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.

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.

The Department invites you to join us at 5:30 on Friday, September 29th for alecture by Dr. Timothy J. Moore, John and Penelope Biggs Distinguished Professor of Classics at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Moore's topic is “Topsy-Turvy Comedy in Ancient Rome and Medieval Japan,” comparing the response to social hierarchy in Roman Comedy (especially Plautus’ Mostellaria) with social relations in Kyogen, a form of comic drama from medieval Japan still performed today.

Dr. Hilary Becker took 8 intrepid Classics majors and minors on a study tour of sites in Rome, Latium and Campania for four weeks this June. Several of the students were supported by McDonnell Foundation scholarships. Here's just a sampling of their adventures!

In sorting through materials shelved in an extra office (our "departmental library"-- now to house a member of the University's ever-growing faculty!), we discovered this week a historical gem! This 1849 Greek-English Lexicon, a forerunner of the Liddell and Scott lexicons widely used today, bears the signature of James Jones Quarles of College Hill, Mississippi. Quarles was the first graduate of the University of Mississippi in 1851, and later a member of the faculty. Further signatures belong to John H. Quarles, who is likely a brother of J. J. Quarles. He is listed in the Historical Catalogue of the University of Mississippi: 1849-1909 as "Not graduating" in 1856. On a later page, Frank Quarles records that this lexicon was left to him by his father, J. J. Quarles. Frank was the grandson of the original owner of the book, and is listed as a "New student" at the University in 1904-05. The Department has donated the Quarles lexicon to the University of Mississippi Libraries' Archives and Special Collections for preservation.