The Classics Program's
Report for 2005
Staff Movements
Unusually in neither semester were staff away on study leave, but Dr
Jamset spent Dec. 2004 and Jan. 2005 in Oxford successfully completing
a PhD thesis on Statius’ Thebaid.
Em. Professor Beryl Rawson returned to Classics this year as a Visiting
Fellow continuing her studies of the Roman family. She is also updating
the coin entries for the Classics Museum catalogue. Dr Daniel Tangri
was appointed a Visiting Fellow and extended his research to the later
reception of Demosthenes.
Sadly Em. Professor Paul Weaver died early in the year. Since retiring
from the chair of Classics at the University of Tasmania and moving
to Canberra, he had been a Visiting Fellow in Classics, participating
in seminars and regularly contributing articles on Roman office-holders
to major international journals. He was a much-loved and much appreciated
colleague.
Students
Three PhDs were celebrated early in the year. James McDonald and Daniel
Tangri, both supervised by Dr Douglas Kelly, were awarded the degree
by the ANU for theses on Asebeia: Athens and the Alcmeonidae and on
Relevance in Athenian Orators respectively. Colleen Chaston, enrolled
at Victoria University, Wellington NZ, and co-supervised by Dr Minchin
of ANU, was awarded the degree for her thesis on Greek tragedy (Tragic
Props and Cognitive Function). In the course of her PhD studies she
had taught Continuing Greek for several years at ANU. At the same time
Claire Jamset’s Oxford doctorate was a cause for celebration.
ANU PhD Scholars Mr James Black and Ms Naomi Clarke, both supervised
by Dr Minchin, are writing theses on Homer and Apuleius’ The Golden
Ass respectively. Mr Michael Power, also a PhD Scholar working on Homer
and supervised by Dr Minchin, has been based in Melbourne this year
and undertook part-time teaching in Classics at Monash University. He
presented a paper at the Homer Seminar III, held in Canberra. A PhD
scholarship was awarded from 2005 to Mr Jesse Boyd who is studying the
masculine in Roman epic, supervised by Dr Jamset. Dr Minchin also co-supervises
(with Dr Haines) an MPhil student who is writing on the hero in Homer
and Shakespeare. Miss Sarah Randles, a part-time PhD student completing
a thesis on medieval embroideries of the Tristan legend supervised by
Dr Moffatt, is Vice-Principal of Sancta Sophia College in the University
of Sydney. Ms Gael Williams continued working part-time on an MPhil
thesis on roses in antiquity, supervised by Dr Minchin.
This year three students were taking courses towards a Graduate Diploma
specialising in Classics.
Mr Daniel King (Ancient Greek) and Mr Stephen Still (Latin) were awarded
Faculty and Graduate School Summer scholarships respectively. They were
also awarded ANU Arts Faculty Honours scholarships for 2005. There was
a splendid group of seven students in the Honours IV cohort, one specialising
in Ancient Greek, one in Latin, one taking Combined Greek and Latin
Honours and four taking Classics or Ancient History. Of these four were
awarded first class honours degrees and one a 2A, while two studying
part-time are continuing.
Undergraduate students in the Classics and language courses continue
to be of a high calibre and, on the whole, achieved excellent results.
Indeed this year there were outstanding students in all fields including
three PhB (Hons) students and one with a Regional Scholarship.
The Classics Society maintained the tradition of well attended lunch-time
barbecues and a Trivia Night and produced a regular student newssheet,
“Korax” (“The Crow”).
Brynrefail Awards
Two awards each semester are made through the Brynrefail Trust to undergraduate
students who perform at an outstanding level in either or both Ancient
Greek and Latin and who are proceeding to the next level of language
study. This program, funded by donors who wish to remain anonymous,
has operated in Classics for six years.
AAIA Scholarship
The ANU (Canberra) Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens’
scholarship for 2005 was awarded to Samantha Hamilton who holds a Diploma
of Arts in Ceramics from the University of Ballarat and a Bachelor of
Applied Science in the Conservation of Cultural Materials at the University
of Canberra. She spent 8 weeks in March - May in Greece, gaining experience
in the conservation of stone sculpture as an intern in the Museum of
Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki.
Teaching
Student numbers in Classics were healthy with increasing numbers taking
the languages. From 2005 it became possible for students to commence
the languages as later-year courses with an enhanced syllabus. The substantial
enrolments in both Greek and Latin showed that this option met a very
real need.
Modern Greek, taught not by Classics but in the School, and supported
by the Embassy of Greece and the Hellenic Club of Canberra, had to be
discontinued because of disappointingly low enrolments over the four
years in which it was offered.
All three Classics staff taught courses at all levels from first year
to doctoral supervision. Dr Benjamin Kelly, a member of the History
Program in the School of Social Sciences, offered first-year and later-year
Ancient History courses which again this year provided welcome additions
to the Classics major. Other relevant courses in the Faculty also contribute
to the major.
Dr Jamset taught Continuing and Intermediate Latin, an Advanced Greek
course (Homer, Odyssey) and two Advanced Latin courses (Cicero’s
Pro Caelio and Virgil’s Aeneid 11).
Dr Minchin taught Traditional Grammar which provides an introduction
to both Greek and Latin and had an enrolment of just under 50 students.
She also taught Continuing Greek and an Advanced Latin course, studying
Catullus, as well as the later-year Ancient History course based on
the Iliad: Homer and the Trojan War, with a class of over 40 students.
Dr Moffatt taught Intermediate Greek and two Advanced Greek courses
in which Euripides’ Ion and Thucydides’ account of the Athenian
invasion of Sicily were studied. The first-year course Myths and Legends
of Greece and Rome continued to attract an enrolment of over 60 students.
One Honours IV seminar, on Tall Stories: Fantasy and the Fantastic
in Classical Literature, was taught by Dr Moffatt and together Dr Jamset
and Dr Minchin taught the other seminar which was on Greek and Latin
epic. All three staff joined the Honours IV language students in extensive
reading weekly of Greek and Latin texts, covering Euripides’ Bacchae,
Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, Plautus’ Amphitryon, and passages
from the six epics studied in Semester 2.
Dr Minchin supported PhB students in their Greek grammar and in reading
Catullus’ mini epic, Poem 64.
Service to the Faculty and the University
Dr Jamset served on both the PhB committee and the Research Committee
for the Faculty of Arts.
Dr Minchin was the Convener of the Classics Program and Curator of the
Classics Museum. As Curator she is ex officio a member of the committee
of the Friends of the Museum. She is also a Vice-President of the ANU
(Canberra) Friends of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens.
She served as a member of the Board of the National Institute of the
Humanities; as alternate member on the University Prizes and Awards
Committee; as a member of the sounding committee to report to the VC
on the Director of CASS; as member of the working group on the structure
of the Research School of the Humanities; and as a member of the Board
of Fellows, University House. With Ms Aznarez, of the Spanish Program,
Dr Minchin gave a lecture on the relationship of Latin and Spanish at
the 2005 Explore Arts Day (20 May).
Dr Moffatt was Classics Honours convener and represented Classics at
Open Day.
Service to the profession
Dr Jamset was co-organiser of the ANU Classics Seminar for 2004 and
2005. In April 2005, she organized the first ANU Roman Epic Seminar,
now intended to be a biennial event. There were approximately 30 registrations
from all over Australia, and 12 papers were presented.
Dr Minchin participated in the Sydney University Latin Summer School
(17-21 January) as teacher at Level 5 (having developed a course of
readings entitled 'The Texture of daily Life in Rome'). Dr Minchin examined
two PhD theses from other universities (Auckland, NZ, and Sydney): one
on traditional oral epic and one on the teaching of Virgil in NSW secondary
schools. She was also Convener of Homer Seminar III, held in the Humanities
Conference Room, AD Hope Building, ANU on December 10-11. There were
35 registrations for the conference (from Australia and New Zealand);
10 papers and one rhapsodic performance were presented.] Dr Minchin
took up the role of co-editor of the journal Antichthon, the journal
of the Australasian Society for Cassical Studies. She also serves on
the editorial board of the Humanities journal, Arts and Humanities in
Higher Education and is a member of the Council of the Australian Archaeological
Institute at Athens.
Dr Moffatt continued as the designated bibliographer for Australia for
the journal Byzantinische Zeitschrift and as a member of the committee
of the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies. She was also a
member of the Management Committee of the journal Mediterranean Archaeology
and was elected to the Council of the Australian Archaeological Institute
at Athens.
Research
Dr Jamset is expanding her PhD on Statius into a monograph, as well
as working on journal articles on Statius and Lucan.
Dr Minchin completed the typescript of a monograph, Homeric Voices:
Discourse, Memory, Gender, to be published by OUP in 2007. A paper,
'The Language of Heroes and the Language of Heroines: Storytelling in
Oral Traditional Epic' has been accepted for publication in The Politics
of Orality, edited by C. Cooper. Another paper, 'Homer on Autobiographical
Memory: the Case of Nestor, was published in Approaches to Homer, Ancient
and Modern, ed. R. Rabel (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2005).
Dr Moffatt edited an article for the Australian War Memorial Journal,
published a book review in Speculum and indexed her 800-page translation
of Constantine Porphyrogennetos’ Book of Ceremonies.
Em. Professor Rawson updated her Children and Childhood in Roman Italy
(Oxford 2003) for the paperback edition (2005) and published an article
‘Circulation of staff between Roman households’ in Zeitschrift
für Papyrologie und Epigrafik, 151 (2005) 223-4.
Dr Kelly Douglas, formerly of Classics and now a Faculty Visiting Fellow,
was an active member of the Classics Reading Groups and continued as
a thesis supervisor and adviser to students. As Visiting Fellows in
Classics, Dr Rod Letchford and Dr Colleen Chaston shared their expertise
with the Program.
Conference papers and seminars
Dr Jamset gave two papers in 2005. The first, at the ANU Roman Epic
conference was ‘Playing with Epic: (re)writing rape in the Achilleid’;
the second, at the Pacific Rim Seminar held in Auckland in June was
‘Enough is enough: the extremity of Parthenopaeus in Statius’
Thebaid IX’.
Dr Minchin gave a paper at the Australasian Society for Classical Studies
annual conference in February: 'Don't be rude and interrupt, Gary: Some
Observations on Interruption in our own world and in Homer's'. She presented
an extended version of this paper at the ANU Classical World Seminar
in March. Dr Minchin had been invited to present a paper at the 25th
Anniversary Symposium of the Australian Archaeological Institute at
Athens Symposium in October. Unfortunately she was unable to attend;
but her paper was read by Dr Stavros Paspalas ('Men's Talk and Women's
Talk in Homer: Rebukes and Reproaches').
At the 2nd Annual Conference of the Australian Early Medieval Association
held in Canberra in September on the theme “Text and Transmission”
Dr Moffatt gave a paper on the transmission of the text of Constantine
Porphyrogennetos’ Book of Ceremonies and a talk in the Classics
Museum on an inscribed Greek tombstone of the Roman period, and on the
history of a Greek vase and two Latin manuscripts which conference members
were able to examine at first hand.
Visiting Fellow Em. Professor Rawson gave invited papers at overseas
conferences, one at the Institutum Romanum Finlandiae in Rome in January
and the other at Notre Dame University in the USA in April.
Community outreach
In March Dr Minchin chaired a panel session at the Manning Clark House
Annual Weekend of Ideas on food history and food traditions. In April
she gave a lecture on the gardens of Pompeii and Herculaneum for Bridges
for Humanity at University House.
Dr Moffatt, as then Secretary of the ANU (Canberra) Friends of the Australian
Archaeological Institute at Athens, organized the prepublication sale
of Australians and Greeks vol. 3, the final volume of this very substantial
history by Hugh Gilchrist, the profit from which went to the Friends
of which Hugh, a former ambassador to Greece, was co-founder.
Three reading groups meet fortnightly throughout the year in the Classics
Centre: a Homer Reading Group; a Latin Reading Group; and a Drama Reading
Group. These groups are open to any member of the university community
or the wider community who has an interest in reading texts in the ancient
languages and discussing them.
The ANU (Canberra) Friends of the Australian Archaeological
Institute at Athens
The ANU is an institutional member of the AAIA and is represented on
the Institute's Council by staff from Classics. Locally the ANU (Canberra)
Friends of the AAIA group held four lectures and a dinner during the
year and attracted donations for its biennial scholarship. Both the
lecture series and the scholarship were generously sponsored by the
Hellenic Club of Canberra. Dr Jenny Webb spoke about excavations at
the site of Marti, in Cyprus; Dr Elizabeth Pemberton spoke about cooking
and cuisine in Ancient Corinth; Dr Ian McPhee spoke on drinking and
drinking vessels at this same site. Finallly, Professor Peter Wilson
spoke on 'Musical Politics, Political Music: The Power of Music in Early
Greece'. A fund-raising dinner, held at the Club, and organized by one
of the Friends, Mrs Helen Stramarcos, was a financial and social success
with over 100 Friends and their guests attending. Dr John Yiannakis
of Curtin University spoke on patterns of migration from Greece to Western
Australia.
Museum news
A number of museum tours for the public were conducted during 2005,
including: Marist College; Lake Ginninderra College, Tuggeranong College,
and Canberra College.
The Classics Program made a successful bid for a small Roman bronze
statuette representing Aphrodite wringing the water from her hair as
she emerged from the sea.
With generous donations from the Friends of the Museum it was possible
to acquire a silver fibula and a small tablet bearing an inscription
in Sumerian cuneiform. Two pieces of a Coptic textile were lent for
display.
The Friends of the ANU Classics Museum
The Friends of the ANU Classics Museum were established to support the
activities of the museum and to provide a focus for community interest
in the ancient world. Membership stands at 140 individuals and families.
In 2005 the committee of the Friends organized six well-attended events.
Speakers included Mr Toga Ornek (on the Gallipoli film which he had
made); Dr Douglas Kelly (on the film Alexander); Dr Karin Sowada (on
Egyptian mummies); Dr John Whitehorne (on the Great Pyramid); Professor
Martha Joukowsky (on the Great Temple at Petra); a Museum Happy Hour
was held one evening with floortalks by Richard Whiteley of the Glass
Workshop at the ANU School of Art and Ms Harriet Barry, a Canberra glass
artist. Finally, with the assistance of Mrs Nancy Sever, Curator of
the Drill Hall at the ANU, the Friends organized a special evening with
the Jean Bellette exhibition at the Drill Hall. Mrs Rosanna Hindmarsh,
President of the Voluntary Guides at the National Gallery of Australia,
was the guest speaker.
The Classics Centre
Mr Ian Pritchard, Ms Mineke Peerboom, and Ms Susan Ford, with other
friends of Classics, again spent many days over the year putting the
Classics Library in the Classics Centre in order, especially cataloguing
newly donated books, including the very extensive library of the late
Professor Weaver and the Latin books of a Sydney teacher the late Mrs
Hutching which were donated by her son Alan and a Classics collection
of Mrs Gwenyth McNeill, longtime teacher of Ancient History in Canberra
secondary schools. It was noted with regret that Mr Jim Gale, a student
here in his later years who had donated many Ancient History books to
the Centre, died recently in Melbourne.
