Classics

Details coming soon...

This program is sponsored by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations

This event will be hosted on November 1, 2025, 10:00 am, at Howard University.

As K-12 teachers and students grapple with issues of race and justice in history and society, there is value in bringing in perspectives that arise from two areas of contemporary classical studies. On the one hand, there is the place of Africa in the Greco-Roman imaginary, and how regions like Egypt and Ethiopia are involved in ancient constructions of the Other. At the same time, much exciting work is being done on the varied reception of Greek and Roman literature in African American literature and art, ranging from colonial times to today. This workshop will explore these topics via test cases in artistic and historical reflections on Africa, African-American Culture, and the Classics.

The program will include four 30-minute talks, each followed by general discussion, with an opening gathering and breaks, and lunch together. Presenters will include UVA faculty members along with faculty from Howard University and the College of William and Mary.

There will be two funded opportunities for teachers to develop teaching resources to be shared with all participants as a follow-up to the workshop.

Speakers:

Inger Kuin, University of Virginia

Najee Olya, College of William and Mary

John Miller, University of Virginia

Caroline Stark, Howard University

Agenda:

• 9:00 – 9:45 Coffee and Registration
• 9:45 – 10:45 ‘What does a (Neo-)Classical Poet Look Like? Race and Recognition in the Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley’ - Inger Kuin
• 10:45 – 11:00 Break
• 11:00 – 12:00 College of William and Mary - ‘Africa and the Ancient Mediterranean World: Re-examining the Scholarly Contributions of 20th Century Black Intellectuals’ - Najee Olya
• 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch 
• 1:00 – 2:00 ‘Classical Myth in the Poetry of Rita Dove’ - John Miller
• 2:00 – 2:15 Break
• 2:15 – 3:15 ‘Refashioning the Classical Heroine in the Poetry of H. Cordelia Ray’ - Caroline Stark

This event was hosted on April 13, 2024, 9:00 am, at Virginia Humanities, 946 Grady Ave. Charlottesville, VA.

Plague. Questions of Leadership. Communities in Crisis. Family Conflict. Exile. Honoring the Dead. Communal Grief. These core themes from the Theban plays feel strikingly relevant in today’s global pandemic. As recent productions of Theater of War’s Antigone in Ferguson (2016) demonstrate, these stories have the power of bringing communities together to start the healing process through the collective experience of live performance. While the story of Oedipus has been retold throughout the centuries in all kinds of artistic media all over the world, from Homer, Sophocles, and Seneca to Hegel, Stravinsky, and Rita Dove, this workshop will focus on the story of Oedipus in the African Diaspora.

Mark Schiefsky, Center for Hellenic Studies

Natsuko Rohde, Center for the Liberal Arts

Segun Ige

Kenneth Morrell

Agenda:

• 8:00 - 9:00 Breakfast and Registration - Main Building
• 9:00 - 9:20 Welcome, Mark Schiefsky, Welcome and Introductions, Natsuko Rohde - UVAHouse A
• 9:20 - 10:15 “The City and the Individual in the Oedipus Cycle”  - Wesley Hanson - House A
• 10:15 - 10:35 Break - House A
• 10:35 - 11:30 “Naturalizing Myth through Adaptation Processes: Oedipus Rex as Case Study” with Segun Ige - House A
• 11:30 - 12:30 Breakout Sessions - House A
• 12:30 - 1:30 Lunch - Main Building
• 1:30 - 2:25 “Lift him up: Oedipus and the Gospel at Colonus“  with Kenneth Morrell - House A
• 2:25 - 3:45 Breakout Sessions - House A & Main Building
• 3:45 - 4:00 Concluding Remarks - House A

This event was hosted on October 22, 2022, 6:00 am at Howard University Center for Hellenic Studies, 3100 Whitehaven St NW, Washington, DC 20008.

This program was funded by Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

This workshop will explore selected topics in Homer’s great epic Odyssey from global perspectives with a view to deepening study of a poem often taught to K-12 students. Topics will range from the comparative perspective offered by a Serbian epic of return parallel to the Odyssey, to notable episodes in the poem seen through a broader lens, namely the Cyclops Polyphemus against the background of one-eyed monsters in other cultures, and the enchantress Circe both in Homer’s telling and in artistic and literary receptions.

The program will include three 20-minute talks each followed by general discussion, with a brief break after each presentation, and then smaller breakout discussions to brainstorm about how to apply these perspectives to the classroom and otherwise to discuss teaching Homer’s Odyssey.

Speakers:

Tyler Jo Smith

Professor of Classical Art/Archaeology and Director, Interdisciplinary Archaeology Program

“In the Eye of the Beholder: Homer's Cyclops and other One-Eyed Monsters”

The confrontation between Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus in Odyssey book 9 is striking in many ways. Both Greek and Roman artists capitalize on the grotesque aspects of the Cyclops' behavior as well as the clever means by which Odysseus and his men make their escape. This presentation will introduce these ancient images, consider the origins of the Cyclops as a mythological figure, and discuss the phenomenon of the one-eyed monster from myths and cultures across the globe including Ireland, India, and the Philippines.

Ivana Petrovic

Hugh H. Obear Professor and Chair of Classics

“The Song of Milman Parry and the Odyssey or How to use ‘The Song of Milman Parry’ in the classroom in order to explain the oral formulaic composition theory”

In the 1930s, Homeric scholar Milman Parry attended performances of local Yugoslav bards and recorded a large number of songs. He studied the local oral epic tradition and by analogy explained the nature of Homeric language. Parry's student, Albert Lord, further expanded and refined his teacher’s theory (hence the so-called ‘Parry-Lord Oral-Formulaic composition theory).

However, Parry’s travels through Ex-Yugoslavia also became a subject of an oral traditional song, which is available in the original Serbian and in English translation as Appendix 6 of Lord’s book The Singer of Tales. In this poem, the local bard Milovan Vojčić tells a story about Parry’s voyage from America to Yugoslavia on the ship Saturnia, meticulously charts Parry's exploration of Vojčić’s ‘heroic homeland,’ describes Parry’s desire to learn about ‘the glorious history’ from the local bards, and how in the process Parry ‘became enamored of the songs,’ the local landscape, and its history. The poem casts Parry in a role analogous to that of Odysseus and Vojčić in the role of the Homeric singer Demodocus. The poem is not directly influenced by the Odyssey, but it draws on the rich local tradition of ‘return songs’ and so represents a comparative parallel to Homer’s Odyssey.

John F. Miller

Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics

“Visions of Circe”

Odysseus on his travels famously encounters Circe, a divine enchantress who momentarily turns his men to pigs and entertains them on her island Aeaea, and Odysseus in her bed, for a year. This talk discusses Odysseus’ encounter with Circe in Homer and some later representations of the character: 1) Madeleine Miller’s recent novel Circe, a reimagining of the figure from Circe’s own point of view which expands upon her life story with appeal to other Greco-Roman myths, such as Medea, the Argonautica, Pasiphae, Scylla and Glaucus, and Telegonus, the son of Circe and Odysseus. 2) an enigmatic depiction of Circe on vases from a cult-center near Thebes, which raise the question of whether there was prejudice against skin color in classical antiquity; 3) the collage ‘Circe’ by the African-American artist Romare Bearden, which outfits the enchantress in West African dress as part of a series that refigures the Odyssey with black characters.

Agenda:

• 10:00 - 10:10 Introductions by John Miller
• 10:10 - 10:30 Tyler Jo Smith, “In the Eye of the Beholder: Homer's Cyclops and other One-Eyed Monsters”
• 10:30 - 10:45 Q&A session
• 10:45 - 10:50 5-minute break
• 10:50 - 11:10 Ivana Petrovic, “The Song of Milman Parry and the Odyssey or How to use ‘The Song of Milman Parry’ in the classroom in order to explain the oral formulaic composition theory”
• 11:10 - 11:25 Q&A session
• 11:25 - 11:30 5-minute break
• 11:30 - 11:50 John F. Miller, “Visions of Circe”
• 11:50 - 12:05 Q&A session
• 12:05 - 12:10 5-minute break
• 12:10 - 12:50 Small Group Breakout Session
• 12:50 - 1:00 Evaluations and goodbyes

The Odyssey Workshop was co-sponsored by the UVA Center for the Liberal Arts and the Clay Endowment of the UVA Institute of Humanities and Global Cultures.

This event was hosted on November 14, 2020, 10:00 am. It was an online program hosted on Zoom.

Topics include: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Vergil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Romare Bearden, Madeline Miller, Robert Graves, and many more!

The third annual Howard University workshop in collaboration with Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies and the University of Virginia's Center for the Liberal Arts will discuss Homer, epic, and the reception of Homer in later literature and art. In addition to presentations by Howard and UVA faculty, we will be joined by two special guests: Gareth Hinds, graphic novelist and illustrator of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Carolivia Herron, author, professor, and radio show host of Epic City.

Group discussion and breakout sessions will include how to adapt the various materials and perspectives to K–12 classrooms and will provide classroom activities. In addition to the presentations and breakout sessions in House-A, Gareth Hinds' exhibition "EPIC" will be on view in the main building at the Center for Hellenic Studies. Participants will tour the exhibit as part of the morning session and will have a chance to talk to the artist after lunch. In the breakout session, teachers will receive materials that can be incorporated into the classroom for future scheduled tours with students.

Schedule: 8:00 – 9:00 Breakfast & Registration - Main Building

• 9:00 - 9:30 Welcome, Allie Marbry, Center for Hellenic Studies, Welcome and Introductions, Natsuko Rohde, Center for the Liberal Arts, UVA - House A
• 9:30 - 10:30 Carolivia Herron, Howard University, “Epic Pathways: Workshop in Creating Classroom Epics for STEAM Curricula” - House A
• 10:30 - 11:00 Break - House A
• 11:00 - 12:00 John F. Miller, Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics, UVA, "Circes" - House A
• 12:00 - 12:30 View “EPIC: Illustrations of Gareth Hinds” Exhibition - Main Building
• 12:30 - 1:30 Lunch - Dining Room, Main Building
• 1:30 - 2:00 Q & A with the artist, Gareth Hinds - House A
• 2:00 - 2:45 Breakout Sessions: (alternating stations)
• 3:00 - 3:45 Carolivia Herron, "Kindergarten Blues: Teaching Homer's Iliad" - House A / Caroline Stark, Associate Professor of Classics, Howard University, "Homeric Receptions" (session 1: Latin Literature; session 2: Art) - Mosaic Room - Main Building
• 3:45 - 4:00 Concluding Remarks; Certificates - House A

This event was hosted on October 19, 2019, 5:00 am at the Center for Hellenic Studies, 3100 Whitehaven St. NW, Washington, DC 20008.

African American Contributions to the Humanities

African American writers, scholars, scientists, artists, and politicians have greatly influenced contemporary American culture but their contributions continue to be marginalized as sub-fields in their various disciplines. In collaboration with the University of Virginia’s Center for the Liberal Arts and Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies, this Howard University workshop will bring to the forefront these important contributions and their relationship to teaching various subjects – history and government, English, Latin and other languages and literatures, drama, and art. We will focus on the tremendous influence of African Americans in twentieth and twenty-first-century American history, scholarship, culture. Central to the program will be presentations by Howard and Harvard faculty geared towards incorporating these masterworks into the K12 curriculum./p>

Topics include the influences of and by African Americans such as W. E. B. Du Bois, President Barack Obama, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Rita Dove, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Romare Bearden, Beauford Delaney, Jacob Lawrence, and others.

Group discussion and breakout sessions will include how to adapt the various materials and perspectives to K–12 classrooms and will provide classroom activities.In addition to the presentations and breakout sessions in House-A, Dr. Michele Ronnick's exhibit "Black Classicists" will be on view in the main building at the Center for Hellenic Studies.

As part of the afternoon session, participants will tour the exhibit and receive materials that can be incorporated into the classroom for future scheduled visits with students.

Free continental breakfast, lunch, and materials.

Sponsored by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations

This event was hosted on October 20, 2018, 5:00 am, at the Howard University Center for Hellenic Studies, 3100 Whitehaven St. NW, Washington, DC 20008.

From The Founding Fathers to Rita Dove

Ancient Greece and Rome have long held the imagination of American writers, scholars, scientists, artists, and politicians from the early colonial period to contemporary times. Its influence, therefore, emerges in the teaching of various subjects - history and government, English, Latin and other languages and literatures, drama, and art. For the inaugural Classics workshop at Howard University in collaboration with UVA, this workshop will focus on the tremendous influence of Classics in American history, scholarship, and culture.

This workshop in American Receptions of Classics offers two presentations by Howard faculty, one presentation by UVA faculty, and a special presentation by Hunter R. Rawlings III, Professor of Classics and President Emeritus of Cornell University. Topics include the influence of Classics among the founding fathers, in the thought and writings of W. E. B. Du Bois, and among African American artists from Phillis Wheatley to Rita Dove. Group discussion after each talk will include how to adapt the various materials and perspectives to K–12 classrooms.In celebration of Howard University's Sesquicentennial in 2017, Dr. Michele Ronnick's exhibit "Black Classicists" will be on view at the Blackburn Gallery Lounge.

As part of the afternoon session, participants will tour the exhibit and receive materials that can be incorporated into the classroom for future scheduled visits with students.

Schedule:

• 9:15 - 9:45 Registration (Coffee and pastries will be served)
• 9:45 - 10:00 Introductions
• 10:00 - 11:00 Hunter R. Rawlings III, Professor of Classics and President Emeritus, Cornell University, "The Lion in the Path"
• 1:00 - 11:15 Break 1
• 11:15 - 12:15 Johnson Olusegun Ige, Assistant Professor of Classics, Howard University, "Rhetoric, Reception, and Two Oratorical Icons: Cicero and W. E. B. Du Bois Compared"
• 12:15 - 1:15 Lunch
• 1:15 - 2:15 John F. Miller, Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics, UVA, "Rita Dove's Mother Love"
• 2:15 - 2:30 Break 2
• 2:30 - 3:30 Caroline Stark, Assistant Professor of Classics, Howard University, "African American Classical Reception and Scholarship"
• 3:30 - 4:00 View "Black Classicists" Exhibition

This event was hosted on November 4, 2017, 5:15 am at Howard University.

Western Culture is fully intelligible only with a good knowledge of the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Painters, poets and other writers, and newer media such as television and film have continued to adapt these classic stories through the ages. Classical myths therefore emerge in the teaching of various subjects - English, Latin and other languages and literatures, art, and even history with its own mythologizing inspired b y ancient patterns of thought. This workshop in Teaching Classical Mythology offers three presentations by UVA faculty and one by the representative of our new partner institution Howard University. Each presentation exemplifies a different approach to the mythological tradition. Group discussion after each talk with include how to adapt the various materials and perspectives to K-12 classroom.

Lunch will be provided.

Presentations:

• John F. Miller, Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics, UVA - 'Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Mythological Tradition in Literature and Art"
• Caroline Stark, Assistant Professor of Classics, Howard University - 'Classical Mythmaking in African American Literature'
• Ivana Petrovic, Hugh H. Obear Professor of Classics, UVA - 'Demeter: Myth and Cult'
• Tyler Jo Smith, Associate Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology and Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Archaeology, UVA - 'God, Hero, and Image: How Greek Vases Teach Greek Myth'

Presented and Sponsored by the Center for the Liberal Arts and Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

This event was hosted on November 5, 2016, 5:30 am, at Zehmer Hall, UVA.

Greek and Latin are the sources of approximately 60% of the words we use every day and a much higher percentage of the words we use when talking about literature, government, history, law, science, medicine, and many other subjects we teach. Each of these words has itself an interesting history from its original use to what we take it to mean today. We offer this workshop as an introduction to Greek and Latin and to an exploration of some of the familiar words, phrases, quotes, and abbreviations derived from them, concentrating especially on terminology of literature, government, and history. It will be an opportunity to understand better the words and terminology we use with one another and in our teaching every day.

For the Greek, we will learn the alphabet, will read aloud and together the opening lines of the Homer’s Iliad and Sophocles’ Antigone, and will look at some interesting words such as “democracy,” “metaphor,” and “pedagogy” and how they have developed over time.

For the Latin, we will talk about some common Latin and Latin-derived words, phrases, and abbreviations and their original Roman contexts, as, e.g. (“exempli gratia”), the “ambit” of ambition, Caesar as czar, the censure of the census; “carpe diem,” “veni, vidi, vici,” and many more examples.

Greek and Latin are both descendants of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a language spoken in the late Neolithic by illiterate shepherds and farmers in the steppes of Russia, and which spawned the Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, Indian, and Iranian languages as well. PIE is the distant ancestor of English, too, and is ultimately responsible for well over 90% of our vocabulary. We will explore how linguists have reconstructed PIE and why, as English speakers, we should know about it.

The workshop will conclude with “Stump the Professors,” where the participants can offer up some of their favorite words to see if the Professors can identify their origins!

Instructors:

• Coulter H. George, Associate Professor of Classics 
• Jon D. Mikalson, W.R. Kenan Professor of Classics
• John F. Miller, Arthur F. and Marian W. Stocker Professor of Classics

Agenda:

8:30 - 9:00 Registration and coffee

9:00 - 11:00 Greek alphabet, some Greek words (in Greek), and reading Homer's Odyssey and Sophocles' Antigone (in Greek, of course)

11:00 - 11:15 Coffee break

11:15 - 12:30 Some familiar words, phrases, and abbreviations from Latin and what they mean now and what they meant to the Romans

12:30 - 1:30 Lunch

1:30 - 2:30 Indo-European , what it is, how we know about it, and why it is important

2:30 - 3:15 Stump the professors. Toss out favorite words and phrases and see if professors know what they really mean.

3:30 caivrete, valete, and *solvôs hste !!!

This event was hosted on November 7, 2015, 3:30 am.

Medea is one of the most complex figures in Greek mythology-helping heroine, jilted lover, barbarian, witch, dark avenger, child killer. The most influential depiction is Euripides' tragedy Medea, performed in Athens for the first time in 431 B.c. This workshop offers several different perspectives on Euripides' drama with a view to teaching it in the high school classroom. Participants will read the play in the translation by Diane Arnson Svarlien - one of the presenters at the workshop - a copy of which they will receive in advance. The workshop will also include viewing and discussion of the renowned Kennedy Center production of the Medea featuring Zoe Caldwell and Dame Judith Anderson.

Agenda:

• The Morning 'A Day in the Greek Theater in 431 B.c.' by Jon Mikalson, 'Capturing Euripides' Medea in Translation' by Diane Arnson Svarlien, 'Medea after Euripides' by John F. Miller
• Lunch Viewing of the Kennedy Center Production of the Medea.
• The Afternoon Discussion of performance and of teaching the Medea , moderated by Lisa Marshall

This event was hosted on March 12, 2011 - 5:00am at Zehmer Hall, University of Virginia