Caucus: http://lambdacc.org/awards/activism.html

New York State Teacher of the Year 2015, Charles Giglio, teaches Latin in Gloversville, NY.  Follow the  link for details: http://www.nysut.org/…/teacher-of-the-year-lets-in-the-ligh…

Are you an upper-level classics undergraduate or a graduate student / Latin teacher looking for a Latin summer class?

Hunter College in New York City (easy to reach by public transportation) is offering a class. This schedule is tentative and subject to change. For the most current information, visit Hunter’s Searchable Schedule of Classes available here http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/onestop or contact the Classics Program at 212‐772‐4960, office administrator, Millie Arias, millie.arias@hunter.cuny.edu), or Professor Lawrence Kowerski, Classics Division Head at lkowersk@hunter.cuny.edu .

Hunter College Summer Session 2 (Six Weeks): July 13-August 13

Advanced Readings in Latin Literature/Topics in Latin Literature: Roman Slavery (combined MA / Undergraduate course)

A study of the topic of slavery through various texts to be read in Latin.

M, T, W, TH 6:00-7:53pm         Timothy Hanford, PhD

LAT 316 (undergraduate use this course number)

LAT 710 (grad student use this course number)

The following slate of candidates for elective offices and regional directorships was approved by the Board at its April meeting and will be presented for election in the Business Session on Saturday, October 10, 2015:

President 2015-2016 – Thomas McCreight

First Vice President 2015-2016 – Thomas Falkner

Second Vice President 2015-2016 – Victoria Pedrick

Officer-at-Large 2015-2016 – Ronnie Ancona

Second two-year terms 2015-2017

Regional Director (DC) – Norman Sandridge

Regional Director (MD) – Deborah Carter

Regional Director (NY-E) – Denise Flood-Doyle

First two-year term 2015-2017

Regional Director (NY-C&W) – James Capreedy

An additional candidate or candidates may be nominated through a petition signed by at least fifteen CAAS members who are eligible to vote (i.e., who reside and/or work in the CAAS region). The procedure for nomination-by-petition is described in the online Regulations, Section 2 B: Members may nominate an additional candidate or candidates through a petition signed by at least fifteen CAAS members eligible to vote. The petition must be received by the Executive Director no later than July 1, and nominees must be CAAS members who reside and/or work in the CAAS region. Nominees with a valid petition will be added to the slate of candidates mailed to members along with materials for the annual meeting and presented for election in the Business Session.

Janet M. Martin, Chair, Nominations Committee

Classicizing Philadelphia announces the release of a mobile tour of classically themed sites in Philadelphia.  The tour can be accessed on mobile devices (smartphones and iPads or similar tablet computers) by directing an Internet browser to

classicizingphiladelphia.org/mobile

The mobile tour guides users around a group of important buildings within a few blocks of Independence Hall that reveal ways in which architects from the 1790s until the Civil War used elements of classical Greek and Roman architecture to house the institutions of a growing nation.  Classicizing Philadelphia plans to develop a series of mobile tours and customizable tour stops documenting Philadelphia’s long engagement with Greece and Rome.

Classicizing Philadelphia is a digital humanities and public history project based at Bryn Mawr College and supported by the Classical Association of the Atlantic States.  It seeks to document, study, and continue Philadelphia’s long conversation with ancient Greece and Rome.  Technical development is provided by Interactive Mechanics.  Content for the prototype mobile tour was created by Classicizing Philadelphia project director Lee Pearcy and Bryn Mawr graduate student Megan Dickman.

Further information: classicizingphiladelphia.org or e-mail lpearcy@brynmawr.edu