A Practical performative project on Ancient Greek Chorus

By Katia Savrami

September 29, 2021

Do you want to participate on a research performative project in Ancient Greek Choruses?

The aim is to create two choreographed dramatic choruses’ fragments from Sophocles’ Antigone (with Masks) and Euripides’ Bacchae (with stones as a prop held by the actresses which produces the rhythm) that will challenge the conventional boundaries between representation of the past and current embodiment. As an academic, former dancer and choreographer, coming from Athens-Greece, we will focus on issues related to space, meter, and movement elements, and elaborate together with the student’s manners to create the contemporary choreographed chorus fragments.

• Place: Columbia Campus (exact location not known yet)

• Rehearsal period: Friday evenings and Saturdays in October (a time convenient for all)

• Required: 5 Students with acting and movement skills

• Attached the text that needs to be memorized
  

If you want to participate, please contact: as6551@columbia.edu.

Thank you for your interest!

Katia Savrami, Associate Professor in Dance at the Department of Theatre Studies, University of Patras, Greece
Fulbright Fellow for the fall Semester 2021 at the Department of Classics, Program in Hellenic Studies, Columbia University

Biographical note: Dr Katia Savrami (www.savrami.gr)

TEXT THAT NEEDS TO BE MEMORIZED

Taplin, Antigone 1st Stasimon

Arrowsmith, Bacchae 3rd Stasimon

In Memoriam: Ashley Simone

The Classics Department mourns the death of Ashley A. Simone (Ph.D. 2020), who unexpectedly passed away on 16 September 2021 at the age of thirty-three.  Ashley was a beloved member of the Department from 2012 to 2020, touching the lives of faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and staff alike.  Our hearts go out to Ashley’s family, to whom we offer our sincerest condolences.

            Ashley entered Columbia’s Ph.D. program in Classics after earning a B.A. at Baylor University and spending a semester as a Visiting Student at the University of St Andrew’s, Scotland.  A Latinist with a strong interest in philosophy, Ashley found herself drawn to topics of ancient cosmology and was particularly fascinated by Greco-Roman discussions of the stars, those symbols of cosmic order and beauty.  She explored these topics in her highly original dissertation, “Cicero among the Stars: Astral Literature and Natural Philosophy in the Late Republic,” in which she traced Cicero’s lifelong interest in the heavens, from his youthful translation of Aratus to the Somnium Scipionis and on to the philosophical treatises of the author’s last years.

            Ashley was very active in the field of Classics, presenting her work in numerous venues in the US and Europe and serving on committees of the Society for Classical Studies and the Classical Association of the Middle West and South.  In addition to her Ciceronian research, she had a strong interest in Augustan poetry and its reception: she published a note on Horace’s Cleopatra Ode (CP 114, 2019) and a book chapter on the Ovide moralisé (Receptions of Antiquity, Brill 2015), and in 2019 co-organized a panel on “Time in Augustan Literature” for the CAMWS Annual Meeting in Lincoln, NE. 

            Deeply committed to classical teaching and learning and to the ideals of a liberal arts education, Ashley had a knack for imparting her enthusiasm for the ancient world to others.  She was a caring and popular teacher in both the Department and the Core Curriculum, and in 2020 received the extraordinary honor of Columbia’s Presidential Award for Teaching Excellence.  Ashley’s dedication to making the benefits of a classical education widely available is apparent from her work for the Paideia Institute’s Aequora after-school program in 2016-17, during which time she founded the Aequora Site at Corpus Christi School, New York, devoted to making Classics more accessible to young people from all parts of Upper Manhattan.  Ashley also taught for a semester in 2019 at Fairfield University, where she was an instructor in ancient Greek civilization and history, and, after receiving her Ph.D., took a position at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Taylor, TX, where, as the Head Latin and Philosophy Teacher, she distinguished herself by designing the school’s Latin program.

            Ashley’s contributions to the well-being and flourishing of the Columbia Classics community were many, including her untiring work for the Barnard Columbia Ancient Drama Group from 2012 to 2019 and her active role in many seasons of graduate recruitment. On the sixth floor of Hamilton and beyond, she will be remembered for her stylish flair, infectious joie de vivre, and unfailing kindness. Ashley’s star has set prematurely, but she will live on in our hearts.

New Book on Gilbert Highet by Robert Ball

The Department of Classics is pleased to acknowledge the publication of The Classical Legacy of Gilbert Highet: An In-Depth Retrospect by Robert Ball.

From the Lockwood Press website:
Gilbert Highet (1906–1978) was one of Columbia University’s greatest teachers and in his day the most celebrated classical scholar in America. One may regard his life and career as both extraordinary and controversial. Now, over forty years after his death, a fresh retrospect seems appropriate, as a way of presenting new information about him and evaluating his enduring classical legacy for the twenty-first century reader. This fully documented biographical appreciation of Highet’s life and work, capped by fully updated bibliographies of publications by him and about him, offers a long-overdue “official life” of this unique and towering figure.

More information is available here.

Nikolas Kakkoufa receives the Spring 2021 Provost Large-Scale Teaching & Learning Grant

Nikolas Kakkoufa receives the Spring 2021 Provost Large-Scale Teaching & Learning Grant for his project, Learning Greece from the Streets: An Urban E-Archaeology of the City. For more information, please click HERE.

The Cavafy Dossier: boundary 2 Special Issue Edited by Stathis Gourgouris

Prof. Stathis Gourgouris has edited a special issue for the journal boundary 2, called "The Cavafy Dossier".

This pioneering issue is the first collective effort to examine Cavafy in the context of colonialism and the British Empire. Further info and table of contents can be found in the Duke University Press link:

https://read.dukeupress.edu/boundary-2/issue/48/2

Cat Lambert Receives Honorable Mention in the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography Annual Essay Prize

Cat Lambert has received an Honorable Mention in the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography Annual Essay Prize for her article, "The Ancient Entomological Bookworm," published in Arethusa 53 (2020: 1-24). Summing up her piece, the Essay Prize Committee wrote, "What kinds of readers are bookworms, anyway? Lambert marshals bibliographical, literary, and biological evidence, showing us how bookworms tunneled through books and how people used the bookworm as a metaphor in the ancient Mediterranean world. Through the bookworm, authors represented their anxieties about the survival of their writings and who was reading them, and how. Lambert offers us a cogent model for pursuing the social history of reading when material evidence is scant."

A full citation of the Essay Prize can be found here.

Cat Lambert

The Undying Song: Writing the Homosexual Body in the long 19th Century and beyond

The Undying Song:

Writing the Homosexual Body in the long 19th Century and beyond

By Dr. Nikolas Kakkoufa

(Columbia University; currently Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Research Fellow, University of Amsterdam)

Friday, 7 May, 15.30 (CET)

Location:   https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/88607866042 
(Meeting ID: 886 0786 6042)
Language: English

Abstract

 2021 marks the Bicentennial of the Greek Revolution with a plethora of activities and events that span the globe and explore its different aspects and connections to the Mediterranean, the world, and Greece today. What seems to be missing from most of these celebrations and academic events is an extensive discussion on the body itself. How are bodies produced, constructed, and regulated before, during, and after the Greek revolution? What is the difference between the way bodies – and desires – were inscribed and transcribed in the everyday life, the literary imagination, and the newly founded constitution and penal code? This talk will take Georgios Tertsetis as a starting point to explore the discourse on the homosexual body in the first half of the 19th century while also considering the possibilities of its reception in a present continuous tense. 

Bio

Nikolas P. Kakkoufa (PhD, King’s College London 2015) is a Lecturer in Modern Greek at the Department of Classics, the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Program in Hellenic Studies, and an Affiliate Faculty at the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Columbia University, New York. His courses range from beginners to advanced classes in language and culture and seminars on literature and sexuality. His ongoing research projects focus on queer theory, on the image of the city in literature, and on the use of literature and translation pedagogy in second language acquisition. He has given presentations and has published papers on language pedagogy and on the work of Vitsenzo Kornaros, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Kostis Palamas, C.P. Cavafy, Kostas Karyotakis, Nikolas Calas, Lefteris Poulios, Michalis Ganas, and others. He is currently writing a book tentatively titled ‘Word is the flesh’: The Body in the Work of Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, and C. P. Cavafy. During Spring 2021 he is a Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam.

John Izzo Receives 2021-2022 Rome Prize

The Department of Classics extends its enthusiastic congratulations to PhD candidate John Izzo on receiving the 2021-2022 Millicent Mercer Johnsen Rome Prize in Ancient Studies for his dissertation entitled, “Tironian Notes: Literary and Historical Studies on Marcus Tullius Tiro.” 

John’s doctoral research explores the multifarious connections between Roman slavery and Latin literature by analyzing the life, writings, and reception of Marcus Tullius Tiro. Although extant evidence generally provides only glimpses of individual Roman slaves and freedmen, relatively detailed references to Tiro appear in ancient sources. The analysis of Cicero’s letters, fragments of Tiro’s own writings, and the reception of Tiro by later authors is therefore able to open up new perspectives on Roman slavery. By applying diverse literary and historical approaches to these texts, as well as placing them in dialogue with comparative evidence, John’s dissertation reassesses what these sources can tell us about Tiro’s activities as a secretary to Cicero and as an intellectual in his own right. In doing so, it also contributes to our knowledge of the important roles of slaves and freedmen in the management of aristocratic households and the production of classical literature.

John is looking forward to studying in Rome and to joining the collaborative community at the American Academy.

The full press release can be viewed here.

www.aarome.org

John Izzo

Undergraduate Prizes and Honors

The Classics Department congratulates its graduating seniors and is delighted to announce the following Honors and prizes:

DEPARTMENTAL HONORS
Uwade Akhere
Herbert Rimerman
Hacer Berra Akcan

PHI BETA KAPPA
Julian Pecht
Herbert Rimerman
Issac Shott Rosenfeld
Hacer Berra Akcan

DOUGLAS GARDNER CAVERLY PRIZE
Herbert Rimerman

ERNEST STADLER PRIZE 
Uwade Akhere
Julian Pecht
Arnav Tandon

BENJAMIN F. ROMAINE PRIZE 
Herbert Rimerman

EARLE PRIZE
Helen Ruger
Pedro Tozzi Pistoso

JUDITH STRONACH PRIZE
Hacer Berra Akcan

 Optime fecistis!

Elizabeth Heintges to Deliver Inaugural SAIG/GSC Dissertation Lecture

The Student Affairs Interest Group (SAIG) of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the Graduate Student Committee (GSC) of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) are pleased to present the inaugural SAIG/GSC Dissertation Lecture. This annual talk is a collaborative effort intended to highlight the work of a senior doctoral candidate whose research features interdisciplinary work between the fields of archaeology and classical philology, and to support the student networks between these related fields.

As the first SAIG/GSC Dissertation Lecturer, Elizabeth Heintges, doctoral candidate at Columbia University, will present “Forgetting Sextus Pompey: the bellum Siculum and Vergil’s Aeneid,” integrating both literary and material evidence into an analysis of two major moments in Roman Republican history. Please see the poster and abstract below for more details.

The lecture will be held virtually on Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 5:00 pm EDT. Please register here in advance of this Zoom webinar.

Any questions? Please don’t hesitate to reach out via email (studentaffairsaia@gmail.com).

About the Annual Lecture, SAIG, and GSC:

Following the 2020 AIA/SCS Annual Meeting, the Student Affairs Interest Group of the AIA and the Graduate Student Committee of the SCS began discussing future collaboration, with the purpose of highlighting and uplifting interdisciplinary graduate research. From this, the SAIG/GSC Annual Lecture was born, an awarded lecture for a doctoral candidate who emphasizes both new and interdisciplinary research in their own work. This Inaugural 2021 Lecture serves to empower graduate students, provide a professionalization opportunity during a critical period of career transition, and broadly, to foster interdisciplinary collaboration. Through an ongoing virtual lecture series, the SAIG and GSC hope to expand access for their graduate audiences to new research and upcoming scholars, and to allow for scholarly participation and interest across a broad geographic area.

The Student Affairs Interest Group (SAIG) seeks to increase student engagement within the AIA and to provide student members a platform to have their voices heard. SAIG consists of AIA members with an interest in the expansion of opportunities for student participation and professional development within the AIA, the promotion of student scholarship, and the facilitation of dialogues between the student membership and other members of the organization through its various events, initiatives, and mentorship program. More information can be found at https://studentaffairsaia.wordpress.com/.

The SCS Graduate Student Committee (GSC) is a nominated subcommittee within the Education Division of the SCS, chiefly concerned with graduate student representation and unification for both member and non-member graduate students. Its initiatives have recently included advocating for greater representation of graduate students in positions of leadership and facilitating the creation of a region-based graduate student network.

Department Statement on Language Learning in AY 20-21

The Department of Classics is mindful that students in its language classes are faced with the challenging task of learning Greek and Latin at a high level. This past year, the task has been made even more daunting, on account of the pandemic, remote teaching, lack of access to library resources, and many other factors of dislocation. The Department therefore undertakes to do all it can to help them consolidate their gains and progress in their knowledge, with the aim of catching up any lost ground by the end of Fall 2021, as part of their exploration of the Classics in the original languages. Please do not hesitate to contact faculty members with any questions you might have.

The Archipelago feat. Stathis Gourgouris • The Orientalist Dream of Modern Greece

Twenty five years ago, Stathis Gourgouris, a Professor of Classics, English and Comparative Literature published his seminal work “Dream Nation: Enlightenment, Colonization, and the Institution of Modern Greece”, in which he applied the tools of psychoanalysis and post-colonial theory in Modern Greek history.

In this episode of The Archipelago, the second of two specials to coincide with the bicentennial of Greek Independence, Stathis Gourgouris talks about the fragmented dreams of different groups that came together to imagine Modern Greece, Europe’s need for a Greek state to connect their own nations with classical antiquity, as well as the remnants of orientalism that still shape the European gaze towards Greece today.

For more information on this episode, please click HERE.

To view the special event organized by the Oxford Research Center in the Humanities in conjunction with this book, please click HERE.

Department Statement on Graduate Student Strike

Uwade Akhere (CC '21) Receives Lionel Pearson Fellowship

The Department of Classics is very pleased to announce that Classics Major Uwade Akhere (CC ‘21) is the winner of the 2021-22 Lionel Pearson Fellowship awarded by the Society for Classical Studies. The Pearson Fellowship supports one year of study at an institution in the United Kingdom. The Department extends its sincere congratulations to Ms. Akhere on this accomplishment!

Department of Classics Faculty and Graduate Students to Present at the 2021 SCS/AIA

This year, the SCS/AIA is holding its annual conference virtually, and Department of Classics faculty, graduate students, affiliated students, and alumni will be making presentations over the coming days. Please read on for more details!

Wednesday, January 6

SCS session 28: Subverting the Classics in the Early Modern Americas
3-6pm EST (2-5pm CST)
John Izzo (Classics PhD student), "Slavery, Subjugation, and Empire in Cortés Totoquihuatzin's Latin Epistle to Charles V"

Thursday, January 7

SCS session 32: Ovid and the Constructed Visual Environment
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Ashley Simone (Classics PhD 2020), "Ovid's Phaethon and Failed Cosmic Vision"

SCS session 33: Recent Work in Digital Classics
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Charles Pletcher (Classics PhD student), "How to Read with Hypertext: Building and Using New Alexandria"

AIA session 5A: Coins as Social Artifacts
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Jeremy Simmons (CLST PhD 2020), "Slashing, Soldering, and Simulating: Adaptations to Roman coins in ancient India"

SCS session 36: Eos READS: Toni Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature"
3-6pm EST (2-5pm CST)
Yujhán Claros (Classics PhD student), discussion facilitator

Friday, January 8

SCS session 43: Augustan Poetry
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Elizabeth Heintges (Classics PhD student), "Pirates and Pietas: Sextus Pompey and the Ship Race in Aeneid 5"

SCS session 46: Indigenous Voices and Classical Literature
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Prof. Nancy Worman, "Medea's Ghosts: Cherríe Moraga and Euripides on the Body's Tragedies"

SCS session 47: Culture and Society in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Egypt
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Susan Rahyab (CLST PhD student), ""Anything Illicit": Censorship and Book-Burning in Roman Egypt"

Saturday, January 9

AIA Session 9B: There’s No Place Like Domus: Explorations of the Roman House
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Nicole Vellidis (CLST MA student), "Beware of Envy: A Reconstructive Study of the Mosaics in the Roman Villa of Skalla"
Katy Knortz (CLST MA 2020), "Aesthetics of Excess: Challenging the Theory of Elite Imitation in Trimalchio’s Home"

SCS-66: in a Roman Context
3-6pm EST (2-5pm CST)
Kate Brassel (Classics PhD 2018), "Epictetus, Caesar, and the Animals: A Fable"

Sunday, January 10

SCS-70: Epigraphy and History
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Deborah Sokolowski (CLST PhD student), "Sebastoi in the Countryside: Praying for Imperial Success in Rural Bithynia"

SCS-71: Seneca in the Renaissance
10am-1pm EST (9am-12pm CST)
Erin Jo Petrella (Classics PhD student), "Servilis vs. Puerilis: Seneca's De Tranquilitate Animi"

Anna Conser Receives 2020-21 AAUW Fellowship

Classics Ph.D. student, Anna Conser, was awarded a 2020-21 Fellowship from the American Association of University Women in support of her dissertation, “Caught in the Tide: song, dance, and narrative in Aeschylus’ Oresteia”. More information can be found on the AAUP website.

The Department extends its sincere congratulations to Anna on this honor.

Cristina Perez Diaz Awarded Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative (SNFPHI) Summer Grant

Classics Ph.D. student, Cristina Perez Diaz, was awarded a summer grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative (SNFPHI) at Columbia University.

Of this distinction, Ms. Perez Diaz wrote:

With the support of this SNFPHI grant, I am “translating” into a multimedia book the production of Euripides’ Andromache that I directed this year for the Barnard-Columbia Ancient Drama Group. Our show could not run because of the pandemic outbreak. Yet, unexpectedly, the topics we were underscoring took on a new relevance because of the social distancing and the new dimensions that domesticity has taken in everyone’s life at home. The production focused on the domestic elements of the tragedy (or the tragic elements of domesticity), having the house and domestic labor at the core of the stage’s symbolism and semiotics. The chorus are domestic employees, their costumes floral smock aprons, gloves, a sponge, a cleaning brush, a duster, their “dances” gestures related to cleaning and housekeeping. Andromache holds a broom, Hermione is moved around the stage by the chorus like a piece of furniture. My original English translation, in turn, fleshes out all the ways in which the female characters’ actions and dilemmas were also, in a sense, domestic labor. Our composer, Alejandro Kauderer, worked with the soundscape of the house (someone washing the dishes, the vacuum cleaner, running water, a dog panting), and sounds of the house’ exterior (a street vendor, birds, frogs, a motorcycle). In this multimedia book, I will remix pictures of the characters, now in quarantine as each actor is at home, with the Greek text, the original English translation, links to the music, and recordings of the actors saying the text in  ancient Greek. To these elements, we are also adding a more personal note, bringing into the mix short monologues written by the actors as they re-interpret their characters in quarantine.  

The Department extends its sincere congratulations to Cristina on this award.

Caleb Simone awarded the Bothmer Fellowship

Recent Ph.D. graduate, Caleb Simone, was awarded the Bothmer Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2020-21) to develop his dissertation on aulos performance culture in Ancient Greece into a monograph. The project draws on the disciplines of classical philology, art history, and musicology with a cultural historical focus on how music affects the body. 

The Department extends its sincere congratulations to Caleb on this honor.

Cat Lambert Named as a 2020 Recipient of the Chinweike Okegbe Service Award

Classics Ph.D. student, Cat Lambert, has been named as a 2020 recipient of the Chinweike Okegbe Service Award. The Department extends its sincere congratulations to Cat on this honor, which is awarded annually to two senior graduate students and one non-student who have had a lasting impact due to their service to the Department and University while demonstrating academic excellence.

In honor of Chinweike Okegbe, this award is meant to reflect his vision of a student being recognized for leaving the Department and the University, as a whole, more improved than when he/she first entered the program. As the co-founder of the Biological Sciences Career Initiative (BSCI), in addition to his many other contributions, Chinweike Okegbe demonstrated this ideal and this award captures the determined spirit that he had to help others

John Izzo Awarded 2020-21 Heyman Fellowship

Classics Ph.D. student, John Izzo, has been awarded one of the highly coveted Heyman Center Fellowships (2020-21) for his dissertation research on the life, literary activities, and reception of Marcus Tullius Tiro, a slave and later freedman of the Roman statesman, Cicero. This is the first time a Classics graduate student has achieved this honor.

He also received honorable mention for the Snyder Prize at this year’s New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies. While the conference did not take place this year because of COVID-19, the Prize—which is for junior scholars was awarded nevertheless.  The citation reads:

As an honorable mention, I would cite John Izzo’s “Indigenous Renaissance Men in Tlatelolco”, which focuses on the Neo-Latin writings of colonial subjects, in particular the Libellus de medicinalibus Indorum herbis, which was produced by two indigenous men in the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco in 1536 [sic]. Izzo effectively demonstrates how the authors’ use of Latin operates as “an expression of indigenous thought and agency.” 

Izzo brings an impressive knowledge of the history of medicine and science, Latin texts and authors, and indigenous Nahua culture to uncover a story of contestation of colonial power structures.

The Department congratulates John on his innovative and important work.