News
PersAphone: Classics in the Time of COVID-19
In order to reflect upon and express the feelings of grief, loss, and nostalgia caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Olga Faccani – a Ph.D. candidate in Classics – and Heena Yoon – a Ph.D. candidate in Music – have created a short film inspired by the myth of Persephone and Demeter. Titled PersAphone, the film opens with a summary of this Greek myth and then focuses on the sorrow of Demeter, whose feelings are embodied by the dancer Meri Takkinen. With their reinterpretation of this ancient story, Faccani and Yoon wanted to “create a virtual space of empathy, shared emotions, and catharsis.”
More information on this project, which has been supported by the Ancient Worlds, Modern Communities initiative of the Society for Classical Studies, can be found here.
Emperor and Mummies: An INT Course
Next quarter, Prof. Dorota Dutsch (Classics) and Prof. Nuha Khoury (History of Art and Architecture) will co-teach an INT courses focused on 19th-century “antiquities.” The course will be structured around Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and will tell the story of the invention of western modernity (as opposed both to “Antiquity” and “the Orient”) in 9 objects, ranging from Josephine’s tea-set to the Statue of Liberty.
For more information about the course, please see the flyer below. And to find out more about the courses offered by the Classics Department in Spring 2021, click here.
Aldrich and Civitas Award Winners 2019-20
The Classics department is pleased to announce the 2019-20 winners of the Aldrich and Civitas Awards:
The winner of the Aldrich Award for Graduate Studies is Olga Faccani. During the 2019-20 academic year, Olga has made excellent progress towards completion of the degree: she has presented to the department her significant paper – titled Philia, Trauma, and the Self: Renewal of Friendship in Euripides’ “Heracles” – and passed her oral qualifying examination. Moreover, since the summer of 2019 she has been collaborating with The Odyssey Project, a theater process between youth from a juvenile detention facility in Santa Barbara county and UC undergraduate students. She has discussed this experience in a “lightning round” talk at the most recent meeting of the Social for Classical Studies in Washington, DC.
The winner of the Aldrich Award for Undergraduate Studies is Donna Blockhus. Donna, who has been invited to join the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa society, has excelled in all the classes she has taken during her undergraduate career – be they language courses, larger lectures, or more intimate seminars. She has also made a significant contribution to the life of the department by acting as librarian of the Keith Aldrich Memorial Library.
The winner of the Civitas Award is Kalina Kazmierczak. With her enthusiasm and passion for the ancient world, Kalina has been an invigorating member of our undergraduate community: she has coordinated several meetings and activities of the Classics Club, and revived the Language Cafe, which provides students with a casual setting for working on their study of Ancient Greek and Latin.
Congratulations to all of them!
The People’s Voice: A Groundbreaking Online Course
Professor Michael Morgan, who is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theater & Dance and holds an affiliation with Classics, will be offering a groundbreaking online course this summer entitled The People’s Voice. Participants will collaborate with incarcerated female students at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility on re-envisioning the text of the Trojan Women, an ancient Greek play by Euripides that follows the fates of the women of Troy after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed, and their families are taken away as slaves. Using digital storytelling and reading this story through a contemporary socio-political lens, students will work together as artist-activists to re-construct the tragedy and offer counter-narratives to the devastation and despair of the play’s heroines. The People’s Voice aims to broaden undergraduates’ learning experience by bringing them into a creative partnership with a marginalized population, a partnership founded on community-building and mutual respect.
The course (THTR 43/143) will run in Session G and is open to all majors. Olga Faccani, a Classics graduate student with interests in Greek drama and public humanities, will serve as Teaching Assistant.
The People’s Voice expands on Professor Morgan’s paradigm-shifting The Odyssey Project, a collaborative theater process between incarcerated youth and undergraduates in which participants use Homer’s Odyssey to explore the mythic elements in their lives to and reconstruct the epic poem in their own voices (https://odyssey.projects.theaterdance.ucsb.edu). The Odyssey Project is featured in an interactive web documentary, Inside the Odyssey Project, directed by Luc Walpoth (https://www.insidetheodysseyproject.com).
The Classics Department’s statement on racism following George Floyd’s death
The Classics department wishes to echo and affirm the joint statement issued by UC Board of Regents Chair John A Perez and President Janet Napolitano, which recognizes that ‘[t]he tragic deaths of George Floyd, countless other African Americans and people of color, as well as the justified anger and fury in the ensuing protests, speak to the institutionalized racism that has plagued this country in the same way it has perpetually defined the everyday realities of individuals who face intolerance, marginalization and bigotry’. (The rest of that statement can be read here: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-statement-protests-violence-following-george-floyd-s-death).
The department is committed to fighting such racism, to raising students’ and colleagues’ consciousness about racism, and to promoting a more equitable and inclusive society.
Olga Faccani in the Spotlight
Read an interview of our own Classics graduate student and classics PhD candidate, Olga Faccani, who has earned her a spot as a participant in Harvard University’s Institute for World Literature (IWL) this upcoming summer.
Classics Graduate Students read Greek Myths to children
Special Guest Storytime Kicks Off at Goleta Valley Library
The Goleta Valley Library is excited to share its newest program, Special Guest Storytime. The library has collaborated with valued community members to record themselves reading a favorite picture book for the library’s young patrons. New readings will be available every Friday beginning today, May 22, on the Goleta Valley Library website at www.GoletaValleyLibrary.org
Temporary Part-Time Lecturer in the Classics Department
The Department of Classics invites applicants for possible openings as Temporary Part-Time Lecturer positions for the 2019-2020 academic year at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Appointments are variable in terms of percentage time and appointment may be from one quarter to a year, with the possibility of reappointment.
Areas of specialization:
-Generalists
-Teaching Classics in translation
-Teaching ancient Greek at all levels
-Teaching Latin at all levels
Minimum Qualification: Ph.D. in Classics or related discipline (e.g. Comparative Literature with a specialization in Classics) is required at the time of application. The salary is based on UC’s salary scales. To ensure full consideration, please submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, syllabi for two upper division GE courses and arrange for three letters of recommendation to be sent through UC Recruit https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF01525 . The department is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through teaching, research, and service. For information on our department, please visit our website https://www.classics.ucsb.edu/ .
The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.