At this year’s meeting, the Classical Association for the Middle West and South, the largest regional conference for Classical Studies in the United States, honored two Duke Classical Studies Graduate Students with major awards. Sinja Küppers wins the Rudolph Masciantonio CAMWS Diversity Award Sinja Küppers is the graduate student winner of this year’s Rudolph Masciantonio CAMWS Diversity Award. Each year the awards committee selects one graduate student and one undergraduate student… read more about Duke Graduate Students Win Awards at CAMWS Meeting »
Kate Morgan has been awarded a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship as well as three residential fellowships: a Getty Villa Scholar Grant (Malibu, CA; research theme: The Classical World in Context: Anatolia), a Fellowship in Hellenic Studies at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., and a Visiting Research Scholar position at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York. All are to support the completion of her monographic project, provisionally titled Beyond Midas: Towards a… read more about Kate Morgan Wins Sabbatical Fellowships »
Congrats to Erickson Bridges for successfully defending his dissertation yesterday! His dissertation title was Rereading Lucretius: The Plague of Athens and Epicurean Attachment in De Rerum Natura. Well done Dr. Bridges! read more about Erickson Bridges successfully defends his dissertation »
Congrats to Michael Freeman for successfully defending his dissertation yesterday! His dissertation title was The Hands That Write: Life and Training of Greco-Roman Scribes. Well done Dr. Freeman! read more about Michael Freeman successfully defends his dissertation »
Duke and UNC Students came together on Saturday, March 4th for a collegial symposium to talk about current research projects and budding ideas. Daniel Orr (Duke) gives a talk at the joint Duke-UNC Graduate Symposium Ben Moon-Black (Duke) presents a new research idea to Duke and UNC Grads read more about Duke-UNC Graduate Student Symposium 2023 »
Since 2008, Kathryn Morgan has spent her summers on an archaeological excavation in Turkey, where she has marveled both at the rich cultural artifacts of the region and the kindness of the people who live there. All of that is weighing heavily on the archaeologist this week in the wake of the devastating Turkey earthquake whose epicenter was just eight miles from the dig site and the community that Morgan, a Duke assistant professor of classical studies, has come to know so well. “These people who have a very simple life… read more about Classics Faculty: Earthquake Hit a Region of Generosity and Cultural Significance »
Duke students with a desire to live outside their own political and cultural bubbles will have a new housing option this fall. A new Living-Learning Community for Transformative Ideas will house about 35 students with meeting spaces that can host up to 75. Headquartered in Kilgo Quad on Duke’s West Campus, this new program will bring students together who are actively looking to explore ideas different from their own, said its faculty sponsor, Jed Atkins. “This is about having students take the lead in creating a space… read more about Coming Soon: A Duke Dorm for Transformative Ideas »
A Cultural History of Money in Antiquity, edited by Prof. Stefan Krmnicek (Universität Tübingen), has just been published in simplified Chinese (货币文化史Ⅰ 希腊罗马时期钱币的诞生与权力象征. Shanghai: Wenhui Publishing House). Prof. Alicia Jiménez contributed to the volume with a chapter titled: “Money and its interpretation. Archaeological and anthropological perspectives.” read more about New translation of A Cultural History of Money in Antiquity in Chinese »
Last year Lauren Ginsberg was excited to be invited to write a historiographical essay and to contribute to the world premiere of the new opera, Poppaea, by composer Michael Hersch and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann. This past week, she traveled to Baltimore for its first screening in the US to introduce Poppaea's life and to take part in a panel discussion with opera creators: Staging Poppaea - Gender, Power and Violence. How do we stage violence against women in the contemporary moment in a way that centers the… read more about Professor Ginsberg contributes to a panel discussion on new opera »
Doug Boyer was a hit at his daughter’s kindergarten show and tell. The associate professor of Evolutionary Anthropology came armed with a life-sized, 3D-printed vertebra belonging to the world’s largest living snake, the green anaconda (Eunectes murinus). Once the students were done oohing and aahing over the plum-sized bone replica, he pulled a second vertebra, ten times larger than the anaconda’s, out of his bag. It was a life-sized replica of a vertebra belonging to Titanoboa, a snake that went… read more about How a Digital Repository Is Democratizing Science From a Duke Basement »
Duke Classical Studies believes in supporting our graduate students as they build valuable, transferable skills and work experience for careers in higher ed and beyond higher ed. This past summer, Sinja Küppers worked as a provostial intern for the Curriculum Development Committee (CDC) at Duke. Here is what she writes about her experience: "With my research on best practices and peer institutions, I supported the faculty committee in a 2-3-years long process of revamping the undergraduate curriculum at… read more about Duke PhD Students build Networks and Skills through Summer Internships »
"People have lobbied for bans since the days books were handwritten. Volumes containing religious, sexual, racist, political or otherwise offensive language have been singled out, most often as a means to protect young readers or to prevent contentious ideas from spreading. With book banning on the rise again, we take a multidisciplinary look behind the context of targeted tomes through the ages." Sign up for one or more of the following sessions in this theme: … read more about Sign up for Policing Pages: A History of Banned Books »
Alicia Jiménez presented a paper co-authored with Adam Rosenblatt about their project "Reckoning with Race, Racism & the History of the American south". The talk discussed the political implications of labeling these spaces as ruins, the lack of memorials to recollect the lives of slaves, as well as the work of the community to document and honor these spaces of the dead. Writing Global Histories Today (Brown University) Writing Global Histories… read more about Professor Jiménez presents at Brown University a paper about Black burial grounds in the North American south »
This summer I participated in the Argilos Excavation, a dig run by the university of Montreal and the Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities of Serres in Greece. As a field archeologist on this dig, I spent the majority of my time working in my trench with a team of three other undergraduate students and supervisor. On the days that we spent on-site, we spent our time digging in the trench with pickaxes and trowels while also keeping detailed notes of our activities and findings in a log book. We also took daily… read more about Tyler Donovan: Argilos Excavation »
This summer 2022 I was granted a Classical Studies Research Travel Award in support of my participation in a Summer Seminar at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Thanks to the generous funding and support of the Teasley Family Student Endowment Fund I was able to take part in an incredible opportunity that made for an educational and enriching summer. The Summer Seminar I attended was focused on the Northern Aegean: Macedon and Thrace, so we spent most of our three weeks together traveling around the… read more about Tara Wells: ASCSA Summer Seminar: The Northern Aegean: Macedon and Thrace »
Thanks to the research travel funding from the Classical Studies Department this summer, I was able to explore both the discipline of archaeology and the history and art of Italy through the Vulci 3000 Project. As an Economics and Art History major, I was virtually completely new to archaeology, but the Trench Supervisors, especially Dani Vander Horst, worked closely with me to teach me the excavation and documentation methods I needed to succeed this summer. I was able to gain an incredible amount of knowledge and new… read more about Skylar Brogan: Vulci 3000 Project »
This summer, I participated in the Exeter Humanities Institute at my alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy. The weeklong program was dedicated to training educators in Exeter’s famous Harkness Method. The Harkness Method is founded on student led, discussion based learning in all subjects. I worked with humanities educators in all fields, from elementary to college level, to learn how to teach with Harkness. During this week, I was able to experience the Harkness Method from the perspective of both student and teacher. While… read more about Melissa Baroff: Exeter Humanities Institute »
Over the course of the summer, the department’s generous funding allowed me to return for another season to the Vulci 3000 project so that I could attain experience as a Trench Supervisor. This experience was enlightening in many aspects and allowed me to gain a better appreciation for the higher-level decision making processes that occur in archaeological fieldwork and the minute-by-minute interpretative decisions that must be made by supervisors and directors. The Vulci 3000 project is an important source of data within… read more about Danielle Vander Horst: Fieldwork Supervisor Experience »
Thanks to the summer funding provided by this department research travel award, I was able to attend and complete the British School at Rome’s postgraduate course in Roman epigraphy, held in person in Rome, Italy. The course was conducted from July 11th to July 20th, under the direction of Dr. Abigail Graham. The course provided an excellent introduction to the field of Roman epigraphy by taking us students on a series of educational trips throughout Rome, including a day trip to Ostia Antica. Other destinations included… read more about Benjamin Moon-Black: British School at Rome's Postgraduate course in Roman Epigraphy »
I was able to take advantage of several opportunities this summer thanks to the generous funding offered by the department. My summer started off with the Duke in Rome summer study abroad program for which I served as the Teaching Assistant alongside Prof. Gonzalez. It was a truly incredible experience! We brought a fantastic group of Duke undergraduates on the educational adventure of a lifetime, teaching Roman history through the very fabric of the city itself. We also made numerous excursions to visit the most important… read more about Antonio LoPiano: Roman and Etruscan Archaeology »