Read a summary of Sonia Sabnis’ recent lecture – “Daemon Lovers and Monstrous Pregnancy: Psyche in 20th-Century America” – on the Humanities and Fine Arts website.
News
Bridge Fellowship in Classics, 2023-24
The Classics Department at UCSB invites applications for a graduate opportunity fellowship to support talented scholars who come from groups historically underrepresented in Classics and who would benefit from an additional year of graduate study. The successful applicant will receive, along with regular admission to the PhD program, a seven-year funding package that includes an initial “bridge” fellowship year and six additional years of support from a combination of fellowships and TAships. During the bridge year, the Department will provide a program of study tailored to the needs and interests of the fellow, including such components as courses in Greek, Latin, or other ancient languages; directed research in the fellow’s area(s) of interest; and faculty mentorship. Prospective fellows must be citizens or permanent residents of the United State at the time of application. Applicants who wish to be considered for this fellowship should submit a regular application to our PhD program (deadline Jan. 1, 2023).
Resolution
At the Classics Faculty meeting of Friday, October 28, 2022, the Department resolved to express its support for the UC Graduate Students Associations’ demand for raising graduate student employee salaries so as to reflect the cost of living in California, above all the costs of housing and childcare. Such a raise would bring the UC and UCSB in particular in line with comparison institutions and would allow us to continue to attract the best graduate students and to further the university’s mission of excellence through diversity and inclusion.
BOB MORSTEIN-MARX WINS THE PROSE AWARD!
The PROSE Awards are sometimes referred to as the Academy Awards of academic publishing.
Many congratulations to Bob on this well-deserved honor!
HARMONIA ROSALES: ENTWINED
The Department of Classics is pleased to announce Harmonia Rosales: Entwined, an exhibition that presents a new and dynamic body of work by celebrated Afro-Cuban American artist Harmonia Rosales. Rosales’ interweaving of representations from ancient Greek and Yoruba mythologies invites viewers to challenge their ideas about identity and empowerment. Women and people of color, the protagonists of her canvases, assume roles of power and beauty in exquisite imaginings of ancient myths and Renaissance paintings.
The exhibition will take place from Saturday, January 8, 2022 to Sunday, March 20, 2022 at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Harmonia Rosales: Entwined is a collaboration between the artist, the Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies, the Department of Classics, and the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
For more information, please click here.
Image: “Oba and Her Ear.” Courtesy of the artist, © 2021 Harmonia Rosales.
Andrés Carrete’s Article Published in the Classical Receptions Journal
“Humanity and Revolution in José Fuentes Mares’ La joven Antígona se va a la guerra,” written by Andrés Carrete, one of the graduate students in the Classics department, has been published in the prestigious Classical Receptions Journal.
In this article, Andrés offers a new analysis of José Fuentes Mares’ adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone, which premiered a week after the biggest student massacre in Mexican history, the Tlatelolco Massacre of 2 October 1968. By showing how this play differs from other Latin American adaptations of Antigone, Andrés enriches our understanding of the reception of Sophocles’ play as a response to oppression.
The article can be accessed here.
Congratulations, Andrés!
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!