The Great Gatsby and the Pantheon

All who have suffered through my Greek Art and Archaeology lectures long enough to arrive at the Archaic period know that I have a fondness for F. Scott Fitzgerald. I often recite one of the opening lines of Tender is the Night as a crutch to convey a cultural sense of the Greek Kouros, "[m]ost of us have a favourite, a heroic period, in our lives;" I employ art to explain art. 

So you can imagine that I'm pleased to see The Great Gatsby (Der Grosse Gatsby?) back in the theatre this summer. I have yet to see it, so I will spare the movie review. Beyond being pleased to see Fitzgerald -- and the Jazz Age along with him -- returning to contemporary culture, I was happy to see a broad commercial film push something of greater substance than robots that change into cars. 

Cinema, in lockstep with a good portion of contemporary culture, is cynical about our desired level of intellectual fitness. Robots that fight monsters, various flavours of the apocalypse, superheroes from other planets, superheroes that fight robots, robotized heroes that fight other robotized villains, Nitrous Oxide burning race cars, and other escapist fantasy dominate the summer movie schedule. I'll admit that the sheer spectacle of these movies is occasionally welcome, along with the popcorn and soda they are served up with; but just like the actual junk food, the mental junk food shouldn't be a central component of our diet.

(I'll spare you my condescending movie recommendations; I will not tell you that your time is better spent seeing Upstream Color, Like Someone in Love, or Beyond the Hills, because no one likes that kind of discussion. I will not even consider recommending a re-read of Fitzgerald before seeing the film.)

Instead the film got me thinking about audiences and engagement. Fast and Furious prevents us from using most of our brains -- if we did, the movie would crash just like the cars in it. Iron Man, Superman, The Avengers, and others takes us for a ride mostly as a passive passenger, and while they do dip into myth, archetypes, and lots of Joseph Campbell territory, we are wowed by spectacle more than anything else. That is, our attempt to intellectualize them will eventually lead us to a cul-de-sac named "Entertainment". On the other hand, a film such as Upstream Color pays off very little for those who don't want to do the intellectual wrestling to come to terms with it (the Sampler was Circe, right?). 

I pondered this question while walking through Rome early one morning and found a solution our problematic cultural diet. The Pantheon. One can (and thousands of visitors do) marvel at it because it is famous, because it is old, or simply because it is big. It leaves an impression. You don't need a Classics B.A. to appreciate it as a monument, and the thousands that pass by every day undoubtedly find new reasons to admire and engage with the building. It makes us feel small and temporary compared to its eternality; it makes us appreciate the best of human achievement, especially considering its age; it takes us out of the everyday and forces us to engage with masterpieces of human expression. It exemplifies humankind making its boldest statements. 

But if you do have a degree in Classics, the building never stops giving. Its significance is also indicated by the double pediment emulating the roofline of the Propylaia on the Athenian Acropolis, the octostyle porch not dissimilar from the Parthenon, and the spherical interior recalling earlier domes, both concrete and corbeled. It is subtly imbued with meaning through its metrology that links the building to the Imperial fora and the earlier building whose pedimental inscription it borrows: M AGRIPPA LF COS TERTIUM FECIT. Or perhaps the resonance is in the reception: here is the model for numerous villas of Palladio, of the Library of the University of Virgina and countless other civic and public buildings in North America. A little bit of the Pantheon's DNA can be found in the hulking concrete designs (and Brutalist designs) of the twentieth century: Frank Lloyd Wright's Googenheim in Manhattan, or Oscar Niemeyer's national congress building in Brasilia, or even McMaster's own Health Sciences Building.

Whatever your level of engagement, investigations of the Classical World will fulfill your query and push you forward just enough to inspire you to know a little more. This is one of the beauties of studying Classics: it will give as much as you take, and provide something of value at every step along the way. 

Congratulations to Mac Classics Graduates!

Congratulations to all Mac Classics Graduates, ever shall your names, honours, and praises remain.

Mac Classics graduates were recognized by the Faculty of Humanities with numerous awards. Congratulations to Ms. Naomi Neufeld and Mr. Owen Phillips, who placed first and second for the Dean's Medal for Excellence in the Humanities. Ms. Neufeld and Mr. Phillips were also both awarded the A.G McKay Prize in Classical Studies. Ms. Neufeld is presently excavating at Cerveteri, Italy and Mr. Phillips recently co-curated the Antiquities exhibition at the McMaster Museum of Art :  http://www.mcmaster.ca/museum/exhibitions_schedule.html. Both students will return to Mac in the Fall to undertake graduate studies in the Department of Classics.

Studying Culture and Creating Culture, or Why Apotropaic Cupcakes Matter

Classics 735 Graduate Seminar in Winter 2013 examined the relationship between a city and its countryside (asty and chora); we examined the foundation of apoikiai in the eighth century BC and border conflicts across the Classical period, the installation and use of extramural and intramural sanctuaries, and discussed new foundations and developments with the city in the Archaic and Classical periods. Our investigations took us to the Argive Heraion; the Athenian Acropolis; Delphi and the poetics of Colonization; the Achaean apoikiai of southern Italy; intramural sanctuaries and the use of public space in Syracuse, Megara Hyblaia, Selinus and Akragas; the greek-indigenous border in Sicily; Aitna and the court of Hieron with Pindar and Aeschylus; and the frontier contested by Athens and Thebes. 

The beautiful thing about a seminar is that not only did we examine a culture, but also created one. 

To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus Finch summarized cross examination by stating that you never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to. A seminar is different. we are all participants -- instructor and students (both roles exist in name and attendance-taking only) alike work together because there is something we don't fully understand and with it academic territory to convert from unknown to known. In this pursuit, there is strength in numbers; by dividing up the material into areas, each seminar member can make a contribution that builds to a greater understanding. To see seminar members feed off one another and collectively create an understanding is to see success take flight. It begins with providing a question, bibliography, and a foundation level of knowledge regarding how these questions are treated in scholarship today, but then develops in its own direction shaped by the investment and involvement of the members. When that collides with an ethos that binds everyone, the results move from satisfactory to sublime. To get a group of students to care about an angle or view or theory that they had not been familiar with before (territoriality, the significance of Pindar at Syracuse, the location of Xouthia) is good, when that expands into caring enough to create apotropaic-anti evil eye cupcakes, it is even better.

Award Winning Mac Classics Students

Congratulations to Mac Classics Major Mr. Brendan Palangio on being awarded 3rd place in the Classical Association of Canada's undergraduate essay competition. The essay, "'Books from the Ships' and Editors of Homer: The Library of Alexandria and Ptolemaic Cultural Hegemony," was written for Dr. Corner's 2LB3 History of Ancient Greece II. Mr. Palangio comments:

"In this paper, I explored the underlying political function of the Library of Alexandria, namely it's goal of achieving a Ptolemaic hegemony over Greek literary culture. I examined the Ptolemaic imperialist policy of zealously gathering, hoarding, and copying books as to house under one roof the entirety of Greek culture. I also analyzed the workings of library scholars, such as, Zenodotus of Ephesus, Callimachus of Cyrene, Apollonius of Rhodes and Aristophanes of Byzantium. I examined their efforts in cataloging, 'correcting', and commenting on works, and how these efforts created and perpetuated a Ptolemaic hegemony over literature in the Hellenistic age. Finally, I explored how the library acted as a connection to the Greek homeland, and a unifying force for Greeks in an alien world."

More information on the award can be found here: 

http://cac-scec.ca/wordpress/activities/competitions/eng_essay-contest/

The Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University also has an undergraduate essay award prize; information can be found here: http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/awards/essays.html

Congratulations also to Ms. Naomi Neufeld (Mac Classics `13), who recently presented the results of her Undergraduate Student Research Award at the USRA Poster Session. Ms. Neufeld (above, left, with 2011 USRA winner Owen Phillips and Classics Club Executive Emily Lemond) investigated the acculturative forces on Etruscan Culture in the Archaic period. Her research including participating in an archaeological excavation at Cerveteri (Italy) and visiting numerous archaeological sites and museums in Tuscany and Umbria. More information on the USRA can be found here: 

http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/awards/usra.html

Classics Coffee Hour 14 Nov.

Mac Classics Departmental Events in October

The Department of Classics will host two talks this October:

On Friday, 19 October we will welcome Prof. Fabio Colivicchi of the Dept. of Classics at Queen's University, who will present, "From Etruscan city to Roman praefectura. New excavations in the central area of Caere". 

Friday, 19 October in DSB 505 at 3:00 pm.

On Monday, 29 October, Prof. Susanna Braund from the University of British Columbia will visit as the CAC Central Tour Speaker. She will present, "Women Ventriloquizing Women: Explorations and Extensions of Classical Myth"
KTH B124, 4:30 pm

All are welcome.

Mac Classics Student Excavates in Italy

Ms. Naomi Neufeld (Classics '13) recently returned from the field and reports:

This June, I had the privilege of accompanying Dr. Fabio Colivicchi and the Queen’s Classics department (http://www.queensu.ca/classics/matera.html) on an archaeological excavation in Cerveteri, Italy. The excavation explored the Etruscan site of ancient Caere, which was a major southern Etruscan coastal city. Caere was one of the closest Etruscan cities to Rome, and was renowned for its religious significance and customs (the word “ceremony” even comes from the Latin word caeremonia, which means “pertaining to Caere”). We were working in the civic and spiritual centre of the city, excavating an exceptional Etruscan religious structure, called the Hypogeum of Clepsina. It is a subterranean ritual chamber which is constructed and oriented according to Etruscan cosmology, and which contains Hellenistic Etruscan frescoes, inscriptions, and a network of tunnels and staircases. In a nearby trench, we also excavated a late Etruscan and Roman urban area, in which we uncovered a Roman road, a possible domestic structure, and an underground shrine. This was my first archaeological excavation, and I was thrilled to learn more about archaeological theories, techniques, and practices.

On the weekends, we visited many important Etruscan sites, such as the Villa Giulia in Rome, the Banditaccia necropolis of Caere, and the painted tombs of Tarquinia. We also visited many of the important Classical sights in Rome, such as the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, and the Pantheon. One of the highlights of the trip was an excursion to Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, which had some of the most fascinating and beautiful Roman ruins I have visited. I had such an amazing experience on this excavation that I hope to return and continue digging next year.

For the rest of the summer I am continuing to work on my USRA project, in which I relate what I learnt about the Etruscans during my trip, to further research about their culture and art. My research focuses on the vibrant funerary frescoes which adorn many Etruscan tombs, examining their thematic content and iconography to reveal evidence of Greek influence. Through this research I hope to understand better about the formative influences and cultural stimuli, both foreign and local, that created and contributed to the colourful and unique society of the Etruscan peoples.