Research

Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) and Paul Elmer More (1864–1937) were the leading lights of the New Humanism, a consequential movement of literary and social criticism in America. Through their writings on literary, educational, cultural, religious, and political topics, they influenced countless important thinkers, such as T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Russell Kirk, Benedetto Croce, Werner Jaeger, and George Will. Their work became the source of heated public debates in the 1920s and early 1930s. The belligerent criticisms of Babbitt and More—composed by such famous intellectuals as Ernest Hemmingway and H.L. Mencken—have ensured that the New Humanism has seldom been properly appreciated. Humanistic Letters helps remedy this problem, by providing for the first time the extant correspondence of Babbitt and More, which gets to the heart of their intellectual project.

Dr. Polyvia Parara presented a paper entitled "The Portrayal of Ancient Greece in the Nineteenth-Century: The Parallel Lives of Elisavet  Contaxaki’s Classical Bouquet and Leon Melas’ O Gerostathis" at the 26th Modern Greek Studies Association Conference, hosted by the California State University in Sacramento, California, on November 7-10, 2019.

The paper focuses on a comparative examination of the portrayal of ancient Greece in both of these understudied volumes. Both works aim to exemplify the idea of a cultural and national  Hellenic identity based on the aesthetic and moral values of Classical Greece in their international and national audiences respectively.

Congratulations to Professor and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Emerita Judith Hallett, who has received the 2019 Leadership Award of the Women's Classical Caucus. This award is "given to an individual for outstanding contribution in encouraging women to enter and remain" in the field of Classics. The award was announced at the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in Washington, D.C. on January 2nd, 2020.

On June 28th-29th, 2019, Dr. Polyvia Parara presented a paper on "Unifying the Fragmented Verb: Teaching Modern Greek as a Foreign Language" at the 27th International Conference on Education and Otherness / and Modern Greek as a Second or Foreign Language, I.PO.D.E., Conference Center University of Patras, Greece.

This is the third paper Dr. Parara has given so far this year.  In March, she presented "Classics in Reception:  Cultural Identity and the Unique Case of Classical Bouquet" at the 50th Convention of the Northeast Modern Languages Association in Washington, D.C. 

On April 13, in the context of the 3rd Modern Greek Studies conference for undergraduate students which she has organized here at Maryland, on the topic of "Nostos and Immigration from Homer to Demotic Songs," Dr. Parara presented a paper on "Nostos in Modern Greek Literature:  Tradition and Modernism."

Finally, in November of this year, at the 26th Biennial Conference of the Modern Greek Studies Assocation, she will give a paper on "The Portrayal of Greece in the 19th Century:  The Parallel Lives of Elisavet Kontaxaki's Classical Bouquet and Leon Melas' O Gerostathis."

On Saturday, September 15, Classics alumna Angelina Wong (B.A. 2013) directed the premiere of her musical composition, "Latona," at the New Music DC Coalition conference at Georgetown University.  The piece was inspired by the episode in Book 6 of Ovid's Metamorphoses in which the goddess Latona gives birth to Apollo and Diana; some of Ovid's text was sung, in Latin, by soprano Catherine Campbell and alto Gabrielle Rivera,  accompanied by Jacob Coppage-Gross and Daniel Lewis, guitars; Harold Caceres, piano; Emma Baker, viola; and Joe Ichniowski, cello.

Ms. Wong received her associate's degree in music at Montgomery College in 2017, with a focus on vocal performance and composition.  She has performed with numerous choirs, including the National Philharmoic Chorale at Strathmore, the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra, and the Palestrina Choir at the University of Maryland.  Latin and ancient Greek poetry inspires her to compose with ancient text, as featured in this, her first performed piece. 

Professor Eric Adler's 2017 book, Classics: The Culture Wars and Beyond, has just been reviewed in the Classical Journal online.  

Congratulations to Professor Jorge J. Bravo III, whose book, Excavations at Nemea IV:  The Shrine of Opheltes, has just been published by the University of California Press. 

The following description of the book is taken from the University of California Press website:

"The Sanctuary of Zeus at ancient Nemea has been a rich resource for archaeological investigation and analysis conducted by the University of California over the past forty years. The Sanctuary hosted one of the preeminent athletic festivals of ancient Greece, the Nemean Games. Just as the Olympics were celebrated in connection with the cult of Pelops at Olympia, the games at Nemea were founded on the worship of the hero Opheltes. The Shrine of Opheltes in the Sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea offers one of the best examples of an ancient Greek hero cult documented in the archaeological record. This final and most significant volume in the Excavations at Nemea series presents the results of the excavation of the Shrine from 1979 through 2001 and analyzes the Shrine's features and contents in order to understand its history and use. A study of the literary and artistic evidence about the myth and cult of Opheltes contextualizes the archaeological findings and illuminates the hero's significance to the Sanctuary and its renowned festival, the Nemean Games."