Tenure Track Job in Art/Classics/Digital Humanities at UGA

Posted this week: http://art.uga.edu/index.php?pt=1&id=657

Tenure Track Faculty Hire in Art History and Classics
Ancient Visual Culture
Digital Humanities Initiative
University of Georgia

The Lamar Dodd School of Art and the Department of Classics at the University of Georgia invite applications for a tenure­‐track, joint appointment of an assistant professor specializing in ancient visual culture and the reception of the classical tradition and skilled at integrating imaging technologies within his/her scholarship and teaching. Candidates should hold the Ph.D. in art history and present evidence of successful research and teaching in digital humanities. This appointment is part of an ongoing effort by the University of Georgia to build a significant digital humanities infrastructure involving faculty and facilities housed in various departments and collaborating with the Willson Center for the Humanities.

The successful candidate will be asked to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in ancient visual culture that are interdisciplinary in approach and that incorporate digital technology, allowing students to visualize the natural and built landscapes of the ancient past and study how that physical context impacted art, literature, philosophy, and other cultural endeavors. These courses will be cross-‐listed in both departments. The candidate must be committed to scholarship and demonstrate potential achievement in the discipline commensurate with the university’s research mission. S/He must have excellent communication skills and participate in committee work and other service to the undergraduate and graduate programs.

The Lamar Dodd School of Art, housed in a new, state­‐of­‐the­‐art building, has 55 full-‐time faculty members, including 8 art historians, and enjoys a close working relationship with the nearby Georgia Museum of Art. The classics faculty numbers 13, with specialties in Greek, Latin, classical archaeology, ancient history, late antiquity, linguistics, and the classical tradition. Both units are part of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

This position will be available August 2011. The final application deadline for full consideration is January 31, 2011. Applicants should submit a detailed letter summarizing their qualifications, curriculum vitae, names and contact information for three references, an example of scholarship, and other supporting materials to

Chair, Art History and Classics Search Committee
Lamar Dodd School of Art, The University of Georgia
270 River Road Athens GA 30602‐7676
http://www.art.uga.edu and http://www.classics.uga.edu
706-542-1511

The Franklin College of Arts & Sciences, its many units, and the University of Georgia are committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty and students, and sustaining a work and learning environment that is inclusive. Women, minorities and people with disabilities are encouraged to apply. The University of Georgia is an EEO/Afirmative Action Institution.

Please feel free to circulate widely. (I am not involved in the search personally, except as an interested onlooker!)

UGA Libraries Classics-Related Acquisitions: December 2010

The University of Georgia closes completely during the period between Christmas and New Year’s, so while I’ll be here until the bitter end (yes, I am working Christmas Eve and I’m not even an ER doctor!), this will be the last post of 2010 for me. I will be home with my small children until January 4th, and very busy! The UGA closure also means we will probably not be adding much to our collection in the last part of December, so I feel confident titling this post as it is.

In the three weeks since my last post, the UGA Libraries added 2011 items to the Main Library collection. Works of interest to those in Classics and related fields include the following.

• Derrida and antiquity
  Main Library 6th floor, B2430.D483 D63 2010
• Athens, still remains: the photographs of Jean-Francois Bonhomme, Derrida, Jacques.
  Main Library 6th floor, BD444 .D465313 2010
• Sacra facere: aspetti della prassi ritualistica divinatoria nel mondo romano, Santi, Claudia.
  Main Library 6th floor, BF1768 .S26 2008
• Pithoi: technology and history of storage vessels through the ages, Giannopoulou, Mimika.
  Main Library 2nd floor, Folio CC67 .B86 2010
• Conservation: principles, dilemmas and uncomfortable truths, 1st ed.
  Main Library 2nd floor, CC135 .C667 2009
• Finders keepers: a tale of archaeological plunder and obsession, 1st ed., Childs, Craig, 1967-
  Main Library 2nd floor, CC175 .C47 2010
• Excavations at Chester: the Roman fortress baths, excavation and recording 1732-1998
  Main Library 4th floor, Folio DA147.C3 E93 2005
• Evolution of a farming community in the upper Thames Valley: excavation of prehistoric, Roman and post-Roman landscape at Cotswold Community, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.
  Main Library 4th floor, Folio DA670.T2 E965 2010
• Medioevo ellenico: the dark age XII-VIII sec. a.C.: la diaspora micenea: Elimi, Sicani e Siculi in Sicilia, Rizzuti, Luciano, 1944-
  Main Library 4th floor, DF221.2 .R59 2009
• Thucydides, Pericles, and Periclean imperialism, Foster, Edith (Edith Marie)
  Main Library 4th floor, DF229.T6 F67 2010
• Felicitas temporum: dalla terra alle genti: la Basilicata settentrionale tra archeologia e storia
  Main Library 4th floor, DG55.B36 F45 2008
• Area vulcanica dei Campi Flegrei, Galasso, Daniela.
  Main Library 4th floor, DG55.P5 G35 2009
• Suburbium II: il suburbio di Roma dalla fine dell’eta€ monarchica alla nascita del sistema delle ville (V-II secolo a.C.)
  Main Library 4th floor, Folio DG69 .S833 2009
• Culti a Pompei: divinita€, luoghi e frequentatori: VI secolo a.C.-79 d.C., 1. ed., D’Alessio, Maria Teresa.
  Main Library 4th floor, DG70.P7 D28 2009
• Oenotrians at Lagaria near Sybaris: a native proto-urban centralised settlement: a preliminary report on the excavation of timber dwellings on the Timpone della Motta near Francavilla Marittima (Lagaria), Southern Italy, Maaskant-Kleibrink, Marianne.
  Main Library 4th floor, DG70.T63 M33 2006
• Administrer les provinces de la republique romaine: actes du colloque de l’Universite de Nancy II, 4-5 juin 2009
  Main Library 4th floor, DG87 .A455 2010
• Etruschi della piana di Lucca: la via del Frizzone e il sistema di insediamenti tra VIII e V secolo a.C.
  Main Library 4th floor, Folio DG223 .E87 2007
• Cicero’s role models: the political strategy of a newcomer, Blom, Henriette van der.
  Main Library 4th floor
• Development of pre-state communities in the ancient Near East: studies in honour of Edgar Peltenburg
  Main Library 4th floor, DS56 .D46 2010
• Art and architecture of ancient Egypt., Smith, William Stevenson.
  Main Library 7th floor, N5300 .P384 v. 14
• Apse, the image and the icon: an historical perspective of the apse as a space for images, Brenk, Beat.
  Main Library 7th floor, N7832 .B74 2010
• Arte dello stucco in Europa dalla tarda antichita€ all’eta€ gotica Corgnati, Martina.
  Main Library 7th floor, NA3690 .C67 2010
• Pronomos vase and its context
  Main Library 7th floor, NK4645 .P86 2010
• Early Greek poets’ lives: the shaping of the tradition, Kivilo, Maarit.
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA9 .M686 Suppl. no. 322
• Patristic Greek lexicon
  Main Library 1st floor Reference, Main Ref PA681 .P3 1961
• Latinity and alterity in the early modern period
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA2902 .L37 2010
• Companion to Hellenistic literature
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA3081 .C63 2010
• Poetique et creation litteraire en Grece ancienne : la decouverte d’un nouveau monde, Frazier, Francoise.
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA3093 .F73 2009
• Xenophon
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA4497 .X45 2010
• Ecritures latines de la memoire: de l’Antiquite au XVIe siecle
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA6029.M36 E27 2010
• Ragioni del sangue: storie di incesto e fratricidio nella declamazione latina, Brescia, Graziana.|
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA6085 .B74 2009
• Liebesbeziehungen in Ovids Metamorphosen und ihr Einfluss auf den Roman des Apuleius 2., verb. Aufl. Muller-Reineke, Hendrik.
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA6217 .M85 2000
• Horace in dialogue: Bakhtinian readings in the satires, Sharland, Suzanne.
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA6411 .S53 2009
• Nugis ignosce lectitans: studi su Marziano Capella, Schievenin, Romeo.
  Main Library 3rd floor, PA6511.M3 S34 2009
• Works of Virgil: containing his Pastorals, Georgics and †neis, The seventh ed., Virgil.
  Main Library 3rd floor Hargrett Rare Books

As always, this is a somewhat subjective list, especially around the margins of the discipline!

Reference Resources: Specialized Mythology Dictionaries

Previous roundups on classical mythology have covered LIMC, mythology web sites, and basic print mythology dictionaries.  Today I highlight some more specialized and focused mythology resources:

• R. Bell, Dictionary of Classical Mythology: Symbols, Attributes, and Associations (Main Reference, 1st Floor, BL715 .B44 1982).  This work is useful for those looking to approach myths in a slightly different way – i.e. by looking for all figures and stories associated with bears, sickles, or some other attribute or association.  Jenkins discusses this as no. 897, describing it as “an excellent companion work” to a more traditional mythology dictionary organized by personages, although because it provides little summary of the myths, it cannot stand alone as a mythology reference.
• R. Bell, Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary (Main Reference, 1st Floor,  BL715 .B445 1991).  This work covers female figures in Greek and Roman myths, and includes many very obscure ones, so some entries are quite short.  Jenkins (no. 898) calls it “particularly good for differentiating among characters of the same name and for identifying obscure epithets of the goddesses.”

Many western literature classes need a resource for classical myths as they appear in post-classical sources.  The following are quite useful:

• Brumble, Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Main Reference, 1st Floor,  PN669 .B78 1998).  Jenkins (no. 899) praises Brumble for his “lengthy annotated bibliography of primary [medieval and Renaissance] sources” but warns that he “covers only those mythical figures who are used allegorically in later literature, so some otherwise important figures are omitted.”
• Reid, Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300-1900s (Main Reference, 1st Floor, NX650 .M9 R45 1993).  I have found this work to be useful for both literary and artistic depictions of myths in tyhe periods covered, although its main strength, as Jenkins (no. 921) notes, is its “very full” listing of “more than 30,000 works of art.”  Works are listed chronologically under each myth or figure, and artworks and literature are interfiled, with good detail (current locations and artists, or publication information).

This last is in the Repository (off-campus storage) at UGA, but I can’t resist mentioning it because I have an ongoing interest in names and naming!:

• NTC’s Classical Dictionary: The Origins of Names of Characters in Classical Mythology (1992). I haven’t looked at this personally, but it covers 1000 proper names from Greek and Roman myths and their etymologies; Jenkins (no. 922) calls it “interesting, if sometimes speculative.” (In the Repository.)

Next up in resource reviews: resources for the study of ancient religion, which is usually treated in a quite separate context from mythology.

 

Kindles in the Classics

I found out last week that a grant proposal I wrote was approved.  A team consisting of me, a fellow librarian, and an English professor applied for a Learning Technology Grant from the Center for Teaching and Learning at UGA.  Here’s the abstract:

As students shift to reading texts on screens, faculty and librarians must prepare to support their digital reading, writing, and research. This project proposes the purchase of a set of e-book readers, Amazon’s Kindle 2.0, to be used as an integral part of the classroom experience; students will receive Kindles for use during the semester to read all of their class texts. They will be surveyed regarding their experience using the e-reader, and the instructor will explore how the device changes pedagogy. After the pilot is complete, the Kindles may be used by other classes or circulated to UGA students.

I am going to be embedded in the class, a 4000-level class in Environmental Literature (Thoreau to Annie Dillard, essentially), which should be a lot of fun in its own right.  Once I get my hands on a Kindle, I will be developing online resources for the students in the class that cover how to acquire the class texts (including scholarly articles) and also how to find free or low-cost e-books on any subject, including leisure reading.  I am excited to explore the annotation features the Kindle provides, and to see how the experience of reading changes on a Kindle.  I am very curious to see what the students’ attitudes are!

I’m also thinking about what’s next for the Kindles.  Could they be used in a Classics class?  I don’t know much about availability of Classical texts or scholarly works in Classics on the Kindles, and I don’t think there is currently the kind of built-in dictionary for ancient languages that the Kindle has for English.  Have any Classics publishers considered special formatting for e-books that would allow direct access to endnotes or a lexicon?  Has much been done with computerized language learning in Latin or Greek?  I’ll be trying to talk to faculty to find out, but if anyone can comment with experiences or links to articles on e-books in Classics or digital language learning, I’d be very interested!

Print Mythology Dictionaries

I have discussed LIMC and classical mythology websites in earlier posts, so will continue the topic of mythology with a discussion of  print resources we have at UGA for classical myth.

Jenkins recommends two top print reference works in Classical Mythology.  Neither of these are currently in Reference at UGA:

• Pierre Grimal’s Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Main Library 6th floor, BL715 .G713 1986; Jenkins no. 906) is described as “the best of the many general dictionaries of Greek and Roman mythology in English,” and is of special value for its “scholarly apparatus.”  UGA also has the French edition, of which the above is a translation: Dictionnaire de la mythologie grecque et romaine.  The concise edition in English (Jenkins no. 907) was recently sent to the Repository.
• Jenkins (no. 931) favors Tripp, Crowell’s Handbook of Classical Mythology (Main Library 6th floor, BL303 .T75 1970, also, under a different title, the 1974 edition) for its “very full and accurate account of the myths,” although it is more targeted to the scholar encountering references to classical myths in western literature than to the classical scholar.

In the Reference Department are a few general works:

• Dixon-Kennedy, Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology (Main Reference, 1st Floor, BL715 .D56 1998).  Jenkins (no. 902) describes this as ” a suitable ready-reference for students,” noting that it has entries for places and ancient authors, not just mythological personages.
• Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion (Main Reference, First Floor, BL715 .O845 2003; Jenkins, no. 920) consists of edited entries relevant to classical mythology taken from the Oxford Classical Dictionary.  Jenkins calls it “useful” but notes that the entries do not include bibliographies of secondary literature, so for most students researching for papers the OCD would be more useful.

Recently exiled to the Repository, in my opinion by mistake, and I am trying to wrest it back to Reference, is:

• March, Cassell Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Main Reference, 1st Floor, BL715 .M37 1998, temporarily shelved at the Repository; Jenkins no. 914).  This in my opinion is the modern Reference standard – I suspect this is the volume most often kept on “ready reference” shelves (in libraries that still have those!).  Jenkins notes that the 1998 edition (which is the one we have) has “excellent black-and-white illustrations.”  He compares it “favorably” with Grimal, above.

A subject heading search in the UGA catalog for Mythology – Dictionaries (which will include some non-classical works; for the most recent works the heading is Mythology, Classical – Dictionaries) will pull up the rest.  I’ll discuss a few more specialized mythology dictionaries, and reference resources for ancient religion as distinct from myth, in future posts.

What Undergraduate Researchers Need

Barbara Fister recently published a blog post at Inside Higher Ed titled Undergraduates in the Library, Trying Not To Drown that is truly important reading for anyone who teaches undergraduates and assigns them research projects.  It’s short – go read the whole thing.

What, you didn’t go read it?  Well, here are the highlights:

The good news is that students do look critically at their sources and have evaluation criteria that they apply to choose which sources to cite or to use in everyday life. They don’t take what they find online or in library databases at face value, and in addition to wanting a good grade, they place value on what they learn as they do research and on searching “comprehensively” – though what that means to them is different than it is to an expert.

The bad news is that they think there’s far too much information available and, as a result, narrow their options in rather mechanical ways. They limit what they look at to avoid being completely lost and overwhelmed. Very few students ask librarians “here’s my topic; where should I look?” Instead, they typically do what has worked before, hoping to gather usable results in the most time-efficient manner.

In other words, if Jstor has worked for a student before, she will keep using Jstor, even if that is not the best resource for a given topic.

The study also confirmed something previous research has found: undergraduates have the greatest trouble at the start of their projects because they are often asked to write about topics they don’t know much about. They can’t form a clear focus until they’ve done a lot of scanning to figure out the landscape of the subject matter, and it’s hard to formulate a query because they don’t know what terms are relevant and may miss key words because they are phrases they’ve never heard.

When I teach a library class for undergraduates, I discuss the nature of the research process, and emphasize the idea of starting with an encyclopedia (even Wikipedia!), getting a grip on the basics of the topic, and being prepared to search repeatedly as one’s understanding of a topic narrows or changes focus.  I don’t know how much they listen; since they can dive into a database and get results, I suspect many of them do that.  Certainly that seems to be the case when students instant message us for help because the scholarly articles they are finding are “too specific” or “too complicated.”

For librarians, the implications are rather more stark. We tend to think more is always better, that helping students do research means exposing them to a huge banquet of options. The problem for undergraduates is not finding enough sources: it’s finding the right ones.

Over at the Ancient World Open Bibliographies blog, I posted about this topic.  Scholars, and librarians too, have a tendency to want to collect ALL the references, or ALL the books.  But for many purposes, a curated collection – of books, citations, or what have you – saves time and gets the fledgling researcher off on the right foot, right from the start.