Classics major Alice Ettling ('12) is the department's new Digital Projects Intern.  She will spend approximately six hours per week for humanities projects sponsored by the department faculty, in particular the Dickinson Classical Commentaries.  The current focus of her work is the digital Caesar commentary begun this summer by Prof. Francese and classics major Brendan Boston ('11), using Mediawiki, the software behind Wikipedia.

Classics major Brendan Boston ('11) spent eight weeks this summer creating an innovative web-based commentary on selections from the Gallic War of Julius Caesar.  Chosen to match the newly announced revision of the Advanced Placement syllabus that will be used for the first time in 2012, the selections were equipped with annotation based on public domain Caesar school commentaries from Google books.  Brendan then added links to historical maps and Google Earth satellite images, vocabulary lists, and other digital enhancements.  Prof. Francese edited the whole and added audio files.  The site will be available as a free textbook for the approximately 8,000 students per year who will take the AP Latin course nationwide.  The Summer Research Internship was funded by the Roberts Fund for Classical Studies, a gift from the family of classics major Christopher Roberts ('74).

Classics major Laura Takakjy ('11) spent eight weeks this summer researching the portrayal of the ancient world in contemporary film, as part of the creation of a new course to be called "Ancient Worlds on Film".  An introduction to Greek and Roman history and culture through reading ancient texts, the course will compare the texts with such films as 300, Alexander, Gladiator, and HBO's Rome series.  Laura created an extensive archive of summary and analysis both of the films and the texts, along with bibliographies of criticism and reviews relating to the films.  The course is tentatively scheduled to be offered in the spring of 2011.  The Summer Research Internship was funded by the Roberts Fund for Classical Studies, a gift from the family of classics major Christopher Roberts ('74).