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NEWS FROM THE FACULTYGreg Anderson published a paper entitled "Alcmeonid ‘Homelands’, Political Exile, and the Unification of Attica," Historia 49 (2000) 387-412, which presents a very novel thesis on the creation of the Athenian city-state as we know it. This article has set the stage for his book, The Athenian Experiment, 508-490 BC, which he completed this past November and will be published by the Univ. of Michigan Press. In January 2002, he delivered a paper at the Annual Meeting of the American Philological Assoc. in Philadelphia ("The Phye Episode and Political Culture in Mid-Sixth-Century Athens"). This spring term, he has taken a leave to assist his wife Alpana (a prof. of English at Wright State University) with the care of their new daughter Lucy, who was born on 9 December 2001 (weighing 7 lbs. 8 ozs.). On January 22nd of this year, he made his second appearance on WGN’s "The Milt Rosenberg Show".Matthew Dickie's book, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (Routledge, 2001) 392 pp., appeared in August. This is the first work to assemble the evidence for the existence of sorcerers and sorceresses in the ancient world and to consider the question of their identity and social origins. It examines in detail the underside of Greek and Roman society, the holy men and women, the conjurors and wonder-workers, the prostitutes and procuresses, the charioteers and theatrical performers who were to be found there. During the Michaelmas Term 2001, he was a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where he worked on a book on the Evil Eye in Greco-Roman Antiquity, a project supported by a grant from the Institute of the Humanities of UIC. In Oxford, he lectured to the Oxford Philological Society and travelled to Cambridge to speak to the Cambridge Byzantine Seminar. In May of 2001, he gave the Greek Lecture to the Classical Association of Scotland at their annual meeting in St Andrews University. In July, he gave a paper at a conference on ancient religion that took place at the University of Crete in Rhethymnon. The previous July he spoke at a conference on sport and festivals at the University of Edinburgh on the ethics of athletic competition in Ancient Greece. He has helped organize a conference on ancient religion that will take place at UIC in April. His recent publications include: "Who practised love-magic in Classical Antiquity and the Late Roman World?" Classical Quarterly 50 (2000) 563-83; "Narrative-patterns in Christian Hagiography," and "Bonds and Headless Demons in Greco-roman Magic," in Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 40 (1999) 83-98, 99-104, respectively; and "Exclusions from the Catechumenate: Continuity or Discontinuity with Pagan Cult," Numen 48 (2001) 417-43. Paul Griffiths, in addition to his recent book on religious diversity (see above, p. 0) has published half-a-dozen articles in 2000-2001, including "Nirvana as the Last Thing? The Iconic End of the Narrative Imagination," (in Modern Theology 16/1 (2000) 19-38) and "The Limits of Narrative Theology" (in Faith and Narrative, ed. K. Yandell, New York: OUP 2001, 217-36). He gave a number of invited lectures, among them "Toward a Properly Christian Understanding of Buddhism," at Emory University (October 2001); "On Lying and Truth-Telling: Or, How and Why to Disown Speech," at the University of Notre Dame (October 2001); a series of three Ryan Lectures at Asbury Seminary, Kentucky (November 2001), under the general title "Christianity and Religious Diversity"; and a paper at the American Academy of Religions annual meeting in Denver (November 2001) entitled "Proselytism: Embracing the Unavoidable." He is at the moment contemplating a book on Augustine’s thought about lying and deceit, whose working title is "Lying: An Augustinian Anatomy." Annie Higgins was awarded her PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2001. Her dissertation ("The Qur’anic Exchange of the Self in the Poetry of Shurat (Khariji) Political Identity") delineates the use of the Qur’an by the Shurat, a dissident group, in formulating their ideas about individual responsibility, leadership, minority status, communal identity, and how these issues apply to this life and the hereafter. Burgeoning enrollments of 35-40+ students in first and second-year Arabic justified the introduction of upper-level courses, and so Annie has designed and taught two 200-level courses this year (Arabic 201 "Advanced Literary Arabic" and Arabic 202 "Qur’an/Advanced Literary Arabic"). In April of last year, Annie was a finalist in the balloting for the Silver Circle Teaching Award. Martha Kelpi, in addition to teaching Modern Greek courses at UIC, continues to pursue studies in Clinical Psychology in the doctoral program at the Adler School of Professional Psychology. This term she was awarded a scholarship by Hellenic Link to further her studies. Allan Kershaw recently published in the Journal of Roman Studies (91 (2001) 249-50, a review of M. Billerbeck’s edition with translation and commentary of Seneca’s Herculens Furens. Allan’s experiment with substituting in Latin 101-102 the "Oxford Latin Course" for Wheelock’s first-year textbook has proven to be highly successful. Last fall, 25 students enrolled in the second-year course, a tribute to Allan’s teaching in 101-102 and the more inviting approach taken by the Oxford books. This past November, Allan attended the Langford International Latin Seminar, which was convened by Prof. Francis Cairns at Florida State University. Alexander MacGregor served an Interim Chair of the department in 2000-2001 and published a review (in Swedish) of the film "Gladiator" in Film Häftet (2001-2, 7-12). He also continued to serve on the Educational Policy Committee of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and was a member of the Placement Committee of the American Philological Association. He is an associate editor and referee for Classical Bulletin, and is presently at work on an edition of the first-century AD Latin poet Manilius, the earliest extant writer on astrology. Alex has completed a translation of this poet into blank verse and a commentary (the first in English) on book one. Commentary on the remaining fours books is well along. Nanno Marinatos has been working in Egypt on the restoration of important Minoan paintings found in an Egyptian palace of the 18th Dynasty (c. 1500 BC) in the Eastern Nile Delta. The first volume of the publication of this material (with M. Bietak and Cl. Palyvou as co-authors) is already in press. Two of her articles have appeared this year: "The Palladion across a Culture Barrier? Mycenaean and Greek" in Ithaka, Festschrift J. Schäfer (ed. S. Böhm and K.-V. von Eickstedt, Wü rzburg 2001, 17-114) and "The Cosmic Journey of Odysseus," in Numen 48 (2001) 381-416. In May 2001 she visited the University of Heidelberg and delivered a lecture titled "The Iconography of Achilles", and she helped organize an international conference on Greek religion that was held at the University of Crete in June 2001. Together with Christoph Riedweg, she taught in a seminar for students and faculty from the University of Zurich that took place on Crete in October 2001. John Ramsey was a fellow of the UIC Institute for the Humanities in 2000-2001, where he completed his book on Cicero’s First and Second Philippics (to be published in 2003 by Cambridge University Press in the Greek and Latin Classics series). He gave two lectures, one at Urbana in Oct. 2000 ("The Comet that made Julius Caesar a God") and one in Feb. 2001 at UIC Institute for the Humanities ("The Apprenticeship of Mark Antony: From Caesar’s First Lieutenant to Caesar’s Successor"), and most recently delivered at paper at the Annual Meeting of the American Philological Assoc. in Philadelphia ("Caesar to Mark Antony: ‘Show me the Money’: Antony’s Special Assignment in 46-45 BC"). In Jan. 2000, he published a paper ("Beware the Ides of March: An Astrological Prediction?" Classical Quarterly 50 (2000) 440-54), which was written up in the Times Higher Education Supplement (20 April 2001, "Be wary the Ides of March" p. 22). In both 2000-2001 and 2001-2002, he served as Chair of the Faculty Senate’s Committee on Budget and Planning, which meets monthly with the Provost to advise on administrative matters, and he is currently also a member of the Senate’s Executive Committee. Simone Sofian has recently had an article accepted for publication in Conservative Judaism, spring 2002: " Popular Fiction and the Limits of Modern Midrash: A Review Essay of the Red Tent." In this paper she examines questions raised by the recent novel The Red Tent by Anita Diamant such as what is its relationship to the Biblical text and where does God fit into this text. In January she delivered a lecture to the Beth Hillel Congregation in Wilmette on a unique lyric poem in Judeo-French from the Middle Ages ("What are a Knight and his Lady doing in a Jewish Poem? A Window on Jewish Life and Culture in Medieval France"), and in March she delivered a lecture in Evanston on the book of Esther: " When Esther Speaks". Jennifer Tobin becomes this semester (spring 2002) our new Director of Undergraduate Studies. During the past year and a half she has designed and taught three new courses ("The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt", "Alexander the Great: Myth & Reality", and "The Hellenistic World") and revised three of our existing art and archaeology courses (Cl 103, 204 and 205). Her course on Egypt was cross-listed with Art History and African American Studies snd could easily have surpassed its enrollment of 50, if seats had been available. Jennifer is currently President of the Chicago chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America, and in Feb. of 2001 she gave a lecture ("The Site in the Sands: a Roman Port Facility in Cilicia"), once at the Art Institute to the Classical Art Society and AIA, and again at UIC to the Hellenic Students Association. Her review of SEBASTOI SWTHRI by P. Baldassarri appeared in the American Journal of Archaeology 105 (2001) 131-2. John Vaio published in the fall of 2001 a new book on one of our chief sources of Aesopic fables: The Mythiambi of Babrius: Notes on the Constitution of the Text. (Olms-Weidmann, 2001) lvi/176 pp. This monograph treats problematic passages in the Mythiambi of Babrius and addresses textual problems in 87 of the 143 extant fables. It offers new interpretations and an improved text, with discussions of grammar, syntax, vocabulary, style, and metrical technique. John is currently completing the second year of a two-year term as a member of the Executive Committee of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and last year he generously served as Director of Undergraduate Studies. |
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Department of Classics and Mediterranean
Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago.
© University of Illinois at Chicago, 2002 |