Classics

Photo exhibit on display at 91�Թ� celebrates the important role of Black classicists

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 03 May 2024 19:58:02 +0000

Photo exhibit on display at 91�Թ� celebrates the important role of Black classicists

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 05/03/2024 - 15:58

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The “Black Classicists in North America” installation is currently on display at the 91�Թ� in the Lillian Massey Building on the St. George campus (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Our Community

Black

Classics

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

Religion

Subheadline

“This exhibition has been displayed in many U.S. and U.K. institutions, but this is the first time it has been made available in Canada”

A new installation at the 91�Թ� celebrates the important role of Black classicists who overcame enormous obstacles to advance Greek and Latin language studies.

Housed in the Lillian Massey Building on the St. George campus , the photo exhibit, “Black Classicists in North America” celebrates 18 prominent scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries.

“Black Classicists in North America” celebrates 18 prominent scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries (photo by Diana Tyszko)

“This exhibition has been displayed in many U.S. and U.K. institutions, but this is the first time it has been made available in Canada,” says Ben Akrigg, an associate professor with the department of classics in the Faculty of Arts & Science who helped facilitate this exhibit coming to 91�Թ�.

“Being confronted directly with their portraits reminds us that these were real individuals, and not just footnotes. They can still talk to us as colleagues through their written words. Many of their concerns and interests, especially as teachers, do speak directly to us in that way.”

John Wesley Edward Bowen

The exhibition was assembled and curated by Michele Valerie Ronnick, a distinguished professor at Wayne State University. Ronnick partnered with Akrigg as well as Ronald Charles, an associate professor in 91�Թ�’s department for the study of religion to bring the exhibit to the university.

The portraits include classicists such as John Wesley Edward Bowen (1855–1933). Born into slavery in New Orleans, he graduated from New Orleans University in 1878 and later taught Greek and Latin at Central Tennessee College in Nashville.

In 1887 he became the first African American to earn a PhD at Boston University. His essay, “An Apology for the Higher Education of the Negro,” (Methodist Review, 1897) supported the study of classics. He was president of Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta from 1910 to 1914.

Orishatukeh Faduma (1855-1946) was born in the former British colony of Guyana where his parents lived after abduction by slavers. He was first educated by missionaries in Sierra Leone.

Orishatukeh Faduma

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University’s School of Divinity in 1894 and taught Greek and Latin at Lincoln Academy in King’s Mount, N.C. and Virginia Theological Seminary in Lynchburg. He joined the American Negro Academy in 1899 and the American Philological Association the following year.

Helen Maria Chesnutt (1880–1969) was the daughter of novelist Charles Chesnutt – an American author, essayist and political activist, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1902 and her master’s in Latin from Columbia University in 1925.

She taught Latin at Central High School in Cleveland. Her pupil, Langston Hughes, who became a celebrated poet and activist, found her inspiring. In 1932, Chesnutt co-authored The Road to Latin, a textbook that was printed several times. She also belonged to the American Philological Association from 1920 to 1934.

Helen Maria Chesnutt

“The institutional structures of classics as they developed in the nineteenth century were designed to facilitate and perpetuate the success of certain groups,” says Akrigg. “These men and women were from outside those groups and the successes they achieved came in spite of formidable obstacles.

“Most of them were teachers and they provided not only an example but often direct inspiration and encouragement to those who came in their footsteps. They played a vital role in widening access to the discipline. They also, however, remind us that that process of widening is still far from complete.”

Classics students whip up a taste of ancient history

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 13:43:52 +0000

Classics students whip up a taste of ancient history

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 01/30/2024 - 08:43

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Students and professors ate some of the same foods ancient Greeks and Romans served at dinners thousands of years ago (photo by Teodora Mladin)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Our Community

Classics

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

From "Parthian chicken" to melitoutta, the flavours of ancient Greece and Rome took centre stage on Ancient Food Day – helping to connect students to the civilizations they study

It was a feast fit for the gods.

Professors, graduate and undergraduate students enjoyed some of the same foods ancient Greeks and Romans served at dinners thousands of years ago at Ancient Food Day, organized by the Classics Students’ Union.

“Ancient Food Day is more than just a culinary festivity,” says Teodora Mladin, president of the student union and a sixth-year student with a double major in classical civilizations and French linguistics who is a member of Trinity College.

“Food is one of the primary ways we share and retain our cultures. So, by indulging in these recipes, we momentarily taste the traditions, stories and experiences of ancient peoples.”

The Classics Students' Union held its biannual Ancient Food Day event earlier this month (photo by Teodora Mladin)

Tasting those traditions included enjoying dishes such as: “Parthian chicken,” cooked with leeks, red wine, dried dates, garlic and cumin; and parsnip fries, cooked with olive oil, honey, apple cider vinegar, cornstarch, celery seed, rosemary, pepper and fish sauce. The event’s organizers said the dishes were very popular in 224 CE.

A plate of asparagus, meanwhile, was prepared with marjoram, which, students said, tastes like smoked fish when mixed with coriander.

There were also plenty of choices for those with a sweet tooth such as enkrides – the ancient equivalent to Timbits. These fried cheese dough balls are cooked in olive oil and then covered in honey. Or there was melitoutta, which are honey cakes that resemble scones. Apparently, this was a dessert deceased souls would bring to the underworld.

Asparagus was prepared with spices to give it a fishy flavour (photo by Sean McNeely)

Attendees also enjoyed “pear patina,” frittatas made with boiled cored pears and prepared with eggs, honey, olive oil, grape juice and white wine, offering both savoury and sweet flavours.

The dishes were washed down with beverages such as “Nectar of the Gods” – a mango-nectar-based drink and a mulled pomegranate drink called “Persephone in the Underworld.” Inspired by the myth of Persephone’s abduction by Hades, its Greek description translates to “fire burning at night,” referring to its spiced quality as well as its dark, glittery colour.

The event was the culmination of weeks of preparation that included searching for original recipes, translating them and then preparing dishes as true to the originals as possible. The group also created placards for each dish that contained the original Greek recipe, the English translation and fun facts.

Each dish was accompanied by a placard with the original Greek recipe (photo by Teodora Mladin)

Izzy Friesen, a fourth-year classics and classical civilizations student, says translating recipes was an enriching experience from both a language and history perspective.

"Getting to translate recipes allowed me to engage with Latin in a different way,” says Friesen, a member of Victoria College. “It was particularly valuable for us to attempt our own translations and look for recipes that caught our eye. It’s useful and exciting for language-learners but not necessarily something we’d get to do in the classroom."

Madeleine Andrasic, a second-year student with a double major in classical languages and history, and a member of University College, also found translating the recipes to be rewarding.

“It really becomes evident that Greeks and Romans saw food in both similar and different ways to us,” says Andrasic. “So much cultural and environmental history can be revealed in these texts, [sparking] further questions about food availability and food preferences in the ancient world."

Pear patina sits next to an apricot dessert (photo by Sean McNeely)

For Tessa Delaney-Girotti, a fourth-year student with a double major in classical civilizations and archeology, preparing the dishes strengthened her connection to ancient peoples.

“It’s not only a unique experience to be able to eat the same kind of food as someone from thousands of years ago, but there’s also something about cooking those recipes, putting yourself into their shoes, that brings to mind the everyday activities of their lives,” says Delaney-Girotti, a member of University College who is vice-president of the student union.

“Most of the time we feel far removed from the people we read about, but this brings a whole new perspective.”

A serving dish of Parthian chicken beside a tray of enkrides (photo by Sean McNeely)

Mladin, too, says gathering to share a meal is a timeless human experience and organizing and hosting Ancient Food Day further connected her to the cultures she’s studying.

She added that the Classics Students' Union has seen so much interest in the recipes that it intends to create an ancient recipe blog.

“The dishes we present are an emblem of history, a testament to the cultural exchanges, advancements and the ever-evolving human story,” she says. “We are reminded of the depth and breadth of the ancient civilizations that shaped the very focus of our department."

91�Թ� researchers help study, catalogue ROM's ancient Greek coins

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 17:14:14 +0000

91�Թ� researchers help study, catalogue ROM's ancient Greek coins

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 10/19/2023 - 13:14

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An Athenian coin, circa 454-404 BCE, with the head of Athena and an owl near an olive branch (photos by Laura Lipcsei © Royal Ontario Museum)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Our Community

Classics

Faculty of Arts & Science

History

Humanities

Royal Ontario Museum

Subheadline

“No two coins are exactly alike – they’re unique little works of art”

Did you know the change rattling in your pocket is similar to coins used in ancient Greece?

In fact, the current design of our quarters, loonies and toonies is almost identical to those used more than 2,000 years ago – an insight the 91�Թ�’s Ben Akrigg is keen to share with a wider audience.

An associate professor in the department of classics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Akrigg is working with a team of scholars and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) to study, catalogue and publish information on more than 2,000 ancient Greek coins through the ROMkomma project.

“Greek coinage is so interesting because it’s almost the earliest coinage – at least in the Western tradition of coinage,” Akrigg says. “The idea is to make sure that our high-resolution photographs and up-to-date identification, dating and commentary are available on the museum’s website for anyone who wants to look at them.”

A Seleukid Empire coin (circa 155/4 BCE) with the head of King Demetrios and Tyche: the personification of fortune or luck.

The ROMkomma project – komma means “impression of a coin” in ancient Greek – launched last year and is supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Akrigg works alongside Boris Chrubasik, an associate professor and chair of the department of historical studies at 91�Թ� Mississauga; Kate Cooper, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of historical and cultural studies at 91�Թ� Scarborough; as well as a team of graduate students.

Ben Akrigg (photo supplied)

The first phase of the project, which wraps up in 2024, focuses on about 250 coins from two regions of ancient Greece: the city of Athens (sixth to first centuries BCE) and the cities of the Hellenistic empire of the Seleukid rulers (fourth to first centuries BCE).

Akrigg and his team are providing information such as the weight, size and dimensions of each coin, an approximate date it was minted, what the markings mean and other relevant information about its use and significance in ancient Greek history.

While the bulk of the updated information is housed in a database for ROM internal use only, there is a small database available to general public.

“To some extent, we can trace changes in the economies and the day-to-day lives and day-to-day uses of money in Greek cities by seeing what kinds of coins they're minting,” Akrigg says.

To update the database, the team had to first refer to the original files from the ROM – some of which were decades old – and put their research talents to good use.

“My favorite part was looking for ‘mystery coins,’” says Anastasia Zabalueva, a PhD student in the department of classics.

“Some old printed pictures of coins had incorrect inventory numbers or did not have a number at all – so we had to identify the right number so that we could match the picture and the page of coin in the database.”

Zabalueva and her colleagues also searched filing cabinets and other source materials to ensure the descriptions were accurate, sometimes comparing and matching descriptions with those from other international ancient coin collections.

“We felt like detectives solving a mystery,” she says.

Most of the coins are made from silver and all were made by hand. First, a blank coin was heated to become softer and placed on a die containing the design on the one side – the obverse or “heads” side. Then another die containing the design of the other side – the reverse or “tails” side – was placed on top and was struck by a hammer, creating a two-sided coin in a single blow.

A Greek coin (circa 125-124 BCE) with the head of Athena and an owl standing on an amphora – a type of Greek vase.

One group of coins the team is studying is from ancient Athens, one of the earliest Greek cities to create its own coinage in the middle of the sixth century BCE.

“If you look at the Athenian coins, what's striking is that they’re instantly recognizable as coins, monetary instruments like ours – and partly because, in many ways, they resemble the coins we have in our pocket,” Akrigg says.

On the “heads” side, many of these coins have a profile image of Athena – the goddess of wisdom and war, and the city’s protector. The other side of the coins display symbols associated with Athena such as an owl or an olive branch.

“The owl is a symbol of wisdom associated with the goddess, though owls have other meanings as well,” says Akrigg.

A coin from the Hellenistic period (circa 300-295 BCE) with the head of a young Herakles and Zeus sitting on a throne holding an eagle.

Later coins from the Seleukid Empire often placed rulers on the face of the coin – especially Alexander the Great, with the image of a god such as Zeus or Apollo on the reverse, as well as a variety of creatures such as turtles, lions, elephants.

“At the end of the fourth century BCE, some of Alexander’s successor kings put Alexander's portrait on their coins, but then after a while, the kings thought, ‘Hang on, why don't we just put ourselves on?’” says Akrigg. “And so coins became a way to assert their own legitimacy as kings in their new kingdoms.”

For Zabalueva, the ROMkomma project is more than the analysis of ancient artifacts and identifying whose face is on what coin – it’s a journey into cultural history.

“Each kingdom depicted on their coins represents something very important for the community: it might be a god or goddess, an animal, a ruler, an abstract symbol,” she says.

“It's much more than just a means of exchange. It's a display of local culture, history, power and state propaganda all at the same time.”

That tradition remains relatively unchanged. Most Canadian coins have a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II on one side – and for our loonies, quarters and nickels, a loon, a caribou and a beaver, respectively, on the opposite side.

Though ROMkomma is a massive project that will ultimately take years to complete, Akrigg says he will always get a charge out of seeing the coins first-hand.

“The coins are mass produced but because they're handmade, each one is unique,” he says. “No two coins are exactly alike. They’re unique little works of art.”

91�Թ� classics prof uses graphic design, humour to keep students engaged

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 19:28:21 +0000

91�Թ� classics prof uses graphic design, humour to keep students engaged

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 08/23/2023 - 15:28

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Sarah Murray, an associate professor in the department of classics, sports one of her T-shirt designs near Nuxis in southwestern Sardinia, Italy (all photos courtesy of Sarah Murray)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

Sarah Murray has even emblazoned her poster art-inspired images on T-shirts

“Let not the tyranny of the PowerPoint template reign supreme.”

This declaration appears on the personal website of Sarah Murray, an associate professor in the 91�Թ�’s department of classics in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

To liven up her lectures when teaching classics like the Iliad and the Odyssey, Murray creates colourful lecture slides and course posters that have become an integral part of her teaching – artwork that she's even begun using on T-shirts and hoodies.

“I find it more fun to teach when the students are having a good time,” she says. “And it seems that engaging visuals do a lot of the work in keeping students focused on the intellectual journey I’m trying to take them on.”

Murray first got into graphic design to make some extra cash as a graduate student at Stanford University.

“I was living in Palo Alto, Calif., which is very expensive,” she says. “The cost of living there is so high that I was always looking for ways to make some money.

Two class posters by Sarah Murray.

“For a while, I was doing the very glamorous work of setting out cheese and wine for receptions following department events. But at some point, a better-paid position for a grad student to do graphic design opened up. I didn't have any experience with graphic design, but I'm generally able to wrangle most computer programs through trial and error. So I told them, ‘I can do it.’ And then I figured it out from there.”

One of her first and favourite posters was created to promote the defence of her dissertation, “Trade Imports & Society in Early Greece: 1300 – 900 B.C.”

One of Sarah Murray's first and favourite posters was created to promote the defence of her dissertation.

In the classrooms where she now teaches, Murray says she can tell if her imagery is engaging students by their chuckles, the number of raised hands or the liveliness of the discussion.

“It's more fun for me, too,” she says. “I don’t take much delight from filling out bullet points in a PowerPoint template and then reciting them in class. On the other hand, it's very satisfying to bring something funny or esthetically pleasing into the world that didn't exist before – so, I enjoy that aspect of it.

“As far as pedagogical utility goes, having some visual jokes in the slide deck keeps students paying attention for two reasons. First, because they think something funny might appear on the screen at any moment. Second, if they actually laugh when they are supposed to, that helps me have a sense of whether people are following along with the lecture content.”

Vintage travel posters are a key source of inspiration, she says. Noted for their vivid colour, posters, print ads and brochures were the most common way for travel companies to reach their customers from the late 1800s until about 1950.

“There's such a rich body of these beautiful posters, which are both fine examples of genuinely excellent design and captivating reminders of a bygone era of travel,” Murray says. “So, my earlier posters would often try to begin from that visual world. Then, I would try to envision what it would look like if, instead of advertising an exotic vacation destination, you were advertising a course about the Odyssey, and let things develop from there through the strange mechanism of the human imagination.”

Another source of inspiration comes from a post-PhD trip to Georgia, where she was struck by the imagery used in Soviet-era propaganda posters. Some stirred patriotism, others slammed illiteracy and laziness, while still others condemned the evils of capitalism and praised socialism.

“It sounds scary, but the Georgian propaganda mosaic artists in particular were incredibly talented,” says Murray. “While a lot of Soviet art was deliberately destroyed after the fall of the USSR, many mosaics have been preserved specifically for the reason that they are genuine masterpieces.

“So I would say that I entered a new phase after the Georgia trip, so that a lot of the post-Stanford designs attempt to capture the spirit of muscular propagandism more than dreamy, aspirational travel. This phase also coincided with a decision to start making my own custom ‘merch’ featuring some of the propaganda themes.”

Having created about 10 different designs for T-shirts and hoodies so far, Murray says the project was an effort to combat boredom during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A lecture slide titled, “Hera did not like the Trojans.”

“My daily routine involved waking up, working, running, working and going back to sleep, which became pretty tedious after a while. So, I started working on these designs in the evening as a way to relax,” Murray says. “It's very different to what I'm doing most of the time, which is reading academic scholarship and trying to compose complicated research arguments. Of course, that’s really engaging and fulfilling in its own way.

“But creating a visual design – it's not so much an intellectual process as an esthetic and imaginative exercise. It helped me sink into a few hours of immersive, pleasant internal productivity. And I genuinely like having my weird bespoke shirts. They make me happy. I wear them all the time.”

Two of Sarah Murray’s clothing designs, inspired by Soviet-era propaganda posters

Murray will be wearing her designs next year when she’s on sabbatical to focus on her research, which includes being the co-director of the Bays of East Attica Regional Survey Project situated around the bay of Porto Rafti in Greece – an archaeological project that aims to expand scholarly knowledge about the history of this area.

She’ll return to teaching in the fall of 2024 with a new repertoire of posters and slides that are sure to spark laughter, thinking and discussion.

“In some ways I’m being selfish in that I like to make them,” she says. “And I think the material we're studying is really fun. There are a lot of interesting, strange things going on in the ancient world.

“You can play that up in a way that piques curiosity. It's not just that I want the students to pay attention to me in that moment. I want to get them thinking excitedly about the little bits of magic that you can pull out of even old texts.”

91�Թ� PhD candidate explores Italy's ancient cultural and linguistic history

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 19:34:21 +0000

91�Թ� PhD candidate explores Italy's ancient cultural and linguistic history

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 08/11/2023 - 15:34

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Claudia Paparella in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale d’Abruzzo in Villa Frigerj, Chieti, Italy (all photos courtesy of Claudia Paparella)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Global Lens

Classics

Faculty of Arts & Science

Graduate Students

Humanities

Italy

For many, inspecting what could be an old theatre ticket wouldn’t be considered a trip highlight.

But in Claudia Paparella’s case, the ticket in question was dated around 1st century CE and included an inscription in Latin, one of the languages attested in ancient Italy.

“I had never seen anything like that, and I don't think I have seen them anywhere else – it was amazing,” says Paparella, speaking from L’Aquila, a city in central Italy.

The PhD candidate with the 91�Թ�’s department of classics in the Faculty of Arts & Science is travelling through Italy, exploring dozens of dig sites, ruins, museums and historical archives, thanks to the department’s Norwood Traveling Fellowship, which is funding two months of travel to support her research.

“My project traces the social history of Indigenous Italian languages and their entanglement with the Roman imperial expansion in Italy from the 7th to 1st century BCE,” she says.

“Long before the Roman expansion, Italy was a mosaic of different people with different ethnicities and languages. Some of the most important languages I’m working with are Oscan, Umbrian, South Picene, Messapic and Faliscan.

“Over time, writing and language progressively became a wider component of cultural identity and distinction.”

Claudia Paparella at the Italic sanctuary of Hercules Curinus, near modern Sulmona, Italy .

But then around the 4th century BCE, the Romans – whose empire was rapidly spreading – arrived and began putting pressure on these populations to adopt Latin as their chief language.

Italic peoples did adopt Latin for things like business and trade, but many of these populations resisted and continued to use their own language for several more centuries in more personal and private settings such as funerals or other religious affairs.

“I'm interested in the role the language has when these Italic peoples enter into contact with Rome,” says Paparella. “What I'm trying to understand is the contexts in which Italic people decide to give up on Latin or give up on their own language.

“You speak your own language, but when you have someone as powerful as Rome invading your city [and] colonizing you, you have to decide whether you want to keep speaking and writing your language, or switch to Latin, the language of the colonizer, the language of power.”

Paparella is on the hunt for artifacts with these Indigenous languages through inscriptions found on gravestones, as well as pottery, sculptures and ancient city ruins.

“If I already know what I'm looking for, I go to a museum because I want to see an object with my own eyes and have a first-hand experience,” she says. “Or I hike and visit archaeological sites. Or I meet with people who can open museums that are usually closed because of lack of funds or a lack of public interest. They give me access to archive storage rooms, and I see a lot of unpublished materials.”

Artifacts inscribed with family names and numbers, possibly ancient theatre tickets (circa 1st century CE)

Can she understand these ancient languages? Partially.

“We can recognize letters and read the inscriptions out loud, but there's still work to do on vocabulary, grammar and syntax,” she says. “The context in which the inscription is found and the comparisons with similar languages help a lot.”

For some inscriptions, she is able to follow some established language traditions, such as those often used on gravestones.

“Funerary inscriptions are usually very simple,” she says. “We know there is always the name of the deceased, there is sometimes the name of the person creating the funerary structure.”

There is also a listing of a person’s age and other useful information that enables Paparella to piece together its place and significance.

“I'm beginning to understand where and why people were more reluctant to use Latin or where they were more willing to express themselves, and what is the historical implication,” she says.

Paparella returns to Toronto this month, and though she is a little exhausted and travel-weary from the constant trekking, especially the hikes up mountains in the blazing sun, she says she wouldn’t change a thing.

Decorations of a ritual bone bed (Navelli Necropolis, 1st-2nd century CE)

“I'm extremely grateful for the scholarship because I’m realizing that it takes a lot of time to visit all these sites,” she says. “It also takes a car, a camera, and a good pair of sneakers. The pace is intense, I visit three sites or museums per day, but it's absolutely worth it. So I'm very thankful that I have these six weeks of fieldwork in which I can plan and schedule whatever I want.”

Along her travels she has also been surprised by some of the small towns and villages she’s visited, and their efforts to preserve Indigenous history.

“It's very impressive to see local communities that are still very proud and very aware of this Italic, non-Roman cultural heritage,” says Paparella. “I discovered that in some towns, they do reenactments of rituals or battles. I’ve never experienced anything like that in a small town before. It’s so interesting to see how these places are still very much attached to their origins and their diversity.”

After 12 years of study, lifelong learner John Bond graduates from 91�Թ� Mississauga at 76

siddiq22 — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 17:12:54 +0000

After 12 years of study, lifelong learner John Bond graduates from 91�Թ� Mississauga at 76

siddiq22 Thu, 06/08/2023 - 13:12

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John Bond – the oldest 91�Թ� Mississauga graduate this spring at 76 – acknowledges the applause at Convocation Hall during his graduation ceremony (photo by Johnny Guatto)

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Subheadline

Embracing the idea that "there's always something to learn," the retired engineer and travel enthusiast returned to 91�Թ� for a third degree

The thing about history is, it takes a while to happen.

In John Bond’s case, about 12 years, to be exact.

During the 91�Թ� Mississauga convocation ceremony on June 7, Bond graduated with a double major in history and classical civilization after a dozen years of study. At 76, Bond is the oldest 91�Թ� Mississauga grad this spring – and among the oldest gradates at the university this year.

It was his third 91�Թ� graduation, having picked up a degree in engineering from the St. George campus in 1968, followed by a master’s degree in applied engineering.

A career as a civil engineer for a railway company followed, where he designed and inspected bridges for almost 40 years.

“Because of that, I was always interested in structures and the civil engineering of cities,” he said. “Then, when I went to Rome and saw the aqueducts, I wanted to know more.”

An avid traveller, Bond began reading about the places he would visit, which in turn led to more travel ideas for himself and his wife of 54 years, Lynda.

“I’d always had an interest in history, and we travelled to Europe and New York and there were so many interesting ancient sites and stories,” he said. “I wanted to get more acquainted with what I was seeing.”

John Bond walks across the stage at Convocation Hall (photo by Johnny Guatto)

As his personal research expanded, Lynda – who met John at 91�Թ� in the late 1960s, when she was majoring in history at Victoria College – made a suggestion.

“The advice from my wife was to ‘read with a purpose,’” he said.

And so, six years before retiring from his civil engineering job, Bond began taking courses at 91�Թ� Mississauga.

“I took one or two a semester, trying to do all the reading and assignments while still working,” he said.

“It wasn’t always easy to stay focused and interested, keeping up with the studying and combining what I have to do around the house,” he added jokingly. “Always have to help in the kitchen.”

His professors say he balanced it all well.

“John has been an excellent student – diligent with his research, curious to learn new things and always interested to hear what the other students think,” said Mairi Cowan, associate professor, teaching stream, in 91�Թ� Mississauga's department of historical studies.

Cowan noted that while she’s happy Bond is graduating, she’s going to miss having him in class.

“The other students and I have learned a lot from being with John in our courses,” she said. “Not only about the content of history, but also about how to approach our studies with enthusiasm and openness."

Though most of his classmates were closer in age to his two grandkids, Bond said interacting with them on campus was energizing.

“It’s great being among the young people,” he said. “They really make things interesting.”

And they enjoyed having him around as well, said Christopher Petrakos, associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of historical studies.

“The students in class seemed to gravitate towards him because of his intellect and wisdom,” Petrakos said.

“John Bond is the kind of student that every professor wants to teach – he is genuinely interested in learning, possesses an informed worldview and questions established interpretations of the past.”

Although Bond had been a 91�Թ� student before, quite a few things have changed since then, he notes.

“Everything is computers now for class,” he said with a laugh. “In the ’60s, it was all handwritten. Computers then came with boxes of punch cards.”

Once Bond retired, he was able to increase both his course load and his travelling – a combination which occasionally led to serendipitous opportunities.

“I missed a few classes in order to travel,” Bond recalls. “So I have fond memories of logging on to Quercus from hotel lobby computers in London and Rome to take the required quizzes. One Classical Civilization quiz that I answered in the Rome hotel was about sites and events in Rome.”

It also gave him chances to do his homework where it meant the most.

“I read Homer's Odyssey for a Classics course while sitting on our hotel patio overlooking the blue Mediterranean on the Amalfi Coast,” he said. “That’s the way to do it.”

Inspired by his studies and armed with a list of places to see, Bond and his wife are once again ready to explore the world. But he admits he may still have some studying left in him.

“Don’t think I need another major, but there are still some classes I’d like to take,” he said.

“You should never give up – always go for more education; get as much as you can. There are always new things to learn.”

Researchers piece together the story of an ancient Roman city – one artifact at a time

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 16:23:46 +0000

Researchers piece together the story of an ancient Roman city – one artifact at a time

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/12/2022 - 12:23

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Seth Bernard and his team of graduate students stand in front of a trench in Falerii Novi, an ancient city located about 50 kilometres north of Rome (photo by Emlyn Dodd)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Our Community

Classics

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research & Innovation

From small coins to tiny pieces of ceramic and even clumps of soil, Seth Bernard and a group of graduate students from the 91�Թ� are unearthing a story about how a Roman city founded in 241 BCE lived and breathed through time.

“What I want is the day-to-day, what it was like –the connections linking people in the countryside to people in the city,” says Bernard, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of classics. “And it's just that day-to-day experience we can start to reconstruct in a way we've never done before.”

Bernard is part of an international team of scholars exploring “Falerii Novi,” an ancient city located about 50 kilometres north of Rome.

Seth Bernard holds a lamp from the late
5th century CE (photo by Claudia Paparella)

As part of a five-year project, Bernard collaborates with colleagues from Harvard University and the British School at Rome. He also worked with a team from Ghent University in Belgium during the four-week season this past summer. The project works by concession of the Soprintendenza di archeologia per la provincial di Viterbo e l’Etruria Meridionale (the Superintendence of Archaeology for the province of Viterbo and southern Etruria).

Aside from portions of the city’s original walls that still stand, the site is a scenic flat plain of agricultural fields and olive groves. But buried underneath is a fascinating history of a city founded over 2,000 years ago that, at its height, was home to about 15,000 people.

About 35 scholars from different fields were focused on three separate dig sites. One site, overseen by the British School at Rome, focused on one of the city’s main streets, which researchers believed included both homes and businesses.

91�Թ� and Harvard students, meanwhile, worked at two separate sites. One is a market building and the other, led by Bernard, is a house believed to be a residence of one of the city’s elite families, which later changed functions to accommodate more work-like activities as the centuries passed.

Each morning, Bernard and his team of students laced up their boots, traveled to the site and began work.

“We had a shed built on site, so we'd open up the shed in the morning, take out our wheelbarrows, pickaxes, shovels and all of our other tools and start digging,” says Bernard.

It was at times grueling, but more often exhilarating.

“Archaeological field work is hard; pickaxing and shoveling red clay in the Italian summer is sweaty and backbreaking work, and analyzing and classifying material as it emerges from the ground is a heady, focused process,” says Matt Coleman, a PhD student in the department of art history as well as 91�Թ�’s Mediterranean Archaeology Collaborative Specialization (MACS) program.

“But the combination is a lot of fun, and a welcome change of pace from the otherwise desk-heavy grad student life. I gained a new appreciation for what it takes to keep ancient material culture from being lost forever.”

Together, the team wasn’t just hunting for artifacts, it was digging for evidence of human interaction.

“Anytime someone detected something in the area ... we tried to take it out separately so we can understand chronological and other information associated with that action,” says Bernard.

“[Artifacts] are important more for the information they give us than for their intrinsic value. It's always fun to find something cool, but I also like building up that narrative and understanding human activity in that place.”

The “Tupperware” of antiquity

One of the best examples of this is ceramics, which Bernard calls “the Tupperware of antiquity.”

“From these little pieces, you can reconstruct dates and understand importation routes. You can do scientific analysis on the pottery that tells you where it was made, the firing temperature of the kiln and how skilled the person working the kiln was,” he says.

Claudia Paparella holds a yet to be dated
fragment of glass (photo by Seth Bernard)

“And from those sorts of things, you can understand production routes, consumption patterns and the webs of economic networks attaching themselves to that place.”

Encapsulating so much information, it’s no wonder Claudia Paparella, a PhD student in classics and the MACS program, was giddy at finding such artifacts.

“For the first time in my life, I saw fully intact objects emerge from the ground and the feeling of being able to put together the pieces of ancient people's everyday life was indescribable,” she says.

Bernard and his team also collected environmental data. Extracted pollen and soil samples can reveal which vegetables were grown and if they were grown locally or brought in from other communities.

Finding something as simple as different coloured soils was met with great excitement.

“What strikes me as astounding is the level of detail that we can sometimes reach only by noticing two differently colored soils, side by side,” says Paparella. “A few centimetres of soil have the potential to tell us different stories from the ones we read in history books.”

Kate Tandberg, a classics master’s student taking part in her first archeological dig, was equally impressed.

“There’s nothing like holding an archaeological remain – even something as simple as a shard of pottery or a rusty nail – and knowing that someone thousands of years ago was standing exactly where you’re standing now holding the same object,” she says. “It’s hard to express how cool it is to be the first person to lay eyes on an object in 1,500 years.

“Participating in field work has also given me a better appreciation for the process by which an object is dug from the ground and becomes usable, meaningful data. Before I was only familiar with the end product of field work, the summaries of findings and discussions of significance you find in books and journal articles.”

So far, many of the artifacts and materials are from the fifth and sixth centuries. And it’s during this period that Bernard sees a shift in the building’s function.

“We were finding this interesting mix of material – really nice glass and bronze vessels and coins and high-quality imported pottery from Africa, but also tools or commercial objects like weights,” says Bernard.

“We’re seeing this transformation of urban space, which I thought was really cool. You have wealth, but you also have craft work, you have this intermingling of spatial function that you're not seeing in the early periods – and that got my blood going.”

While Bernard is delighted with the discoveries and findings so far, he wants to dig deeper, so to speak, to find evidence from the second century – the city’s true origins.

“I want that earlier period,” he says. “But I also want to be able to say, here's how life in the city changed over time.”

The international team of scholars and researchers at the ancient walls of Falerii Novi (photo by Emlyn Dodd)

Bernard says he can’t wait to return to Italy next summer, although he plans on visiting the site a couple of times before then “to see my colleagues and make sure things are running smoothly,” he says.

In the meantime, the preservation and analysis of the materials found is ongoing. “You spend all this time getting the materials and data, but then you’ve got to process the data and that takes a while,” says Bernard.

As the data comes in and new information is revealed, Falerii Novi’s story will inevitably change, expand and become richer.

“You're constantly rebuilding, reassessing, reforming that narrative,” Bernard says. “You're always thinking about how that narrative will emerge.”

Pankration? With Olympics underway, 91�Թ� course explores ancient games

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 17:23:04 +0000

Pankration? With Olympics underway, 91�Թ� course explores ancient games

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 08/06/2021 - 13:23

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Red-figure pottery depicting a disc-thrower from the fifth century B.C. who is surrounded by implements used in the long jump – another contest that made up ancient pentathlons (photo by DEA Picture Library/De Agostini via Getty Images)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Global Lens

Classics

Faculty of Arts & Science

Undergraduate Students

University College

As they watch the Olympic Games in Japan, a group of 91�Թ� students is learning about the origins and historical significance of such athletic competitions, which began almost 3,000 years ago.

The third-year course, offered by the department of classics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, is called Sport & Festival. It’s taught by PhD candidate Naomi Neufeld.

In the class, students explore the role of athletic contests and religious festivals in ancient Greek and Roman societies, examining the athletic events’ political, social and religious impacts.

“We look at the competitors,” says Neufeld. “What is their social status? What political significance is behind hosting these games? What religious significance is there? We interrogate further for our understanding of the Greek and Roman world.

“I'm an archaeologist so context is everything. Without understanding the bigger pictures, you only get an isolated look.”

With the Olympic Games currently underway in Tokyo, there’s also discussion surrounding the competition’s ancient roots.

Compared to the ancient world, some Olympic events haven’t changed that much, though Greek athletes originally competed in all stadium events in the nude.

“It was one of the most important elements of the games,” says Neufeld, noting that training and competing nude was a source of pride. “In fact, the Greeks looked down upon those who exercised clothed as ‘barbarians.’”

Attire aside, many of the running races and other track and field events, as well as wrestling and boxing, remain relatively unchanged.

“They also had a sport called pankration, which was a mixture of boxing and wrestling,” says Neufeld – essentially a Greek version of mixed martial arts.

The first pentathlons included a running race length, discus throw, long jump, javelin throw and, finally, a wrestling match between the two top athletes in the previous events. Today’s pentathlon includes a very different format composed of pistol shooting, fencing, a swimming race, equestrian show jumping and a 3,200-metre cross-country run.

Few events brought people to their feet like the chariot races – so often celebrated in Hollywood movies. “In the ancient world, chariot races were one of the best and most exciting events,” says Neufeld.

Another similarity between the ancient games and today’s games? Different sports came and went over time.

In some of the early games, Greeks held a mule cart race called the apene, which were nowhere near as fast or flashy as horse chariot races. “This event fell out of favour during the Classical period,” says Neufeld.

There was also a race called the kalpe that involved competitors riding a horse around a track for several laps and then dismounting and running the final lap on foot beside it.

There was a marked difference between the meaning of the games in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, explains Neufeld.

“In Greece, these games were exclusive to free Greek citizens,” she says. The athletes were of high social status, often considered the elite of society. And they proudly represented various city states known as a polis. Their success in the games was seen as representative of the polis’ ability to produce outstanding citizens. The Greeks also firmly believed that physical strength and a pleasing physical appearance represented strong character or ethos.

In Rome, the games had a different function. Athletic events were more of a spectacle than a competition – and became powerful political tools.

“Participants in these games were of low status,” says Neufeld. “The elite would watch them as a form of entertainment. And if politicians put on lavish games, they could get support for running for political office, or the emperor could get support of the people and appease them in times of trouble.”

It’s from such competitions that the phrase “bread and circuses” was invented by the Roman satirist, Juvenal. The phrase means to generate public approval – not by excellence in public service, but by diversion or by satisfying the base needs of a population by offering food and entertainment.

Roman politicians generated plenty of support through events that featured the gladiators. But it wasn’t quite as Hollywood depicts, says Neufeld.

“The earliest games recorded in Roman history took place in conjunction with funeral events. As such, the violent sport has been interpreted as a type of ritual bloodletting to appease the ghosts of the departed,” says Neufeld. “And it wasn’t simply about brutal slaughter. That was reserved for public executions. Spectators wanted to see evenly matched opponents fighting with skill, endurance and fortitude.

“If a defeated gladiator fought well and bravely, he could be spared.”

Despite the differences, athletic competitions for both cultures had deep ties to religion.

“Greek athletic competitions were held during religious festivals in honour of the gods and may have been seen as offerings to the deities,” says Neufeld. “Major games where Greek citizens of all poleis could gather together and compete were held in religious sanctuaries like Delphi and Olympia, where gods had temples and sacrifices could be made in their honour.”

In early Rome, victorious generals vowed to hold ludi (athletic games and chariot races) if the gods would grant him military success. “These games were then held as thanks to the deities,” says Neufeld.

Sarah Cassidy, a fourth-year political science student at University College who is minoring in classics and sociology, says she is enjoying the course.

“I wanted to learn more about the social lives of ancient Greeks and Romans,” she says. “We hear so much about the Olympics, chariot races and gladiators, but prior to this class, I really only had a general knowledge from media materials and culture. I wanted to delve deeper and learn more about the lesser-known festivals and the impacts these events had on the lives and history of the ancients.

“I didn't expect to learn how important these festivals were to not only the citizens and cities, but how necessary they were in protecting, expressing and maintaining Greek and Roman identities.”

Spooky subjects: 91�Թ� 'Monsters' course explores our fascination with the frightful

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 14:33:54 +0000

Spooky subjects: 91�Թ� 'Monsters' course explores our fascination with the frightful

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 10/30/2020 - 10:33

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Mythological monsters like Medusa are among the many frightening subjects studied by students in Professor Erik Gunderson's first-year foundations seminar (photo by Araldo De Luca/Corbis via Getty Images)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Our Community

Classics

Faculty of Art & Science

Halloween

St. Michael's College

Undergraduate Students

University College

Victoria College

As Halloween approaches, with its eerie collection of ghosts, goblins and beasts, 91�Թ� Professor Erik Gunderson remains fearless as he explores frightening creatures both real and imagined in his course aptly called “Monsters.”

In the course, Gunderson compares ancient and mythological monsters with what is considered monstrosity in the modern world.

He also examines the concept of human “monsters.”

“I want students to have a sense of the ways that monsters are deployed,” says Gunderson, who is in the department of classics in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “What kind of thinking is facilitated when one starts talking about monsters and the problems they pose to normal society?”

The course is one of the faculty’s many first-year foundations seminars, which are available to first-year students and focus on issues, questions and controversies surrounding a particular topic or theme.

Althea Draghici, a first-year student and a member of St. Michael’s College who is planning to double major in psychology and criminology, says she’s a fan of the course’s class discussions and the way they have encouraged her to think critically.

“The concept of monstrosity is very subjective,” she says. “The things labelled as ‘monstrous’ depend greatly on the cultural context of society, and yet there are many common themes in monstrosity that occur again and again. As an aspiring psychology major, I've been especially excited to explore how classical monsters can reflect the so-called hidden monsters within a society.

“Overall, every aspect of the class has expanded my knowledge and perspectives on monstrosity, and has given me a new lens through which I can view literature outside of this course.”

Ancient monsters include monsters from the Greco-Roman world, as well as the exotic and often inhuman monsters that are woven into tales of mythology like Medusa or the Minotaur.

“The classic ancient monster has lots of heads, their physical morphology is distorted – whether it's half man and half something else – or a mix of different animals,” says Gunderson. “This is something the ancient world was very interested in – that kind of bodily chaos.”

In turn, Gunderson is interested in what the monsters represent and what is achieved by defeating them.

“The point of monsters does seem to be the idea of bringing order to chaos – that there's something about the world that needs to be dominated or mastered,” he says.

“And there's a kind of politics to this ridding the world of monsters. So that's what we're trying to focus on: What does the monster seem to be doing in any given story? What kind of society does it enable?”

Gunderson’s course moves between studying ancient monsters and more modern monsters. It explores a variety of different genres: epic, tragedy, history, biography and even contemporary film. It is also interested in places where one entertains the idea that there are real monsters like witches, werewolves and vampires lurking within our world.

And the course extends to human “monsters” throughout history – tyrants or leaders whose shocking acts go well beyond acceptable human behaviour.

“Emperors like Caligula and Domitian, they really lived and they really killed people,” says Gunderson. “They were described as monsters. But what do we really mean by that? Why do we invoke the word ‘monster’ instead of just saying, ‘murderer’?”

It’s questions like this that students say make the course so engaging.

“What I love most about this course is that we’re able to discuss the monsters from the readings in a modern context by comparing them to contemporary material,” says Janna Abbas, a first-year student pursuing a double major in English and German, and a member of Victoria College.

“In one of our classes, we compared Euripides’s The Bachae to the movie Mean Girls. These comparisons make the readings much more interesting because I’m able to relate them to something I’m more familiar with, which in turn helps me understand the texts on a deeper level.”

Ireland Egan, a first-year humanities student and a member of University College who plans on majoring in English and cinema studies and minoring in philosophy, was hooked immediately after reading the course description.

“The horror film buff and gothic literature nerd in me completely took over,” says Egan. “Looking at the complexities and motivation of monsters in film and literature is what makes them so interesting.

“It’s given me an opportunity to develop a unique perspective on the definition of monstrosity that I’ve since used in other classes. I even find myself considering it when watching films and reading books in my own time.”

Hamilton, pirates and Roman horror stories: 10 new courses at 91�Թ� Mississauga this fall

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 15:59:35 +0000

Hamilton, pirates and Roman horror stories: 10 new courses at 91�Թ� Mississauga this fall

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 08/25/2020 - 11:59

Cutline

Lin-Manuel Miranda is Alexander Hamilton and Phillipa Soo is Eliza Hamilton in Hamilton, the filmed version of the original Broadway production (photo courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures)

Topic

Undergraduate Students

There’s literally something for everyone in this year’s crop of new 91�Թ� courses.

At 91�Թ� Mississauga, for example, students will be able study everything from the horror stories of ancient Rome to chilling tales of present-day pirates and music and literature lessons that reference Public Enemy and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

There is even an opportunity to learn the language of ancient Greece – the first time in four decades the introductory course has been taught on the campus.

Here are 10 of the more unique and unusual additions to this year’s 91�Թ� Mississauga timetable:

Anthropology of illegal activities

From Italian mafia to pirates on the Indian Ocean, the new anthropology course Racketeers, Smugglers and Pirates: Anthropology of Illegality (ANT216H5) explores illegal activities around the globe. Taught by Assistant Professor Firat Bozcali, this second-year undergraduate course explores anthropological approaches to the study of illegal activities, drawing on case studies of mafia organizations, piracy on the Indian Ocean, human trafficking and contraband smuggling operations in South America, Africa and the Middle East.

“Students should take this course if they want to learn more about how states create and actively participate in illegal economies or how certain activities come to be considered illegal yet socially legitimate,” Bozcali says.

Histories of here and now

Two new courses from the department of historical studies reflect on the past to make sense of the current pandemic, and to better understand the university’s place in local history.

A History of the Present (HIS2135F), taught by Christopher Petrakos, assistant professor, teaching stream, looks to past pandemics to better understand our current times. The second-year course covers some of the more dramatic and consequential pandemics in history, including the Black Death, the Spanish Influenza outbreak and, of course, COVID-19.

“This course puts pandemic disease at the centre of history and historical change,” Petrakos says. “Any student interested in making sense of our chaotic and bewildering present should take this course.”

In the introductory first-year course, A History of Here (HIS104H5), Assistant Professor Brian Gettler explores the deep and fascinating history of Mississauga and the GTA, 91�Թ� Mississauga and 91�Թ� more generally.

“This course introduces students to the historian’s craft, to institutions and people who preserve material and immaterial traces of the past,” Gettler says. “This moment when we are all feeling a certain disconnect from the world around us affords a remarkable opportunity to reflect on place and space, especially those in which we would be finding ourselves if it weren’t for COVID.”

Using psychology to understand economic patterns

What causes bubbles in the stock markets? Why don’t wages fall during a recession? In Macroeconomics and Psychology (ECO352H5S), Assistant Professor Nathanael Vellekoop applies insights from psychology to help third-year students better understand macroeconomic questions concerning central banking, unemployment, inflation and savings.

“Psychology can have a large impact on economic behaviour, including our collective consumption patterns, and even result in swings in the stock markets and housing markets,” Vellekoop says.

“This is a different way of looking at macroeconomics.”

From Bertold Brecht to Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Joni Mitchell, Public Enemy and Bertold Brecht may not appear to have much in common, but Music and Literature (ENG261H5), a new course taught by English and drama studies lecturer Brent Wood, draws a line through their work to show how melody, rhythm and texture interact with language, story and performance. Through weekly podcast-style lectures and remote discussions, Wood will take students on a genre-spanning tour of how African-American and Anglo-American musical storytelling have been used by performers to effect social change.

“Music appeals to one part of the human brain, while language appeals to another,” says Wood. “Developing an understanding of the ways these modes of expression and communication have come together in song and performance in North America is a crucial step towards understanding cultural history and the dynamics shaping our contemporary moment, as well as our own personal responses to these arts.”

Revealing the mysteries of the genome

Genetic information shapes almost all aspects of life. But how is this information organized and inherited? How does it influence individuals and how does it help us understand disease? Epigeneticist Katharina Braeutigam, an assistant professor of biology teaches Molecular and Structural Genomics (BIO417H5 ), a new fourth-year biology course that reveals how the genome is packaged, expressed, replicated and repaired.

“This course explores a question central to all biology: How is genome information used to make living organisms? We will cover really modern aspects of biology in a form that is accessible and exciting for students,” Braeutigam says.

It’s all Greek to me?

For scholars seeking a solid grounding in classics, the department of historical studies has launched several new courses focusing on ancient Greek and Roman history. Assistant Professor Mareile Haase teaches The Trojan War: Archeology and Myth and Religion in Graeco-Roman Egypt (CLA404H5). The fourth-year course pulls at the twined threads of archeology and myth about the fabled war and touches on the present-day conflict between archeologists and ancient historians interpreting the evidence.

“Many consider Homer’s epics on the Trojan War and its aftermath to be the beginning of the Western literary tradition,” says Haase. “But the Trojan War also had an enormous influence on more popular imaginings and still resonates in contemporary society, from contemporary writers such as 91�Թ� alumna Margaret Atwood to the movie Troy starring Brad Pitt as Achilles.”

For those who like a little gore with their history, Horror and the Grotesque in Ancient Rome (CLA395H5S) delves into gruesome topics like cannibalism, the supernatural and the monstrous feminine body to reveal to third-year students what frightened, shocked and repulsed ancient Romans.

The course is taught by Assistant Professor Rebecca Moorman, who is also teaching Introductory Ancient Greek (GRK211H5S) – the first time in over 40 years that the subject has been offered on the 91�Թ� Mississauga campus. The intensive introductory course is aimed at beginners and provides a solid base for intermediate Greek courses.

“A lot can be lost in translation, especially when the original text was composed thousands of years ago,” Moorman says. “Studying ancient Greek gives students access to the original words of Homer, Plato, or Sophocles and allows us to keep this knowledge alive. Ancient Greek can also help to teach modern grammar and English terminology and, for those who like puzzles, its complex system of noun cases and verb forms offers many delightful – if at first frustrating – riddles to solve.”

Getting up close with medieval history

Microhistory focuses on a small part of the past, as if the historian is holding a microscope rather than a telescope to examine earlier societies. In her fourth-year historical studies course Microhistories of Medieval and Early Modern Europe (HIS420H5F), medieval scholar Mairi Cowan turns the lens onto events of the Middle Ages, including the tale of a Welsh rebel who was hanged in 1307 and pronounced dead, but then turned out to be alive.

“Students will focus on small things to answer big questions, acknowledge the limits of what historical sources can convey and see that the details of everyday lives were as rich centuries ago as they are now,” says Cowan, an associate professor, teaching stream.