This summer, a research travel award enabled me to participate in the Classical Summer School at the American Academy in Rome. In the program, I spent five weeks living in Rome with a group of graduate students and teachers, visiting museums and archaeological sites in the city and the surrounding area. I was able to have firsthand experience of the aspects of the city’s material culture and architecture I’ve only read about or seen in photographs. Being there in person allowed for a deeper understanding of these places and the people who would have lived and worked in them. Seeing Roman spaces around me in three dimensions encouraged me to think about the direct material experiences of Romans of all types: where a person might have to walk to get from one place to another, what they might see, hear, or smell as they went, how the space might prompt them to position themselves physically or mentally, and how these experiences might change based on aspects of their identity. As I’m particularly interested in theater, seeing how theater is invoked in non-theatrical spaces such as homes and cemeteries was a particular highlight.
In addition to the impact on my research, the program allowed me to learn pedagogical strategies from teachers with years of experience at both the university and secondary level. The American Academy in Rome connected us with several established scholars and archaeologists, whom we were able to learn from onsite or in workshops as well as through more casual conversation. The students in the program also had several pedagogical fora and teaching demonstrations where we discussed what we have found works well when teaching ancient languages and history, and considered how we might best introduce the material culture we were seeing in Rome into the classroom. I came away with useful tips and strategies for my future teaching, and an excitement to start incorporating more historical and cultural material into my future language teaching.
Seeing Roman spaces as they exist in the modern city of Rome also prompted reflection on how these spaces
came to look the way they do. The preservation and reconstruction of ancient spaces has been heavily impacted by the priorities and ideologies of later people, from Renaissance humanists to 20th-century fascists. Considering these other layers of Roman history clarified to me that even seeing is not believing: how a site is presented visually does not necessarily reflect the ‘truth’ about antiquity, if such a thing exists. My experiences in Rome prompted me to more deeply consider my role and responsibility as a scholar. As we research and teach, we do not simply uncover and convey information about a solidly existing past, but actively shape that past, and we must be sure to do so thoughtfully.
