Interesting interview:

Things I’ve Learned with Matt Roller | Johns Hopkins Newsletter.

Professor Francesca D’Alessandro Behr, Associate Professor of Classics and Italian Studies at UH, spoke about the historical figure Cato the Younger and how he fit into history on Tuesday during a lecture at the Honors commons.

Behr was recently awarded the 2010 Ross M. Lence Teaching Award. This award is given to the teacher who shows excellence in all aspects of teaching in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

In a brief introduction, Richard Armstrong, Associate Professor of Classical Studies in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, praised Behr for her work.“

(The award) is not just a tribute to her hard work in the classroom: she has been involved in many programs with her work with the Honors College and Women’s Studies, but it is also a tribute to my genius for making sure that she got hired,” he said, drawing laughter from those in attendance.

In a lecture titled “Remembering Liberty: Cato the Younger in Lucan, Dante and Addison,” Behr went into great detail about the life of Cato the Younger and how he was viewed by future historical figures such as Cicero, Dante, Addison and George Washington as a defender of the Republic.

Once Pompeii was killed, Cato was the leader of the republican army. He fought against Caesar coming into Rome to start the civil war, but in the end, he was defeated. The republic perished and Cato decided to take his own life. He did not want to live with the new political situation in Rome.

Yet it is not his defeat that stands out in the minds of historians, rather the fact that he stood up to Caesar and held true to his ideals.

“The picture of Cato is not complete without a mention of Stoicism,” Behr said. “The man who is just and good is the one who can best control himself. Once he has obtained that control over himself, he can lead his life in whatever direction he chooses.”

This is the philosophy that many historical figures admired in Cato. Behr said his steadfastness in his ideals make him a primary reference in that regard.

“He is this solid rock,” she said. “He is this light which has its own splendor.”

Behr also spoke about Cato in Dante’s Divine Comedy and Joseph Addison’s Cato, and of George Washington and how he was a great admirer of Cato’s.

“After the revolt of Newburgh, he employed Cato’s words to convince his officers, who had not been paid and wanted to separate themselves from the war, to join back into the war,” she said.

She also said Washington staged a production of Joseph Addison’s Cato during the winter of 1777 in Valley Forge.

“I always wondered why Washington would stage Cato,” Behr said. “This is a tragedy about defeat of the republic. Not exactly the best play to lift soldier’s morale. But I feel that Washington felt particularly close to this hero and knew he was fighting for a good cause.

“Perhaps he wanted to send the message to his soldiers that ultimately, results do not matter if you want to fight for the best possible cause,” she said.

via Professor gives insight into historical figure | thedailycougar.com.

Greek society was not much more accepting of public nudity than modern societies are today, Paul Christesen said.

The Dartmouth College classics associate professor said this may come as a surprise because of the numerous depictions of nudes in Greek art and the ancient Greek practice of participating nude in sports competitions.

But in his lecture “Competition, Violence and Nudity: Sport in Ancient Greek Society,” Christesen explained why nudity in sports competition was the exception that proved the rule. The lecture was presented Monday by the History Honor Society and the Barksdale Lecture Series in collaboration with the Classics Club and the Honors College.

He said the practice of exercising and competing in the nude was one method of keeping working-class men, who because of democracy could not be excluded by law, from competing with upperclassmen. Instead of bullying the working-class men, the upper-class men chose to embarrass them.

The upperclassmen were able to devote more time to their private training in the gymnasiums, where they were free to be nude outside without fear of public display thanks to high enclosure walls. By being able to exercise nude in the sun, they were able to tan evenly, unlike the working-class men, who had what is commonly called farmer’s tans.

This uneven tanning was a point of deep embarrassment for the working-class men, who were referred to by the upperclassmen as “white-rumps.”

Alumnus Jim Perry said he enjoyed the topic.

“The premise was interesting and the evidence given was well supported,” he said. “It was interesting that even the Greeks thought farmer’s tans were funny.”

Christesen said before the earliest stages of democracy, the city-states of Greece were run by aristocratic families, and people not born into these bloodlines were excluded from politics completely.

History senior Karra O’Connell helped organize the event.

“I think it’s important for people to understand different aspects of history,” she said. “We do a wide range of talks because it’s good for students to have an extra intellectual stimulant.”

Before democracy was instituted, only about 5 percent of men were able to compete in sports. That number rose to between 35 and 40 percent when democracy was introduced. In the political and sports arenas, it became necessary for people to learn to deal with the changes.

“Societies need to find a balance between order, which is insisting that people obey the rules, and autonomy, allowing the people certain freedoms,” Christesen said.

He made the point that sports was and remains a solid means of helping people learn to obey the rules, function in groups, and deal with losing as well as winning. Christesen said all the schools that were cutting their sports programs might unknowingly be contributing to future societal problems.

“It was pertinent that he emphasized the budget cuts on sports right now and how they could effect our society on a greater scale than we think,” nursing senior Erin Santos said.

via Lecture focuses on reasoning behind nudity in ancient Greek sports | The Shorthorn.

This looks interesting:

Classical scholar Dr. Amanda Wrigley will talk about politics and propaganda on public radio Thursday, April 15, as a visiting lecturer at Western Michigan University.

The free, public talk, “Politics, Propaganda and the Public Imagination: Ancient Greece on BBC Radio, 1920s-1950s,” will begin at 7 p.m. in Room 3025 of WMU’s Brown Hall.

Wrigley earned a doctoral degree from Open University. Her research focuses on the public engagement with ancient Greek drama as an educational subject, cultural element and entertainment source. Her published work concentrates primarily on its use in 20th-century Britain.

Wrigley is currently visiting the United States as a Mellon-Sawyer Postdoctoral Fellow in Classics at Northwestern University. In this position, she helps organize and run the yearlong Sawyer Seminar series “Out of Europe: Reception and Revision of Greek Theatre in the United States.” Her latest electronic resource, “Classicizing Chicago,” is currently in development and will include more than 50 illustrated essays on Chicago’s history of cultural engagement with Greek and Roman antiquity. She is preparing to curate a two-month exhibit on this topic at the Northwestern University Library.

From 2001 to 2009, Wrigley worked at the University of Oxford. As a researcher for its Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, she developed, designed and compiled a database of nearly 10,000 productions of Greek and Roman drama performed internationally on stage, film and radio, from the Renaissance to the present.

Wrigley’s lecture is part of the WMU Department of English’s Scholarly Speaker Series. Her visit is co-sponsored by the Haenicke Institute for Global Education, the journal Comparative Drama, and the WMU Department of Foreign Languages.

via Classicist to speak on radio propaganda | WMU News .

… more details about the venue etc. in the original article