The 88th Anniversary Meeting of the CAMWS Southern Section is coming to UNC-Asheville in Nov. 2008! Click on the following url for the Call for Papers http://www.camws.org/southernsection/meeting2008/index.htm

Announcing a new concentration in Classical Studies, effective fall 2007! This program emphasizes Classical Civilization, Culture, and History in combination with gaining some experience with either the Greek or the Latin language and literature (or both in some cases).

Concentration in Classical Studies

This program is recommended for those students who have interest in the general culture of the ancient world and do not necessarily desire a high level of proficiency in Latin or Greek, or for those who simply wish to broaden their education. This concentration is not recommended for students who wish to go to graduate school in Classics or Archaeology.

Required courses (36 hours) include a choice between Intermediate Greek or Intermediate Latin (after taking beginning Greek or Latin to fulfill the core curriculum requirement), Mythology or Greek and Roman Religion, Greek or Roman Art, Women in Antiquity or Ancient Sexuality, your choice of six hours in ancient History courses, your choice of six hours of upper-division Greek or Latin language courses, and your choice of nine additional hours from any 300-400 level CLAS courses. Social and Cultural Inquiry (in the Anthropology dept.), or Ancient Philosophy/Medieval Philosophy (your choice) may be substituted for three hours of the additional nine required. Other elective courses may be substituted with prior approval of the department chair. CLAS 495, the senior thesis course, is also required.

Major and oral competency will be demonstrated by a final examination consisting of one hour of written translation in Latin or Greek, one hour on a prepared essay topic, two hours on unprepared essay topics and a one-hour oral examination on literature, history and culture based on student readings over the course of study, and on the content of the thesis completed for CLAS 495. Computer competency will be demonstrated through successful completion of CLAS 495.

For more information or to declare a Classics Major with a Concentration in Classical Studies, contact Prof. Sophie Mills, Chair of Classics, smills@unca.edu.

National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week (NLTRW) was March 3-7, 2008. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a Latin teacher, please email us here in the Classics Department (click on "contact us" above), and go to http://www.promotelatin.org/nltrw.htm for more information about promoting the study of Latin.

On Friday, February 29, from 5-7pm we held a kick-off event for NLTRW in the Laurel Forum on the UNC-Asheville campus in Karpen Hall. Area high school and middle school Latin teachers and their students who were possibly interested in a career teaching Latin, administrators who are interested in maintaining a vibrant Latin program in their schools, UNC-Asheville students, and friends of Classical Studies were invited to join the Classics department for a late afternoon get-together. Our featured speaker was Nancy Hanover, ostensibly retired after 40+ years, but still teaching Latin at the Center for Creative Retirement! There were snacks, door prizes and free packets of NLTRW materials and promotional items for the local teachers to distribute in their classes the week of March 3-7, as well as displays of information ranging from obtaining Latin licensure from UNC-Asheville to finding a job through the Americal Classical League's teacher placement service. For more information, contact Dr. Lora Holland: email, lholland@unca.edu or office phone, 232-5043.

Click here for photos of this event!

IO SATURNALIA! Click here for photos!

Italy, Summer 2007 Study Abroad Photos

Simone Scholarship Awarded to Classics Major

As published in the Asheville Citizen-Times on August 9, 2007 under College News:

Simone Project awards senior scholarship

TRYON — The Eunice Waymon-Nina Simone Memorial Project has awarded Megan Elizabeth Miller the 2007 Nina Simone Senior Scholarship. The scholarship award carries a $1,000 stipend.

Miller, the daughter of Brenda B. Miller, is a 2003 graduate of Polk County High School.

She is a senior classics major at UNC Asheville. Her course of study includes a concentration in Greek and Latin and a minor in anthropology.

She has maintained a 3.9 cumulative grade point average throughout her collegiate career.

Miller has presented her research on paleography (the study of early writing) at regional and national conferences, including UNC Asheville’s Symposium on Undergraduate Research and the 2007 National Conference on Undergraduate Research in San Francisco.

Miller holds the additional distinction of being the only undergraduate to be selected as a participant in The Workshop on Latin Paleography and Critical Editing, a five-week program held this summer for international scholars, sponsored by the Philosophy Department at Georgetown University.

After graduation, Miller hopes to attend Oxford University to pursue advanced degrees.

The Simone Project sponsors two general scholarships each year. Scholarships are need-based and open-disciplined, and applicants from across the globe are encouraged to apply.

Awards may be used for both formalized academic study and ancillary cultural enrichment opportunities with an educational emphasis.

Spring 2007 Undergraduate Research Symposium Presentations by Classics Students

Spring 2007 meeting of the North Carolina Classical Association

UNC-A Classics Conference "Classical Conversations" Outreach Photos 2005

UNC-Asheville Archaeological Dig in Asheville Citizens-Times on September 19, 2006, " UNCA students dig up ancient Tuscan ruins" No link available.

Recent lectures

2006

Prof. Rufus Fears gave a timely public lecture on lessons from the ancient superpower, the Roman Empire, for America, a modern superpower, especially with regard to the area we call the Middle East, at UNC-Asheville on Thursday, October 26, from 6:30-7:30pm in Alumni Hall in the Highsmith Union.

J. Rufus Fears is David Ross Boyd Professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma, where he holds the G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty. Professor Fears earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University and is a fellow of many distinguished organizations, such as the American Academy in Rome, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundations. His research has been supported by such institutions as the American Philosophical Society and the National Endowment of the Humanities. Prior to taking his post at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Fears held teaching positions at Indiana University and Boston University, where he served as Chair of the Department of Classical Studies.

A 21-time award winner for outstanding teaching, he was chosen as Indiana University’s first-ever Distinguished Faculty Research Lecturer and has three times been named "Professor of the Year" by the University of Oklahoma. He won the 2005 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. Professor Fears is the author of four books, including The Cult of Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology, and has published a three-volume edition of Selected Writings of Lord Acton, the great British historian of liberty. He has also published more than 100 articles and reviews on ancient history, the history of liberty, and the lessons of history for our own day. (http://www.teach12.com/store/professor.asp?ID=165)

Prof. Jeanne Neumann, Associate Professor of Classics at Davidson College, gave a UNC-A Mills Distinguished Lecturer talk in March on conventional thinkers from antiquity to the modern period who have had a profound impact on the course of human literacy, including Cicero and Erasmus.

Jeanne Neumann is an expert on oral and living Latin, and is member of the board of directors of SALVI (North American Institute of Living Latin). She has led several workshops on how to teach Latin as one would teach a modern language. She serves on the editorial boards of Classical Outlook and Retiarius. She recently published the article on Horace in the Dictionary of Literary Biography and an article entitled "Florus and the Commendatio ad Gloriam in Horace Epistles 1.3." She is currently writing a commentary on Erasmus's Familiarium Colloquiorum (Everyday Conversations) for classroom use. Prof. Neumann won the 2005 Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Award at Davidson College (to read the citation go to http://www2.davidson.edu/common/templates/news/news_tmp01.asp?newsid=4549), and is a past president of the North Carolina Classical Association.