Department of Classics

University of Mississippi
  • ajootian
    Sharing Classics
    Dr. Aileen Ajootian leads visiting high school students on a tour of the University Museum.
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    Bryant Hall
    Constructed in 1911, the building is the home of the Department of Classics.
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    Farrington Gallery
    The lobby of Bryant Hall provides quiet study space for Classics students.
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    David M. Robinson Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities
    Considered the best of its kind in the South, the University Museum's antiquities collection is available to students for study and research.
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    Classics out loud.
    Dr. Molly Pasco-Pranger helps a student get started at A Taste of Classics, a public reading of Greek and Roman literature held twice a year.
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    Digging Classics
    The Department helps students participate in archaeological digs around the Mediterranean.
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    Farrington Gallery
    The lobby of Bryant Hall provides quiet study space for Classics students.
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    Award Winning Teaching
    Dean Richard Forgette awards Dr. Hilary Becker the 2015 Cora Lee Graham Award for Outstanding Teaching of Freshmen.
    robinsonroom
    David M. Robinson Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities
    Considered the best of its kind in the South, the University Museum's antiquities collection is available to students for study and research.
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    robinsonvases
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    Classics on the road.
    Dr. Hilary Becker's Spring 2015 course in archaeological ethics included a trip to New York where students met with museum and auction house professionals.
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    Hands on Classics
    The Museum's extensive ancient coin collection is a resource for many courses in Classics.
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    Performing Classics
    Students perform a staged reading of Aristophanes' Lysistrata in Bryant Hall's Farrington Gallery.
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    Dedicated faculty.
    Drs. Becker, Fenno, Lobur, Pasco-Pranger, and Cook, in full plumage.
    Ajax reading
    Reading Classics
    Dr. Jonathan Fenno and Classics majors Sharon Possehl and Hal Moyer participate in a live reading of Sophocles' Ajax.

    • News & Events

    Ave atque vale: Dr. Edward Capps III

    The Department of Classics is saddened to report that our emeritus colleague Dr. Edward Capps III passed away in Oxford, MS on August 15, 2018.

    Dr. Capps was born in 1935 in Oberlin, Ohio where his father was a Professor of Classical Art at Oberlin College; his grandfather was a Professor of Classics at Princeton. Educated at Swarthmore College and Yale, Dr. Capps joined our department in 1964 and taught ancient languages, literature, mythology and civilization courses for many years to many thousands of University of Mississippi students. From 1969 to 1972 he served as Vice-President for Mississippi in the Classical Associate of the Middle West and South. Dr. Capps retired in 2002 and was named Professor Emeritus, but continued to teach freshman liberal arts seminars for some years after that.

    Donations and memorials in honor of Dr. Edward Capps III, may be made to the Mississippi Public Broadcasting Foundation (www.mpbonline.org/more/support/).

    Dr. Jacqueline DiBiasie Sammons and UM undergrads in Herculaneum

    Assistant professor of Classics Dr. Jacqueline DiBiasie Sammons and three UM undergrads, Arianna Kitchens, Madeleine McCracken, and Mweyeria Offord spent part of Summer 2018 hard at work locating and digitally documenting graffiti in the ancient city of Herculaneum. Dr. DiBiasie Sammons is the field director for the Ancient Graffiti Project and will be taking more students to continue the project's work in Pompeii in Summer 2019. The Mike and Mary McDonnell Endowment for the Study of Classics helped fund all three students' work on the project.

    Read more about Dr. BiBiasie Sammons and the Ancient Graffiti Project here.

    Professor and three students in University of Mississippi t-shirts pose in front of ancient Herculaneum.

    L to r: Dr. DiBiasie Sammons, Madeleine McCracken, Arianna Kitchens, Mweyeria Offord.

    Three students: Arianna shines a flashlight on an ancient plastered wall as Mweyeria observes; Madeleine approaches with notebooks to record.

    The students at work in a Roman house in Herculaneum.

    Dr. Molly Pasco-Pranger wins teaching award.

    Close up of Dr. Pasco-Pranger.

    Photo by Thomas Graning/Ole Miss Communications

    Associate Professor and Chair of Classics Dr. Molly Pasco-Pranger was awarded the College of Liberal Arts' 2018 Cora Lee Graham Award for Outstanding Teaching of Freshmen. The award was announced in May 2018. Read more here.

    Dr. Brad Cook awarded NEH Fellowship in Athens

    Dr. Brad Cook

     

     

     

     

     

    Associate Professor of Classics Dr. Brad Cook will spend February-June 2018 at the American School for Classical Studies in Athens, having been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in support of his work on two inscriptions in the University of Mississippi Museum's Robinson collection. For more here on the project and the fellowship.

    Horn Lake High School Visits for International Archaeology Day, 10/19/17

    The Department's archaeologists, Dr. Aileen Ajootian and Dr. Jacqueline DiBiasie-Sammons, hosted Latin students from Horn Lake High School in DeSoto County for explorations of Classical archaeology in connection with International Archaeology Day this October. Students studied the Robinson collection at the University Museum, discussed campus architecture and monuments during a walking tour of campus, and tried their hands at Latin graffiti in (but not on!) Bryant Hall.

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