Click here to view details for the new APA Precollegiate Membership.

UMD DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS AWARDED $500K NIAF PELLEGRI GRANT FROM THE NATIONAL ITALIAN AMERICAN FOUNDATION
The grant will expand classical studies and focus on historical ties between the U.S. capital and the Roman Empire.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A $500,000 grant from the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) will fund new research at the University of Maryland on the legacy of ancient Rome as reflected in the architecture and art in the United States’ capital and in the nation’s system of governance.

The foundation awarded the $500,000 NIAF Ernest L. Pellegri Grant, named in honor of a foundation donor, to the university’s Department of Classics in the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) to expand the study of Latin language and ancient Roman culture, as well as the opportunities for students to study abroad and conduct research in the United States and Italy.

This is the largest single grant awarded to an educational institution in the foundation’s history, said Anita Bevacqua McBride, chair of NIAF’s Education and Scholarship Committee. “Through this partnership we will help connect the ancient remains of the Roman past found in Italy to the formation of our American identity,” she said.

Maryland was selected from a pool of 25 American and Italian universities because of the project’s compatibility with NIAF’s mission, the expertise of the faculty and the impact on students and the larger university community. The principal investigators for the grant are Jorge Bravo, Lillian Doherty and Judith P. Hallett from the Department of Classics.

“This generous grant exemplifies the expertise of classics faculty and allows us to capitalize on our proximity to Washington, D.C.,” said ARHU Dean Bonnie Thornton Dill. “This partnership is a logical extension and complement to the ways the faculty blend scholarship, teaching and community engagement to strengthen the study of Latin and promote its relevance to our modern lives.”

Examples of this influence include the classical design of the Capitol building, the mural in its dome painted by Constantino Brumidi showing classical gods surrounding George Washington as he helped create America, and a semi-nude sculpture of Washington that was created for—but not installed in—the Rotunda.

Most of the five-year grant will fund scholarships for undergraduate student education abroad, alternate spring breaks and summer research, and provide graduate student fellowships to support research by master’s-level candidates in classics and related fields of study.

“Many of our alumni are highly regarded teachers of Latin and classical culture,” said Lillian Doherty, chair of the Department of Classics. “Through our students the legacy of Roman culture will be passed on to future generations.”

Monday, March 10, 4:00-5:30 pm, Room 9204, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue: “Grace Harriet Macurdy (1866-1946): Pioneering Feminist Scholar.” Barbara F. McManus, Professor of Classics Emerita, The College of New Rochelle, will deliver the spring 2014 Women Writing Women’s Lives Dorothy O. Helly Works-in-Progress lecture. Grace Macurdy, Professor of Greek at Vassar College from 1893 to 1937, rose from a poverty-stricken childhood to become the first woman to win international recognition as a professional classicist and the first to focus her scholarship on ancient women. This illustrated presentation will explore the challenges of writing a biography of a woman who is relatively little known today but whose engrossing life story illuminates significant issues such as the opening of higher education to women, the erosion of gender and class barriers in the professions, the overcoming of disability, the delicate balancing act between personal and professional life required of women, the fissures and strains in female solidarity, and the sometimes vicious back-room battles among academics.

The program is free and open to the public; co-sponsors are the Leon Levy Center for Biography and CUNY Graduate Center’s PhD Programs in History and English, MA Program in Liberal Studies, Center for the Study of Women and Society, and Center for the Humanities. A printable flyer is available here.

The Rose-Marie Lewent Conference: Animals in Antiquity will be hosted by NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies on February 13-14, 2014. The event is co-sponsored by the NYU Center for Ancient Studies, the Animal Studies Initiative and the Department of Classics, and is free and open to the public. Click here for the full program.

2014 David D. and Rosemary H. Coffin Fellowship for Travel in Classical Lands from the APA

A fellowship to support overseas travel.  APA membership is not required.  Application deadline: February 14, 2014. Click here for details.

2014 Pedagogy Awards from the APA

Fellowships to support professional development by both collegiate and precollegiate teachers.  APA membership is not required.  Application deadline:  March 3, 2014. Click here for details.

Open to those preparing for Latin teacher certification. APA membership is not required.

For more information, please visit: http://apaclassics.org/awards-and-fellowships/2013/2013-zeph-stewart-latin-teacher-training-award

The winter NYCC conference this year is dedicated to “Sources for Classical Myth,” and will take place on Saturday, February 8th, 2014, 11am-6pm, at NYU’s Jurow Hall, Silver Center. More details from NYCC:

• Milette Gaifman, Yale University

“What to make of Herakles at the altar on a white-ground lektyhos”

• Fritz Graf, Ohio State University

“Patrioi Logoi. Inscriptions and local mythologies”

• Sarah Iles Johnston, Ohio State University

“There and Back Again: Mythic Places and How to Reach Them”

• H. Alan Shapiro, Johns Hopkins University
“Sources for the Trojan Cycle: Lost Epics and Newly Found Vases”

• R. Scott Smith, University of New Hampshire

“Bundling Myth, Bungling Myth: Ancient and Modern Handbooks of Myth”

 

All are welcome, registration is required and includes lunch and a reception: $10 students; $25 members; $40 non-members. Please pre-register by Tuesday, February 4, 2014, online here. You can also register in person on the day of the event.

The Vergilian Society is running its first Translation Contest for K-12 students. The awards will be made before Spring 2014.

“The spirit of the contest is to celebrate the poet Vergil by encouraging students in k-12 to translate a selection of his verses, at sight, into fluent English.”

Click here to register.

Caesar in Gaul is a two-week seminar designed to enhance participants’ appreciation of the Bellum Gallicum and its remarkable author. Developed in partnership with the University of Aix-en-Provence, the program includes lectures and seminars led by top scholars reshaping the field of Caesar studies today, and visits to key sites of the Gallic Wars and other important monuments of Gallo-Roman culture. The first week of the program, focusing on Caesar as a man of letters and the monuments of the Roman provincia, takes place at the Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme in Aix-en-Provence. In the second week, participants will travel to Lyons and its environs for a closer look at Gallic Culture and battle sites from the Gallic Wars.

Click here for more information.

An NEH Summer Institute in Athens, Greece
Director: Professor Karen Bassi, University of California at Santa Cruz

The University of California at Santa Cruz, in sponsorship with the Institute for Humanities Research, invites applications for a four-week Summer Institute funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) on the topic of Mortality: Facing Death in Ancient Greece. The Institute will be held in Athens, Greece from June 29 to July 27, 2014.

This Institute begins from the premise that mortality is the condition that gives life its singular human quality. Yet this fact, so often relegated to euphemism, has resisted anything like a comprehensive examination. The goal of this Institute is to develop a multi-disciplinary approach to mortality in ancient Greece as the basis for rigorous and innovative teaching and scholarship across the Humanities.

The NEH Institute will bring together twenty-two college and university teachers and three graduate students to examine relevant material from a broad range of ancient Greek literary sources, visual and archaeological remains, and historical periods, ranging from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BCE. In addition to attending lectures and seminars hosted by six outstanding visiting scholars, participants will present the results of their own research projects in a series of colloquia in the final week of the Institute.

NEH Summer Institutes for College and University Teachers provide college and university faculty members, independent scholars, and graduate students with an opportunity for intensive collaborative study of texts, topics, and ideas central to undergraduate teaching in the humanities under the guidance of faculties distinguished in their fields of scholarship. Institutes aim to prepare participants to return to their classrooms with a deeper knowledge of current scholarship in key fields of the humanities. Individuals selected to participate in this four-week Institute will receive $3,300. These taxable stipends are intended to help cover travel expenses to and from the project location, books and other research expenses, and living expenses for the duration of the period spent in residence.

Applicants must be United States citizens, residents of U.S. jurisdictions, or foreign nationals who have been residing in the United States or its territories for at least the three years immediately preceding the application deadline. Foreign nationals teaching abroad at non-U.S. chartered institutions are not eligible to apply.

For more information, including a full description of the research and pedagogical aims of the Institute, a complete list of the participating faculty, Institute location and housing information, a detailed day-to-day schedule, and how to apply, please visit the project’s website: mortality.ihr.ucsc.edu

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.