Classicists in the real world

I read some of these articles about "saving the humanities" and I am amazed at the gloomy picture they paint. It's a naive question, I know, but: what's wrong with someone getting an innocent little undergraduate degree in Classics or English? Why doesn't anyone want to do it? Why are their prospects so dim if they do?

Lots of people work in fields unrelated to the topic of their degree. My brother has a degree in sociology and works in sales (very successfully, I might add). Why do I get the feeling a classics major would have a hard time getting a job like that? William Pannapacker's article in Slate, "How to fix humanities grad school," inspires a couple of thoughts on this.

Pannapacker writes about how an English PhD applying for regular jobs has to hide their advanced degree "like a prison term." He also insists that professors need to be in touch with the current (lamentable) state of their profession. Students and teachers need to abandon the idealism that aids in their exploitation.

Classics BAs face a similar set of problems. Non-classicists make assumptions about their level of experience or interest in the real world. It can also be very hard to convince the students themselves to venture out into the real world. My husband and I have worked hard to convince several students not to pursue Classics PhDs. It seems like a sweet life (and it can be, if everything works out). To a certain extent students see only the people for whom it has worked out. Pin It

The Vergil Strike: Latin in the novels of Jean Webster, Part I

via Wikimedia Commons

Update: the article that led me to Webster's novel is "Girls Reading Vergil: Stories of Latin and Progressive Education," by Rob Hardy (New England Classical Journal 33.2 2006 122-133).

The other day I saw that someone had written an article about the novel Just Patty by Jean Webster, focusing on the Latin classes the characters have to take. (The novel is set at a turn of the twentieth century boarding school, St. Ursula's.)

Extremely spaced out from being on vacation with a baby, I did not save the reference to the article. I did download the novel to my Kindle (it was free). So far I have read Just Patty, its sequel (although published earlier) When Patty Went to College, and part of Webster's best known work, Daddy-Long-Legs. 


Latin is a continuous theme in the novel thanks to Miss Lord, the strict yet intriguing Latin instructor. Although 'Lordy' is a harsh taskmistress for most of the book, by the end she saves Patty and two of her classmates from expulsion. The three girls formed a secret society devoted to enhancing their feminine charms:

"We're going to become sirens," Mae whispered impressively. "We're going to be beautiful and fascinating and ruthless -"
"Like Cleopatra," said Rosalie.
"And avenge ourselves on Man," added Mae.
[....]
"My heart hasn't been broken."
"Not yet," said Mae with a touch of impatience, "because you don't know any men, but you will know them some day, and then your heart will be broken. You ought to have your weapons ready." (204-205 of the 1911 ed.) 

Miss Lord discovers the secret society because of the SAS bracelets the girls wear (for "Society of Associated Sirens"). Patty convinces her the letters stand for "Smiles and Sunshine," and agrees to make her an honorary member. When an SAS member is nearly expelled for flirting, 'Lordy' explains to the headmistress that she herself is a member of this entirely innocent club.

Patty's Latin classes dominate chapter 3, titled "The Vergil Strike," which Hardy discusses extensively in his article. Miss Lord is also an advocate of worker's rights and the new field of sociology. After listening to a lecturer Miss Lord herself brought to campus, Patty decides to help a struggling classmate by striking for 60 line of Vergil per day instead of 80. After a negotiation mediated by the headmistress, Mrs. Trent, Miss Lord and her class eventually settle on assignments of 70 lines per day. Pin It

Favorite Passages from Gods Behaving Badly

"All I did was turn one little mortal into a tree. This is getting totally out of proportion. Harming mortals is fun. We've all done it." (kindle ed. p. 401)

"Odysseus was scrawny," said Hermes. "And he was one of the best [heroes]."
"He didn't look like a mouse," said the woman.
"He was pretty short."
"Yes, but he didn't have such rodenty features."
"Well, it was the best I could do at such short notice." (kindle ed. p. 3460) Pin It

The historiography of Roman emperors: the new Caligula statue

Articles about the recently discovered statue of the emperor Caligula get a lot of mileage out of casually referring to him as "the incestuous and lunatic Roman emperor" or "s**-crazed despot." I understand the impulse; I have found referring to bizarre figure in classical literature in a matter-of-fact, almost bored way an effective rhetorical tool in the classroom.

But it turns out that Caligula might not have been as crazy as we imagine. Very few contemporary accounts survive; the main sources for his reign are Suetonius and Cassius Dio, who wrote 80 and 180 years after his death. If you are a fan of the Tudors, you might compare this to the posthumous accounts of Anne Boleyn that accuse her of having six fingers and a giant mole on her neck, which are now acknowledged to be false and intended as anti-Protestant propaganda.

So maybe Caligula was actually as crazy as we imagine him to be, and maybe he wasn't. But in the final analysis, he was still a Roman emperor; it's unlikely he was a nice person.

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Briefly Noted: Ancient vases buried in cat litter, tragicomic 'Pandora'

One of my favorite things about archeology is the way everyday life intrudes on it. The Greek artifacts Roberta Beach Jacobson discovered while clearing out her cat litter dump site are a great example.


Pandora: A Tragicomic Greek Romp, despite involving Greek mythological characters in non-canonical plots (a pet peeve of mine) sounds worth seeing. The reviewer observes that "the characters throw ... curve balls at archetypes"; and that to me is a salient feature of the original Greek myths. Look into a Greek mythological figure, such as Heracles or Odysseus, and you will find them behaving in completely opposite ways in various myths. It's just that usually one myth or set of myths has become dominant.



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What are Latin principal parts, Part II

Read Part I here.

Review: Latin principal parts are a list of four Latin verb forms. These forms are chosen because if you know them, you can successfully write out or translate *any* form of that verb.

The first form is the first person singular of the present indicative active. This form ends in a long -o: laudo, clamo, facio.

2. The second form is the present active infinitive. This form is called 'infinitive' (Latin for "not limited") because it is a very open-ended form, it just means "to …. run/sit/whatever."

The form is called 'present' because the action is taking place in the present moment ("to run" instead of "to have run").

It is called 'active' because it describes something a person would do themselves ("I like to run") rather than something they would do to an inanimate object or another person ("I like to run" as opposed to "race to be run"). Pin It

Athens on edge

On a recent visit to Athens, Allyn Harvey observed the city's mood:

People, even those who appear financially secure, are nervous and discontented. Walking 30 blocks across Athens late one afternoon, I am struck by how often we find ourselves on streets filled with loitering young men, some throwing angry glances our way. I feel under threat. We are two weeks after a round of clashes between protesters and police at Syntagma Square, and two weeks before another round. If I were an Athenian, I'd be seething too.  

The ravaged economy ends up taking a toll on our chosen restaurant for our last night in town. The place had closed, so we found ourselves hungry and a little lost about what to do for dinner. We walk into a boutique hotel that seems out of place in the neighborhood and ask two young men at the desk what to do. Half an hour later, we walk into Alexandras, a very Greek restaurant well off the tourist loop. Our table is in a small courtyard. The Greeks around us eat and drink at a leisurely pace. What makes the scene special to us is how normal it seems to be for everyone else. It's one of a very few places where we saw Athenians let their guard down.

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