Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,
As our young College of Arts and Humanities continues its journey to define itself and set out priorities for the future, I am delighted to announce the successful launch of our new minor in Classics and the Ancient World. This is another interdisciplinary program, because Classics touches on topics in history, philosophy, political theory, literature, drama, and of course Latin and ancient Greek languages. Consequently, we have faculty from all these disciplines involved in the initiative that stretches even beyond our College. The driving force behind this new minor is the chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Ben White, and Keren Shatalov, a lecturer in philosophy, who directs the program.
Classical foundations
Why start a program in Classics and Ancient World in the year 2025, I hear you asking? There are many answers. Let us set aside that the edifice of the civilization we inhabit is founded on ideas, principles and teachings found in classical texts. The architects of the modern world were all trained in and shaped by Greco-Roman antiquity. We cannot fully comprehend thinkers of the past if we do not understand their frame of reference. Even if we set all this to the side, the questions posed by the ancients, the ways in which they sought answers: these are central to an education, no matter what career one ends up pursuing. Our graduates will be better equipped to confront the issues of their time, if they have been exposed to and cultivated by the immense legacy and wisdom they have inherited.
I have been thrilled to see several extracurricular activities that Keren and her colleagues have launched this semester to accompany the minor. There is a faculty-student reading group that meets every two weeks. We are currently working our way through Plato’s Symposium. I have been blown away by our students who have been the primary discussion leaders.
In September, Kirk Sanders, a leading Classics professor from the University of Illinois, gave a lecture to a packed auditorium of students on the trial and death of Socrates.
Classics on stage
And, to top things off, the Clemson Players are currently staging a production of Sophocles’s Antigone, a miraculously concise drama that somehow manages to touch on issues of power, defiance, stubbornness, loyalty, family dynamics, statecraft, sacrifice, ethical conduct, love. Questions of right and wrong are explored with stunning nuance. No easy answers in this drama: it’s why we read and perform Antigone over 2,000 years later. An hour before the new production opened, a group of students and faculty met with the production’s director, Kailey Potter, in the Brooks Center lobby and engaged in a lively discussion about the play and her approach to its performance. It’s because of opportunities like this that I feel so privileged to work at a university.
I love the fact that all elements of the College are involved one way or another. My dream is that the arts and humanities at Clemson work together, each amplifying the other, to demonstrate to our students how we are all engaged in the same undertaking: to understand our world in the fullest sense and to make it a better place for everyone.
Go Tigers!
Nicholas Vazsonyi
Dean
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