Peiyao Guo
I would have been skeptical if someone had told me last August that my idea of a good time would soon involve debates about the ablative absolute late at night. But this past year pulled me so deep into the world of Classics that I found myself genuinely loving the grind, even when it felt overwhelming.
The fall semester threw me right into the deep end, in the best way possible. Professor Crews had us jumping between Livy’s sweeping history and Ovid’s wild mythology, while Professor Karsten’s Greek class took us straight into the middle of Plato’s Symposium. Our classroom discussions felt as nuanced and layered as the text itself, pushing us to defend our interpretations. Just when I thought I was getting my footing, the spring semester arrived and raised the stakes. We were guided to tackle Cicero’s famously long sentences, which often felt like linguistic puzzles, each clause a piece that had to be carefully placed, and truly sit with the raw emotion of Euripides’ Alcestis. For me, a moment that truly clicked was in Professor Gonzalez’s class on St. Augustine, seeing exactly how Roman rhetorical techniques were picked up and repurposed to build the intellectual world of the Middle Ages. My own year-long project, slowly translating Xenophon’s Anabasis with guidance from Professor Karsten, felt like a personal thread tying it all together.
All that preparation during the year was put to the ultimate test when summer arrived. I was incredibly fortunate to receive an SNF Scholarship, which allowed me to attend the CUNY Latin/Greek Institute’s Upper-level Latin program. It’s legendary for being a kind of academic boot camp, and it absolutely lived up to its reputation. For seven weeks, it was nothing but Latin. The days were a whirlwind of grammar, quizzes, and sight reading that left your head spinning, and you’d spend your nights preparing huge chunks of text for the next morning. There were definitely days I was sinking, but the faculty’s support was incredible. They were more than just teachers: they were mentors and coaches, available at all hours to help us untangle a difficult passage. And the payoff was unreal, suddenly, you’re not just painstakingly translating words anymore, you’re hearing the distinct voices of Caesar, Seneca, and Suetonius.
Looking back on it all, I can see a direct line from my coursework here to my survival at the Institute. When I was stuck on a difficult passage this summer, I could almost hear Professor Crews’s voice in my head, reminding me to check the syntax. When I tried to understand an author's stylistic choice, I was drawing on skills I learned from Professor Karsten and Professor Gonzalez. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the guidance of my advisor, Professor Ginsberg, whose support in the Bridge Program in Classical Studies helped chart the course for this entire incredible year. This year asked a lot of me, but it gave back so much more in return. It has cemented my love for this field, and I walk away not just with better skills but with a clearer sense of purpose and a confidence I simply didn’t have before. For that, I am truly grateful.
Mina Moon-Black
This past year and summer, I taught my first solo classes, Greek 101/501 and Greek 102/502; passed the defense of my first dissertation chapter; presented at three conferences (the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS), the Carolina Conference for Romance Studies (CCRS), and the International Society of Neoplatonic Studies (ISNS)); and attended the Gennadius Library Medieval Greek Language Summer School in Athens, Greece. It was an honor to experience everything!
Daniel Orr
Salvete omnes! Academic Year 2024-2025 saw me finish coursework, TA for Catharine Judson's Athenian Archaeology class, take and pass preliminary exams, and move on to candidacy. Highlights from the year included getting deep into seals and state formation in Kate Morgan's Lydian and Phrygian Archaeology (fall 2024), presenting papers at CAMWS-Southern Section (on Terry Allen's Simpsons and Iliad-inspired series "Homers Notebooks 2") and at the Triangle Intellectual History Seminar (on Lucretius translating Thucydides' psychology of civil strife), organizing the visits of this year's grad-invited speakers, and starting on a dissertation topic (Thucydides and his reception as a political thinker in antiquity). In the summer of 2025, I had a chance to start work on my dissertation research and to participate in the summer seminar organized by the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, "People and Places of Greek Philosophy."
Phillip Register
What a year! I went into my first year at Duke just hoping to survive, and I’m happy to report I am doing a little better than that. My fall and spring courses introduced me to new topics at every turn – from Phrygian archaeology to Augustine’s confessions, from ancient Greek philosophy and epic to modern American pedagogical challenges. With Duke’s support, I was also able to present at three conferences on ancient mobile coin mints, Ovidian transgender archipelagos (it’s more likely than you think), and my first stumbling foray into Hellenistic ceramics.
This summer I got my first taste of French, and have nearly finished turning my MA thesis on Lysimachian numismatics into an article for submission. Most importantly, I’ve worked ahead to prepare for a brand new challenge coming this fall: with any luck, little Vernon Register will arrive happy and healthy sometime mid-September. I must thank Duke University and everyone here in the Classics department for their support and accommodations. Here’s to surviving (and, maybe, just a little thriving) another year!
Tara Wells
It's hard to believe that this was my 5th year as a PhD student in Duke CLST! Among my greatest accomplishments was completing my first chapter defense for my dissertation, tentatively titled: "Finding Belonging Beyond the Binaries: Intersectional Identity of Migrant Women in Greek Tragedy." Additionally, in the spring semester I taught my first course as Instructor of Record, leading a graduate seminar on “Race and History of the Field” in which students explored the role of systemic racism in the evolution of Classical education. It was a very special opportunity and I greatly enjoyed shaping the course, building a foundation for further development for years to come. Throughout the spring and summer, I also participated in several conferences, including: the virtual conference Res Difficiles 6; Duke's own GRADx Talks; and the 16th Celtic Conference in Classics in Coimbra, Portugal. Paired with my trip to Portugal, I spent several weeks in Greece as an Associate Member at the ASCSA, conducting dissertation research. I am grateful to the CLST Department for awarding me a Research Travel Award to support my trip, and to Duke TGS for assisting with my international conference costs through a Conference Travel Award. Finally, I am currently co-editing an upcoming issue of Res Difficiles, The Journal, titled “‘REZ Diff’: Indigenous Perspectives in Classics,” after organizing a successful SCS panel on the same topic in January 2024. Overall, it was an exciting year and I'm looking forward to continuing my work at Duke this year, generously supported by the Julian Price Graduate Fellowship in Humanities and History.