Logan Judy, Author at Classics

Latin Day Welcomes Secondary Students to Campus

November 25, 2024 by Logan Judy

A man making a class presentation with information about Indiana Jones - The Dial of Destiny on the projector screen — Tristan Barnes presents during the 41st Annual Latin Day, which welcomed more than 300 middle and high school students and teachers to UT.

Our 41st Annual Latin Day took place on October 26, 2023, in the UT Student Union. As many as 312 young scholars from Knoxville, Kingsport, and Murfreesboro, their teachers, and chaperones attended a combination of talks and workshops.

The program was enhanced by feedback from our amazing high-school Latin teachers. Sessions were more interactive than before, and tailored to different audience levels to accommodate student attendees from seventh through 12th grade. A business meeting for teachers provided a welcome opportunity to share thoughts and talk about Latin pedagogy and the future of classics.

UT’s Classics Club participated for the first time. Its students designed and moderated a myth-themed trivia game during the lunch period. Our esteemed speakers included faculty from the classics, English, and history departments. We look forward to welcoming even more young scholars on Latin Day XLII (Oct. 30, 2025).

The talks for our 41st annual Latin Day included from the Department of Classics:

Associate Professor Justin Arft, “Mythology from Greece to Rome”;
Lecturer Tristan Barnes, “The Real Dial of Destiny: The Antikythera Mechanism”;
Assistant Professor Sam Blankenship, “mater, mētēr, Mutter, Mom: The Indo-European Language Family Tree”;
Senior Lecturer Dylan Bloy, “Shipwreck! The Roman Taste for Greek Art”;
Lecturer Lorenzo Del Monte, “Roman Paintings Between Past and Present”;
Senior Lecturer Reema Habib, “Smelling Powerful: The Perfumes of Caesar, Cleopatra, and Pericles”;
Distinguished Lecturer Theodora Kopestonsky, “Defigo Eos: How to Curse Someone in Ancient Rome”; and
Chancellor’s Professor Aleydis Van de Moortel, “Pirates of the Bronze Age.”

Also presenting were:

Associate Professor Jacob A. Latham, Department of History, “Roman Social Media: Imperial Communication and Provincial Consensus”; and
Caitlin Branum Thrash, a lecturer in the Department of English and Latin coordinator for the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, “Introduction to Medieval Manuscripts and Paleography.”

UT Classics Going Strong

November 25, 2024 by Logan Judy

It has been another great year for classics in Vol Country. We were able to hire a new medieval Latinist and digital manuscript scholar, Charles Kuper, who also brings considerable expertise in Byzantine Greek, thus further enriching our program and the language offerings of the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. We were sad to lose award-winning Distinguished Lecturer Theo Kopestonsky, but happy for her that she took a tenure-track position at Wabash College. In Theo’s place, we hired Nikola Golubović (PhD, University of Pennsylvania), a specialist in Roman rhetoric and a linguist who speaks or reads no fewer than 13 languages. With the addition of these two energetic new colleagues, our faculty is back to its original strength.

As the number of undergraduate students at UT keeps expanding, more students are drawn to our department. Last year, our number of majors increased by 16 percent, and our minors by a whopping 35 percent. We now have a record 40 majors and 40 minors.

Much credit for this must go to our faculty’s many outreach and recruitment efforts, from Latin Day and Archaeology Day to a variety of high school and on-campus recruitment fairs. Many kudos also must go to the excellent teaching by our faculty, and to their initiatives in creating new courses that introduce students to ever more fascinating aspects of the ancient Greek and Roman world. For example, Tristan Barnes is teaching a new Ancient Astronomy course, using UT’s planetarium to simulate the skies visible to the ancients thousands of years ago. He and his wife, Reema Habib, also have designed a new study abroad course on Roman Britain, set to launch this May.

Our high-quality training is reflected in our students’ excellent results on national Latin exams, their ability to garner national awards, their presentations at professional conferences, and their successes in graduate school and the workplace. We are very happy to see that more of our students are choosing the highly rewarding career path of high school Latin teaching, as there is a chronic shortage of such teachers in Tennessee. As we know, learning Latin is super “brain candy” for high school students.

We remain keen to stimulate research among our students. Our nationally acclaimed Tennessee Undergraduate Classics Research Conference last year drew a record number of participants. We also enjoyed a variety of stimulating lectures by visiting and on-campus speakers on a variety of topics in classics and archaeology.

At the end of August, we said goodbye to our good friend and business manager Ann Robinson-Craig, who decided to join husband Chris in retirement. We will miss her greatly, but will always be grateful for all she has done for us. One of her legacies is to leave us an excellent administrative team, and a fund that supports high-school Latin teacher training.

Thank you for reading this newsletter, and do stay in touch!

Valē/Χαῖρε!

Aleydis Van de Moortel
Professor and Head

Students Train in Moroccan Archeology Lab

November 25, 2024 by Logan Judy

UT classics students looking cool under the Arch of Caracalla at Volubilis, Morocco. From left to right, Isaac Buck, Landon Bryan (with awesome hat), Natalie Newsome, Henry Greene, and Mak Pentz. Photo by Stephen Collins-Elliott.

This past July five classics majors from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, traveled with Associate Professor Stephen Collins-Elliott to help with processing finds from the joint Moroccan-American archaeological project Gardens of the Hesperides: The Rural Archaeology of the Loukkos Valley. The project is co-directed by Aomar Akerraz of the Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine, Rabat and Collins-Elliott.

This summer students worked in the conservation lab at Lixus identifying, quantifying, and inventorying the finds of the past seasons of survey and excavation from the earliest city in northwestern Africa.

“We received valuable training in the identification and quantification of ancient biological remains and artifacts, and the processing of those remains,” said Landon Bryan.

Natalie Newsome explained, “We learned how to quantify artifacts, distinguish the differences between pottery sherds, find the attitude of a rim sherd, the diameter of the vessel from the rim sherd, the percentage missing of the pottery, and how to create highly detailed artifact illustrations.”

Isaac Buck said the trip was an amazing experience. “From the historical sites so closely tied to the myths that I love to study to the incredible opportunity to work in an archaeological lab with materials from thousands of years ago, I felt it was an incredible privilege.”

“For me,” Henry Greene said, “this visit represented a unique opportunity to interface with the history of the Mediterranean in the most unmediated manner I have yet had access to, whether this was the ancient or medieval history preserved in the untold numbers of potsherds we sorted through or the living history of the cities, peoples, and customs of the nation.”

Collins-Elliott led the group on field trips to nearby cities and sites, including Tangier, Tamuda, Tétouan, and Meknes. Volubilis was a favorite for several of the students.

“In Morocco, the presence of this history is palpable,” Greene said. “It hums in the very air, with the Moroccan ways of life, though no doubt much influenced by the modern world.” He noted that during the day the students saw a triclinium in the ruins of Volubilis. Later that day, they would sit at benches around a table in a manner not unlike the triclinium style.

Several of the students noted with appreciation the travel scholarships through the Department of Classics that made the unforgettable trip possible for them.

Dual Major in Classics, Religious Studies Creates Multifaceted Education

September 18, 2024 by Logan Judy

Faculty Notes – Fall 2023

November 30, 2023 by Logan Judy

Justin Arft saw the publication of his book, Arete and the Odyssey’s Poetics of Interrogation: The Queen and Her Question, with Oxford University Press (2022) and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He continues to teach large myth classes and smaller classes in Greek poetry, advanced mythology, and comparative oral poetics. His research will now shift to a second book project on the nature of Greek heroism in archaic Greek poetry and cultural practice, in particular the way in which non-heroic and marginalized characters were used as a means to critique a largely destructive and harmful mode of masculine heroism. Justin has also been invited to contribute a chapter on Odyssey book 7 for Oxford’s Critical Guide to Homer’s Odyssey.

Tristan Barnes is excited to work with UT students on another year, teaching literature, Greek and Roman civilizations, and ancient athletics. His publication on an image of a satyr on a Portuguese lekythos as the constellation Sagittarius was finally printed after an extended COVID-related delay. This turned out to be excellent timing, as he is now busily preparing a new class: CLAS 389 Ancient Astronomy, which will hopefully be offered next year.

Salvador Bartera very much enjoyed his first full year back at UT. In fall and spring, he taught talented students in all levels of Latin, from beginning to graduate. He served on numerous committees, got to know new colleagues, and attended several conferences, including the Tennessee World Language Teaching Association, where he met many high school Latin teachers. He gave a paper on Domitian at a conference in Rome, another paper on Tacitus in the Renaissance in Sestri Levante, also in Italy, and he attended a conference on historiography in Rome. He also participated in the Summer School of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in Munich, Germany. He published a book review, wrote two articles, and continued his editorial work on both a co-edited volume on Tacitus for Oxford University Press and his own commentary on Annals 16. He also traveled extensively in Italy and enjoyed its incredible food and culture.

Sam Blankenship is very excited to have joined the Classics community here at UT Knoxville! In addition to getting her bearings on campus and around town this year, she is looking forward to presenting papers at two conferences as a way to receive feedback on her ongoing book project, which examines the impacts of Achaemenid Persian historiography on Greek and Jewish writers. In November she will share her research on Persian historiographical techniques in Ezra-Nehemiah with audiences at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio, Texas; and in January, at the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, she will argue that the same techniques can also be traced in Alexander’s self-styling and in the work of the Alexander historians. Here on campus, she is already enjoying teaching Greek history and introducing a new crop of Hellenists to the joys of Attic Greek.

Dylan Bloy has been promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer this year. He continues to teach mainly courses in introductory and intermediate Latin as well as archaeology and Roman civilization. He co-directed his tenth season of excavations at the Roman villa site at Vacone, Italy, last summer. The excavations revealed a previously unknown lower terrace on the west side of the villa structure, where parts of two separate rooms were preserved to a height of more than two meters with original built features in situ. One was a kitchen with several ovens built into its wall, the other part of a bath complex with an intact stone basin more than two meters in diameter. These discoveries will require a reappraisal of our approach to the west side of the villa site in subsequent seasons.

Stephen Collins-Elliott continued a summer of fieldwork on his INSAP-UTK archaeology project, Gardens of the Hesperides: The Rural Archaeology of the Loukkos Valley, based around Lixus (modern Larache), Morocco. Last year he presented on fieldwork both at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in New Orleans and at a conference of the Moroccan Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication held at Lixus last December. He looks forward to teaching Roman archaeology this Fall semester and a new course on ancient business and trade in the following Spring.

Chris Craig, Professor Emeritus, has this year enjoyed having time with former students from each of his four decades at UT. He is proud of them all, and was especially glad to see Stephanie McCarter recognized with an Alumni/ae Professional Achievement Award. He was also glad to witness the department’s most recent search, and thrilled that new assistant professor Sam Blankenship has joined the team. Chris spends his days in constant reading, less constant exercise, and enjoying every moment with friends and family. In the last year, he traveled with family from San Francisco in the West to London in the East, acquired a terrific son-in-law, and kept busy enough with book clubs that he sometimes longs for the simplicity of a full-time job. Chris and Ann were delighted to see the departmental endowment they established to support aspiring teachers award its first scholarship this year.

Lorenzo Del Monte continues teaching Greek and Latin as well as culture courses, and he plans to offer Roman law this spring, a course that has not been taught since Susan Martin’s retirement. His research explores the development of the Greek state apparatus through early laws establishing economic value equivalencies, and considers this process in the wider context of Mediterranean and Near Eastern state building. Lorenzo also works on Linear B and Latin paleography, and he is increasingly interested in Classical reception, especially in contemporary art, movies and poetry. In his classes, Lorenzo aims at building bridges between past and present, showing the continuous relevance of ancient models and ideas to interpret and shape the world we live in. In his free time he enjoys exploring Knoxville and its nature with his bike, and trying the new ethnic cuisines that the city offers.

John Friend has now lived in New Zealand for one whole year. He and his family continue to enjoy life in an unimaginably beautiful country (a sunny spring has come after a mild winter) with friendly people and exceptionally yummy food, though decent brisket, bacon, and Tex-Mex are badly missed! For the last four months he has worked happily for the government, in a position both rewarding and challenging, while his wife is prospering as an administrator at the University of Canterbury, and his two boys are faring well in daycare and primary school respectively. In the last year we have attended multiple public events, such as the Hororata Glow Festival, walked numerous beaches, and rode in the gondola over the Port Hills. He still often thinks about the University of Tennessee and Knoxville generally, and would like to convey his best regards to his former colleagues and students.

Geraldine Gesell celebrated her 91^st birthday this summer, and she continues her transhumant lifestyle alternating between Pachyammos, Crete, and Knoxville twice a year. She is happy to see Volume IV of the final publication of the Kavousi project in press. She continues to prepare her own book on cult at Kavousi.

Reema Habib is continuing her research on ancient magic, while also exploring hands-on pedagogical techniques for future publication. She is currently working on a talk on materiality in the ancient world for the MARCO Symposium in the Spring, as well as on the creation of a Study Abroad program on the topic of Roman Britain (which is, as always, dependent on world health conditions). Beyond the classroom, Reema remains committed to archaeological outreach projects, which has thus far included an information session at the Knoxville premiere of the latest Indiana Jones movie, and an interactive exploration of ancient perfumery at the McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture on campus.

Theodora Kopestonsky returned to Athens and Corinth this summer to finish her manuscript about the Corinthian Classical shrine to the Nymphs at Corinth as well as polish her article on the assemblages at Corinthian small shrines. In June, she traveled to St. Andrews (Scotland) and presented a conference paper about Nymphscapes (the practical and ritual utilization of the landscapes at nymph shrines). While there, she visited several Roman military camps and walked part of Hadrian’s wall (and no surprise, it rained!). This year, she is teaching a range of Latin, archaeology, and civilization courses. She continues to tweak the introductory archaeology class (CLAS 232) with hands-on assignments, now including some newly purchased replicas from her recent travels. Hopefully, the students will appreciate them!

Susan Martin, provost and professor emerita, continues to stay busy in retirement. She and Paul have recently traveled to Sicily, Quebec City, and Morocco. They are planning a trip to Paris later this year as well as travel to visit with family. Susan continues to volunteer with the League of Women Voters of Knoxville and Knox County, organizing candidate forums for local elections. She serves on the Board of the Blount Mansion Association, the John C. Hodges Library Society Advisory Board, and as president of the Knoxville Chapter of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America. She enjoys keeping in touch with the classics department through service on its advisory board. She also continues to stay in touch with former students and loves hearing about their current adventures and future plans.

Aleydis Van de Moortel continues to enjoy chairing a department with such amazing students, colleagues, staff, and advisory board members. Last year she taught Ancient Technology and a seminar on the Archaeology of the Trojan War. Both classes drew groups of enthusiastic and lively students. She is especially excited this year about our new study abroad opportunity for undergraduates at the University of Athens, Greece. Aleydis participated in three national and international conferences and submitted six manuscripts for publication, with subjects ranging from the adoption of the sail in the Early Bronze Age Aegean to pottery from the Kamares Cave (Crete) and absolute chronology as well as burial practices and the memorialization of former leaders at the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age site of Mitrou. She spent most of the summer in Greece writing the first chapter of the final publication of the Mitrou project.

Jessica Westerhold began the 2023-2024 academic year on research leave. She is working on several projects: happiness in the poetry of Tibullus, poetic literacy among Roman women, and Ovid’s use of heroic myth in his exile poetry. In the spring and summer of 2023, she attended international conferences in Halifax, NS, and Coimbra, Portugal. This summer and fall, Jessica has worked with the best of UT’s faculty in Classics, History, and MARCO to organize an amazing Latin Day XLI 2023, featuring lectures and hands-on experiences on a wide-range of topics. Her book Ovid’s Tragic Heroines: Gender Abjection and Generic Code-switching (Cornell University Press) was published in June. Jessica is already working on her next monograph, Representations of Happiness in Latin Elegy. She is looking forward to returning to the classroom in the spring when she will read Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, Sulpicia, and Vergil with advanced Latin students.

Filed Under: Newsletter

Students Honored at Eta Sigma Phi/End of Year Banquet

November 30, 2023 by Logan Judy

The 2022 Eta Sigma Phi initiation for our Beta Delta chapter saw the addition of the following new members on account of their excellent performance in Greek or Latin: Hunter Deblackmere, CC Hazelton, Connor Lynch, Robert McNeil, Lucas Meyers, Grace Miller, Taryn Miscowiec, Ethan Peebles, Elokkin Pate-Geames, Katherine Reed, Adelle Rosendale, Rebekka Webb, and Amber Williams.

Salvador Bartera gave an incisive and thoughtful reflection on the field of classics and its future, and Justin Arft served as Master of Ceremonies for the evening. Our leadership team for both Eta Sigma Phi and the Classics Club—Ethan Peebles, Adelle Rosendale, and Desirae Cordell—remain in place and have done a stellar job organizing our activities and membership.

Several students were recognized for their outstanding academic work during the 2023 academic year or awarded scholarships for the upcoming 2024 year. Adelle Rosendale received an Arthur H. Moser Memorial Scholarship, CC Hazelton an Albert Rapp Memorial Scholarship, Ethan Peebles an inaugural McDow Scholarship. CC Hazelton, Ethan Peebles, Landon Bryan, Katherine Reed, and Lauren Wood were granted Haines-Morris Awards. Mary Walter was awarded an inaugural grant from the Chris and Ann Robinson-Craig scholarship fund to support her Latin teacher training.

Portrait of a young woman, classical artwork

Students also received departmental scholarships to study or gain practical experience abroad: Ethan Peebles was given an Athena travel scholarship to support his travel to the University of Athens, Greece, for a year of study; CC Hazelton received a Susan D. Martin Excellence Scholarship for a semester of study at the University of Athens; and Landon Bryan and Tony Caldwell were granted Haines-Morris travel scholarships to participate in Stephen Collins-Elliott’s Hesperides excavation in Morocco.

Several of our students were recognized campus-wide as Volunteers of Distinction: Daniel Green, Walt Price, and Nora Clarke in Classical Civilization; and Kaitlyn Lyne in Classical Archaeology. Daniel Green was our outstanding graduate at the May 2023 commencement, and Nora Clarke was awarded our Senior Greek Prize. CC Hazelton received our department’s CAMWS Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Classical Studies.

The Department of Classics heartily congratulates the students who were recognized for their devotion to the study of classics and their hard work. We are all very proud of their success, and we are proud of all of our graduates!

Alumni News – Fall 2023

November 30, 2023 by Logan Judy

Meagan Ayers (’04; MA Mediterranean Archaeology ’06; PhD Buffalo) stopped by to tell us that she and husband Paul are relocating from Knoxville back to Cleveland, where Paul was offered a new job. Meagan continues her work as an editor for the Dickinson College Commentaries, where she edited Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar, which we use in our classes. She also is a freelance copy editor for NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. We are sorry to see Meagan and Paul go but will be sure to remain in touch.

Abigail Braddock Simone (’02) of Germantown HS in Memphis was elected to the cursus honorum that will make her president of TWLTA in 2025-26, the first classicist president of this group in 15 years. This is a wonderful recognition of your considerable talents and drive, Abigail!

Brian Byerly (’22), sought Bettye Beaumont (’74)’s help with his application materials for graduate school. Thanks to her excellent advice he has been accepted into MA programs at Georgia and Kansas; he chose Kansas and received full funding. Happy trails, Brian!

It was wonderful to catch up with Izzy Dusek (’22), who came to our Majors Meet & Greet on August 23. She is continuing the master’s program in public policy and administration at UT, and plans to graduate this spring. We can’t wait to hear what comes next.

David Guffey (’17) was accepted into the master’s program in social work at UT and he is loving every minute of it. Anyone who sees the glow in his eyes knows that he has found his calling in life. We are so happy for you, David, and we know that you will be an exceptionally caring social worker.

Andrew Montgomery (’22) stopped by to report that he has been bitten by the bug of academia. He has finished his MA in archaeology at the University of Edinburgh with a thesis focusing on the continuity of cult from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age in the Aegean. He is now exploring paths to pursuing a PhD in classical archaeology. We are thumbing for you, Andrew!

Juhi Patel (’19), who received a master’s degree in the history of medicine from the University of Newcastle while on a Fulbright year there, is now in her second year at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in South Carolina. This school trains globally-minded physicians to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved populations. Juhi just returned from the Dominican Republic, where she and her fellow students provided medical care to more than 500 patients. We are so proud of you, Juhi!

Meera Patel (’18) graduated last December with a master’s degree in data science from American University, specializing in statistics and artificial intelligence. She taught an introductory undergraduate class in statistics at AU, and is working on projects that involve algorithms and archaeological data. Meera, you and Stephen Collins-Elliott need to talk!

Walt Price (’23) is pursuing an MA in ancient Mediterranean studies at the University of Missouri with full funding. Walt, please say hi for us to fellow alumnus Jacob Brakebill (’17)!

Zoe Smith (’22) reached out to Bettye Beaumont (’74) for advice, and she is now working for an archaeology firm in Cincinnati, where she is gaining valuable excavation and lab experience. Fiancé Tristan, an opera singer, is receiving job offers in Europe, so Zoe is looking for graduate programs in classical archaeology overseas where she can specialize in Aegean prehistory and learn more about the Mitanni and Hittites. We wish her the best of luck.

Kaitlyn Stiles (PhD Mediterranean Archaeology ’19) married Chris Jazwa, an associate professor of anthropology at UN Reno and Stephen Collins-Elliott’s collaborator in Morocco—archaeology is a small world! Kaitlyn moved to Reno, where she is continuing her research on the Mycenaean skeletons from Golemi, central Greece, which were the focus of her dissertation. She and Chris presented a poster at the annual AIA meeting in New Orleans last January on new strontium isotope analyses and C¹⁴ datings on samples from Golemi.

We were delighted to reconnect with Ryan Vinson (’11) who, as co-chair of the Tennessee Junior Classical League, helped to organize its 2023 convention in Knoxville. Ryan thoroughly enjoys his position. We are looking forward to seeing him more as we prepare to participate in the convention of the National Junior Classical League in Knoxville, in July 2024, which Ryan is chairing.

Cyrus Yoshimoto (’22) was awarded a prestigious Schwarzman Scholarship to study leadership and global affairs at Tsinghua University in Bejing in 2023-24 before going to medical school. This is a highly competitive scholarship with a 3-4% acceptance rate. Awardees come from top universities in the US and abroad. Cyrus credits his classics training and our scholarship support for helping him reach this success. We appreciate you, Cyrus, and we wish you a fascinating year in China!

Rutledge Memorial Lecture

Haines-Morris Lecture

16th Harry C. Rutledge Memorial Lecture in Archaeology

East Tennessee Society of the Archaeological Institute of America