Category: Events

What do Ancient Roman gladiators, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Classical Studies professor Dr. Andy Findley all have in common? They all understand that, even for spectacle entertainment built on physicality, the show is only as good as the character mythology behind all the violence and vamping. In other words, slamming people to the ground …

One of the great benefits of the Classical Studies Program moving under the umbrella of the History Department is that, in good Roman style, we can see what of their stuff we like and totally co-opt it (if it’s a good enough strategy for Ovid and his Metamorphoses, it’s good enough for us). One thing …

Missed your opportunity to see O Brother Where Art Thou? as part of our Classics at the Kan-Kan series? Well, the gods have given you another chance… Looking for the film adaptation of The Odyssey that stays truest to the spirit of Homer’s original epic poem? No, it’s not that Kirk Douglas monstrosity Ulysses, where …

In modern times, people are increasingly concerned by the effects their gardens have on the environment around them (invasive non-native species, anyone?). But this issue is hardly new. Since ancient times, cultures have expressed their imperial ambitions by collecting and transporting specimens of exotic plants. And just like today, those exotic plants have had a …

When you think of “kites,” do you think of Mary Poppins, because you spent way too much time on Disney+ during COVID? Did you know “kites” can also refer to large-scale architectural constructions, engineered by hunters 8,000 years ago to funnel animals together for the slaughter? These sort of structures, found from the Middle East …

Looking for the film adaptation of The Odyssey that stays truest to the spirit of Homer’s original epic poem? No, it’s not that Kirk Douglas monstrosity Ulysses, where the only thing more cheesy and frightening than the Cyclops is Douglas’ Odysseus hitting on a way-too-young-looking Princess Nausicaa. No, it’s not the French film The Odyssey, …

Making the ancient myth of Hercules into a kid’s movie was always going to take some adjusting. Case in point: in making their 1997 movie Hercules, Disney revamped the goddess Hera from “insulted wife desperately trying to kill husband’s bastard child” into “loving mom who mostly just stands there smiling” (presumably she’s also not her …

Recently, Classical Studies Program Director Dr. Elizabeth Thill did something she had not done in years: she attended a newly released movie, in the theater, where the aim was not to keep her children entertained (although she did bring her children, a somewhat questionable decision). What movie could coax her out of her self-imposed movie-theater …

Before there was Troy, or 300, or somehow two Hercules movies in 2014, or whatever that Jon Snow Pompeii movie was, there was Gladiator. In an age where 1960s movies about Ancient Greece and Rome had become synonymous with incoherent scripts and short-short tunics, Ridley Scott and Russel Crowe delivered a sophisticated film that used Imperial …

Ever wonder what it would look like if time-traveling Ancient Greeks made a movie? Forget Brad Pitt in Troy or Dwayne Johnson in Hercules: nothing captures the machismo, misogyny, and sculpted men found in Homer and Herodotus quite like 300. Kings who shout about freedom while treating everyone around them like dirt? Check. Illogically breaking …