Eta Sigma Phi members took advantage of the beautiful Spring day by hiking Poole Steeple, grilling out at the Dickinson Farm, playing wiffle ball and having a bon fire!

From 8:30 to 3 o’clock ATS was packed with excited high school students adjusting togas and the buzz of carefully memorized Latin lines, and was even covered by the Patriot News. You can read more about it here: If you walked past ATS parking lot on May 8th, you may have seen a lot of high school students dressed in togas and waving swords around. Wednesday was the annual Latin Fest, hosted by the Department of Classical Studies at Dickinson. This is why you might have spotted the reenactment of Caesar’s death at the hands of Snooki (“Et tu, Snooki?”) or heard the familiar sounds of the Dora the Explorer theme song being sung in a less familiar language. Latin Fest, sponsored every year by the Capital Area Classics Association, allows students to show off their command of the Latin language in competitions that include songs and skits conducted in Latin, a Greek and Roman themed fashion show, a vocabulary competition and more. It also gives Dickinson students a chance to use their own Latin skills outside the class room, as they are primarily responsible for judging the festivities, along with the classics professors. This year, the Dickinson chapter of Eta Sigma Phi had about a dozen members participate in Latin Fest, either grading the amazing exhibits that lined the outer halls of ATS, or judging the live skits and songs that took place throughout the morning.  PennLive Latin Fest

 

 

 

Prof. Mastrangelo brought ancient Greek alive and into the theater recently at a performance of "Oedipus at Colonus in Nine Fragmentary Tableaux," a set of original incidental music for Sophocles' play Oedipus at Colonus, written by Dickinson music professor Robert Pound. The music was originally written for a 2008 production of the play. Prof. Pound re-scored it recently for the Novus Trombone Quartet, the 2013 artists in residence at Dickinson. At two recent performances of the music, Prof. Mastrangelo was called in to read Sophocles' chilling version of the curse Oedipus speaks to his son, Polyneices. Polyneices, seeking his father's blessing and allegiance in taking Thebes, is instead rebuked and cursed by Oedipus for being more concerned with his own ambition than with his blind and homeless father's well-being. The performance included not just the superb playing of Novus and the sounds of Sophocles' Greek, but also readings in English from the play by students from Prof. Karen Kirkham's Movement and Text class: Holly Kelly ('15), Lauren Brennan ('13), Jeremy Lupowitz ('15), and Christina Errico ('15), who is a Classics major. Seen here in Rubendall Recital Hall after the show are Prof. Mastrangelo (center), Michael Clayville, director of Novus (left), and Robert Pound.

 

A podcast by Classics major Dan Plekhov (’14) about chariot tactics in Homer is the number one download on Dickinson iTunesU channel, beating out even the excellent content provided by our Admissions office. Chariots appear frequently in the Iliad, Dan notes, but Homer notoriously seems to have little idea of how they would actually be used in combat. He then points out the exception, a passage that does seem to describe realistic chariot tactics, and argues that it reflects memories of Mycenaean culture, not the experience of contemporary societies of Homer’s own day. The passage is Iliad 4.297-309. Dan discusses it, gives his own translation, and reads it aloud in the original Greek. You can find it on Dickinson’s iTunesU channel via the iTunes store, or listen here while looking at the associated images:Homer

"The First Twenty Roman Emperors," is a new Latin reader written by Dickinson classical studies alumna Kristin Masters ('02?). It contains selections from Eutropius adapted for beginning readers of Latin, and equipped with vocabulary, translation tips, and several useful appendices. It is available now in print from among the trusted resources published by the American Classical League  It should be a very useful resource for teachers of Latin who are looking for a high interest student text, supplemental text, or a sight-reading resource. Congratulations, Kristin!