Department News and Events
Yelena Baraz teamed up last fall with Jhumpa Lahiri to teach a class called “Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities: Ancient Plots, Modern Twists". Offered through the Humanities Council, the seminar examined how today’s writers reimagine classical narratives so as to illuminate contemporary issues.
Dan-el Padilla Peralta thinks classicists should knock ancient Greece and Rome off their pedestal — even if that means destroying their discipline.
The Society for Classical Studies is delighted to announce that the TAPA Editor Search Committee has selected Joshua Billings and Irene Peirano Garrison as the new co-editors of TAPA. This is the first time in its history that TAPA will be led by two co-editors. Professors Billings and Peirano Garrison will cover TAPA volumes 152-155 (2022-2025). Volume 153 will include a themed issue, as previously announced, on race, racism and Classics, edited by Professors Sasha-Mae Eccleston and Patrice Rankine.
‘Der “Oxforder Boethius”. Studie und lateinisch-deutsche Edition’ is published by Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin, as part of the series ‘Texte des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit’ (TMA, no. 58). The book, a co-production between a medieval Latinist and a medieval Germanist, focuses on the reception of Boethius's Consolatio philosophiae (ca. 524) in the later Middle Ages. One of the most influential late-antique texts, the Consolation was extremely widespread in the Middle Ages. The rendering of the text into vernacular languages commences almost as early as the glossing and commenting of it.
On a momentous day in which much of the country was watching the polls, the Princeton community was also fixated by another extraordinary event: the Fagles lecture. In the third iteration of the recently-established lecture for Classics in the Contemporary Arts, Tony award-winning director and MacArthur fellow Mary Alice Zimmerman took students and faculty through her extraordinary career in direction and adaptation as part of a talk called ‘Bodies I Have in Mind’.
Yelena Baraz is the Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin Language and Literature, Professor of Classics, and Behrman Professor in the Humanities Council. Her latest book “Reading Roman Pride” is published by Oxford University Press. Here, the Humanities Council interviews her about the book.
What do a stand-up comedian, a museum curator, an essayist, a public engagement manager, an online publisher, a journalist, an IT consultant, and a high school teacher have in common? After studying Classics at university, they are channeling their degrees into work outside academia. Professor Barbara Graziosi and graduate student Jermaine Bryant interviewed these Classicists to produce videos for 'Beyond the Academy,' a RapidResponse MagicProject from the Princeton University Humanities Council.
On Tuesday, October 20th, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students hosted “Documenting Privilege” a FOCUS Speaker Series event featuring Dan-el Padilla Peralta ’06, associate professor of classics at Princeton University, and Anthony Jack, assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. Padilla Peralta’s bestselling memoir, Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League(link is external) was released in 2016. Dr. Jack’s book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students (link is external) was named one of NPR’s Favorite Books of 2019. Undergraduate attendees were provided with a free copy of either of the panelists’ books, purchased locally from Source of Knowledge, an independent, Black-owned bookstore in Newark, New Jersey.
The annual Innovation Forum highlights the broad set of innovations developed at Princeton University and celebrates the faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students conducting this impactful work. The 2020 forum was held remotely on September 29th and featured nine STEM and four cultural and societal advancements.
Tony-award winning director and MacArthur fellow Mary Alice Zmmerman, will deliver Princeton’s 2020 Fagles lecture. Professor Zimmerman has directed and adapted dozens of performances during an extraordinarily rich and creative career. These productions include Metamorphoses, Arabian Nights, Pericles, The Jungle Book, The White Snake and Armida, as well as an opera collaboration with Philip Glass and a new opera based on Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, due to be presented next year. In addition to her creative work, Professor Zimmerman is the Manilow Resident Director of Goodman Theatre, a member of Lookingglass Theatre Company and holds an endowed chair as Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University.