Join us for our 13th year of providing the classics community this complimentary professional development series of webinars.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023
5:00–5:45 pm Central Time
“Feminist and Queer Perceptions of Homer's Iliad”
Daniel Libatique, Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT

This webinar will explore the ways in which modern receptions of ancient stories can help us think through cultural questions in both temporal settings. For example, what do these receptions tell us about identity and community, and how do the “same” identities and communities get defined and policed differently in an ancient versus a modern context? Our case study will be queer and feminist receptions of Homer’s Iliad in novels like Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles and Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls, with authors reimagining and adapting characters like Patroclus and Briseis into narratives that simultaneously explore our current cultural moment and reframe our understanding of the ancient one.

Daniel Libatique is the Vincent J. Rosivach Assistant Professor in Classical Studies at Fairfield University, He earned his PhD in Classical Studies from Boston University, an MA in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University, and a BA in Classics and Theatre from the College of the Holy Cross, where he was a recipient of the prestigious Bean Classics Scholarship. He has taught at the College of the Holy Cross and at Boston University.

Libatique is a regular presenter at classical conferences drawing upon work in his special interests—narratology; Ovid and Augustan poetry; ancient gender politics and sexuality; Digital Humanities (Natural Language Processing, machine learning, text encoding); queer theory; performance and reception; Sophocles and Greek tragedy; metrics. Learn more about Professor Libatique.

Tuesday, November 14, 2023
5:00–5:45 pm Central Time
“Incorporating Videos on Roman Material Culture into the Latin Classroom”
Darius Arya, American Institute for Roman Culture, Rome, Italy

For over twenty years, Darius Arya has worked sedulously to share the wonders of Rome and the Roman world to classicists, students, and the general public. In this webinar, he will demonstrate how to use videos on Roman culture in the Latin classroom. He will show excerpts from a recent production on the Arch of Septimius Severus paying specific attention to the inscription and its relevance in the Latin classroom. In addition, Arya will provide a roster of videos and their topics produced through the American Institute on Roman Culture (AIRC) and available on YouTube. Thanks to a generous grant from the Dr. Rudolph Masciantonio Grants Committee of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, Arya and AIRC will produce twenty-five plus videos geared to middle and high school students. Arya will solicit topic ideas for those videos from webinar attendees.

Darius Arya is an archaeologist, public historian, author, social media influencer, and TV host based in Rome, Italy. He works around the globe, with a focus on Rome and the Roman Empire. He directs educational programs, leads lecture series and heritage preservation initiatives, specialized tours, and features in or hosts TV shows for US, Italy, and other European programs. Arya earned his BA in classics at the University of Pennsylvania and his MA and PhD in classical archaeology from the University of Texas at Austin. His love of Roman material culture was enriched by his time at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies as an undergraduate and again during graduate studies as a Fulbright Scholar and Rome Prize recipient at the American Academy in Rome. Arya has taught at the University of Texas and the University of California.

Arya's documentary work has included Rome: Engineering an Empire (History, winner of two Emmys), the series Ancients Behaving Badly (History) and the series When Rome Ruled (National Geographic). He is the cofounder and longtime CEO of the American Institute for Roman Culture (AIRC). Learn more about AIRC's many projects and contributions to educating the world about Rome and Roman culture.

Tuesday, December 5, 2023
5:00–5:45 pm Central Time
“Using Visuals to Enliven the Vergil Classroom and Deepen Comprehension”
Henry V. Bender, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA

Professor Bender, longtime AP Latin teacher, is excited to share a method combining visuals to illustrate the Latin of Vergil’s Aeneid. He will demonstrate how his text Poet and Artist: Imaging the Aeneid with its Ogilby illustrations (chosen by John Dryden for his famous translation of the epic) enrich the learning experience. In his own teaching, Bender found his Vergil classes to be so much more effective and impactful through correlating text and image. This approach also works well as a vehicle for reviewing the material.

Henry V. Bender currently teaches at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Previously, he taught at Villanova University, the College of the Holy Cross, the Hill School, and St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia. He is celebrated as a tour guide and escort to Rome and Italy—having led well over 100 tours. Bender earned a BA from Fordham University, an MA from Penn State, and a PhD from Rutgers. His service to the classics profession includes past president and current treasurer of CAAS, past president of the Philadelphia Classical Society, and column editor for the Classical World. Bender is coauthor with David J. Califf of Poet and Artist: Imaging the Aeneid (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2004), coauthor with Phyllis Young Forsyth of Catullus: Expanded Edition (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2005), author of A Horace Reader for Advanced Placement (Focus, 1998), and author of The Civilization of Ancient Rome: An Archaeological Perspective (University Press of America, 1986).

We welcome input from our colleagues in the classics community. Zap your ideas to Don Sprague.

For Professional Development
Participation is free. All webinars provide opportunity for participants to ask questions.

Learn lots — attend each presentation. Sign up for this professional development webinar. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers will provide documentation of your participation.

Please note: The Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers Webinar Program is intended to be a live interactive endeavor in which presenter and attendees ask questions, make comments, seek clarification, share examples, etc. Thus, by design and in order to protect the presenter's intellectual property, B-C does not make recordings available to non-attendees. B-C encourages those interested in a given topic or presenter to plan to attend the live webinar.