2nd APIDA in Classics Event!
We invite high school students interested in Classics—particularly those who identify as APIDA (Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and/or Desi American)—to register for this free event on September 9, 2023, 11am PT/2pm ET.
Registered participants will have the opportunity to engage with our amazing panelists, who will share their experiences and answer questions about studying Classics, being an APIDA Classicist, and any other questions you might have!
Registration Link: https://forms.gle/vgoLuVPu9We7shDi6
Our Panelists:
Ethan Ganesh Warren is a fifth-year graduate student on the philology track at the University of Texas-Austin specializing in depictions of gender and sexuality in Latin poetry as well as more public-facing DEI advocacy. He has been a part of AAACC for the last 3 years. He graduated from the University of Rochester in 2019 with his B.A. and received his M.A. from UT in 2021. Outside of the classroom, you can catch him attempting (key word here) to run or playing fetch with his dog Kobe.
AAACC: What is one aspect of the ancient world that makes you feel connected to the past?
EGW: The literature.
Ruth Elizabeth Varghese is a current Classics MA at San Francisco State University. She received her undergrad in Political Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. She worked at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum prior to moving to San Francisco and hopes to go back into the museum world after she completes her masters.
AAACC: What is one aspect of the ancient world that makes you feel connected to the past?
REV: I think the storytelling - I love a good story, and ancient epics and poetry are wild and fantastic, and it's fun to think of the development of storytelling throughout time, from auditory epics, written stories, to visual videos.
Frances Lin is a senior at Amherst College majoring in neuroscience and classical civilization. She is preparing for her upcoming thesis in neuroscience but will continue to engage in various Classics courses throughout the year. She wants to pursue an independent study involving the translation of a Latin text discussing ancient medicine in hopes of completing a project that will blend her passions together.
AAACC: What is one aspect of the ancient world that makes you feel connected to the past?
FL: As someone who loves listening to stories, mythology is one aspect of the ancient world that allows me to feel connected to the past. I was and still am a huge fan of the Percy Jackson series, which can be regarded as my first exposure to Greek and Roman mythology. Throughout my college education, I have had many opportunities to learn about the gods from various perspectives and to better understand their role in Roman society, whether it be in my ancient art history class or my Latin class. I think it is incredible to look at how the stories of the gods have transcended and changed through time and a diversity of cultures.
Christine Wong received her BA in History at the University of California, San Diego. She then enrolled in a MA program at San Diego State University in History focusing on ancient magic and religion in the Greek and Roman worlds. She then started as a PhD student at the University of Cincinnati and switched gears to teaching high school part-way through, leaving her program with a MA in Classics focusing on ancient history. She taught Latin at a public high school in Cincinnati and is about to begin a new job working with primary school kids who need some extra behavioral and academic support in the classroom.
AAACC: What is one aspect of the ancient world that makes you feel connected to the past?
CW: Recipes help me feel connected to the past because it is knowledge shared from the past that we can (mostly) reproduce today. It is also interesting to think about what sorts of ingredients were available in the past that we still have access to, and what resources have disappeared over time. And, when we think about the individual ingredients in a recipe, we have to think about the amount of labor that goes into producing the ingredients, where they come from, how far they traveled, what route those ingredients (and people!) took, and so on and so forth. And it's not just recipes for food that I'm thinking about...ancient magic had spell books in which each so-called spell reads like a recipe with a whole trade network of goods and services in the ancient world that is similar to the trade and travel that we see today.