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Dr. Robyn Le Blanc and Jack
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Salvēte, amīcī! I am delighted to share our third annual edition of the departmental newsletter, looking back at 2020. Who would have thought when we published our newsletter last February that we were heading into a year like no other?
2020 was certainly a tough year for everyone, but I am proud of the way that the faculty and staff have stepped up to the challenge of developing online content, supporting students, and making the best of teaching face-to-face in the Fall 2020, with everyone wearing masks and staying six feet apart.
Amidst the challenges, there have been some happy moments, such as Robyn Le Blanc and her husband adding a budding new Classicist to the world with the birth of their son, Jack, in July. Another positive moment came in the Fall 2020 with the welcoming of a new tenure-track faculty member, Michiel van Veldhuizen, and two lecturers, Matthew Schueller and Georgios Doudalis, to the department.
Finally, there has been a fringe benefit to moving everything online temporarily: we have been able to welcome a much wider (virtual) audience to our departmental talks, which have been held on Zoom. Please check our website for an event coming up in April!
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Welcome to Dr. Michiel van Veldhuizen!
Michiel van Veldhuizen (PhD, Brown University 2019) came to us after a year as an Assistant Professor at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Michiel specializes in the religious and intellectual history of the ancient world, with a particular interest in disaster and divination.
His current book project, Divining Disaster: Signs of Catastrophe in Ancient Greek Culture, analyzes the ways in which the ancient Greeks gave meaning to such disastrous events as plagues, famines, and shipwrecks, and the lessons it may hold for a hermeneutic disaster management today.
He has recently published an article on the reception of Circe’s island as a place of becoming-animal in the journal Ramus, and among his forthcoming publications is a chapter on the use of abductive reasoning in deciphering oracles. His research draws on such fields as semiotics, ecocriticism, and animal studies to illuminate ancient mentalities and modern receptions. Michiel taught on Ancient Oracles for our capstone course in the fall as well as upper level Greek, and is teaching Classical Mythology and upper level Greek this semester.
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Meet Our New Lecturers
Matthew Schueller (PhD, UNC Chapel Hill 2020) and Georgios Doudalis (PhD, Heidelberg 2019) are both archaeologists.
Matthew’s primary research interests are in urbanism, architecture, and cultural interaction in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, with a focus on the Balkan provinces of Macedonia and Thrace. In partnership with Dr. Robyn Le Blanc and Balkan Heritage, he is currently associated with the excavation project at the Roman town of Doclea in Montenegro.
Georgios has worked for many years at Mochlos, with Jeff Soles, and his research specialties are Middle and Late Bronze Age pottery and Aegean Archaeology. Both Matthew and Georgios have been great additions to the department, teaching our 200-level civilization and archaeology courses as well as Classical Mythology. We wish them well on the job market.
More Faculty News
- Joanne Murphy accomplished a trifecta of accolades in 2020: She was awarded the Junior Research Excellence Award at UNCG, the Senior Teaching Excellence Award for the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Gladys Strawn Bullard Award for Outstanding Service and Leadership at UNCG. Joanne also published two edited volumes in 2020: Death in Late Bronze Age Greece: Variations on a Theme (Oxford University Press), and Rituals, Collapse, and Radical Transformation in Archaic States (Routledge).
- Susan Shelmerdine co-authored with Cynthia Shelmerdine a new edition of Introduction to Greek, rethinking the previous book from the ground up. It was published in September 2020 (Hackett Publishing).
- Robyn Le Blanc was awarded the James Y. Joyner Award for Teaching Excellence at UNCG and had an article on Marsyas of the Forum accepted for publication in the Numismatic Chronicle.
- Jonathan Zarecki is the Rebecca A. Lloyd Distinguished Resident Fellow in Lloyd International Honors College in 2020-2021.
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Classical Studies faculty sent virtual well wishes to our 2020 graduates.
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Student Updates
Our students continue to impress us with their hard work, talent, and ingenuity.
The Classical Society has been active, albeit virtually, promoting fellowship in the department and planning various classically themed activities. Michiel van Veldhuizen and Matthew Schueller have both given presentations to the society on current research projects, and the students look forward in the spring to a dramatic reading of a Greek play with Michiel as well as a virtual tour of the Athenian Acropolis with Joanne.
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In Memoriam: Jennifer Melissa Ellison
Jennifer Melissa Ellison (BA, 1996) died unexpectedly on February 21, 2019. Jennifer was a beloved student in Classical Studies, with a concentration in Language and Literature. She worked as a wire transfer systems analyst for BB&T. Having spent her teens in Durham, Jennifer became an ardent Duke basketball fan. She loved Duran Duran, Harry Potter and Star Wars.
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Stay in touch!We invite you to keep up with departmental activities in the following ways:
Please keep us updated on what is happening in your lives and careers; we appreciate the opportunity to highlight your accomplishments on our website. Feel free to contact me directly (mkheyn@uncg.edu).
Our annual alumni reunion, in conjunction with Homecoming Weekend at UNCG, has become one of the highlights of the year, and we were disappointed to miss it in October 2020. We hope to see all of you at World of Beer next year!
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With best wishes,
Dr. Maura Heyn
Head, Department of Classical Studies
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