Every spring the Undergraduate Scholarship Committee solicits from departmental faculty and teaching assistants nominations for a Meg Greenfield Essay Prize. This prize is awarded for papers written for courses (including senior essays and theses) taught within the Department of Classics and deemed by the Committee to be particularly worthy of recognition. No restrictions are placed on the nature or length of the paper; in general the chief criteria are exceptional writing, deep and informed engagement with the subject, and evidence of critical or imaginative thinking. More than one award may be made in a single year; and the range of award may vary (past awards have ranged from $50 to $1000).
Recipients of Meg Greenfield Essay Prizes
2023-24
- Amelia Ketzel, Participatory Art and Object Empowerment: The Complicated Treatment of the Sleeping Hermaphroditus
- Meagan White, Breaking the Binary: Dionysus and Nonbinary Gender Performance in Antiquity
- Danika Kwak, Asexuality in Greek and Roman Classics: The Rejection of the Erotic Sphere by Ovid's "Narcissus" and Euripides' "Hippolytus"
- Tristen Krumenauer, Women and Martyrdom in Early Christianity
- Gargi Pradhan, From Statues to Simulations: An Analysis of Male Desire and its Manifestations in Media
2022-23
- Melissa Barker, Patroclus as Heartthrob: Why Do We Love Him? A Meta-Analysis of Patroclus
- Jocelyn Hicks, Hunting Metaphors for Love and War
- Sarah McDaniel, Greek Myth and History in Modern Film
- Sean Haneberg, Augmenting Classics Undergraduate Studies with Conversational Artificial Intelligence
2021-22
- Melissa Barker, A Comparative Analysis of Hero-Pairs in Oral Epic Poetry
- Suh Young Choi, A Quantitative Analysis of Archaisms in Livy’s Prehistory of Rome in the "Ab Urbe Condita"
- Cori Davidson, Parallel Love and Power in "The Odyssey" and "Ramayana"
- Luc Laurent, Roman Body Modification
- Meagan White, On My Honor: The Key to Understanding Odysseus
2020-21
- Suh Young Choi, Curio’s St. Crispin’s Day Speech
- Peter Schultz-Rathbun, The Tapestry of Time: a cunning weaving of fate and free will in the Iliad
- Alexandra Smith, Medea: Madness, Murder, and Mental Health
- Yadi Wang, Medea the Serial Killer
Honorable Mention Award
- Hannah Newland, A Truly Epic Shield
2019-20
- Lorraine Abagatnan, The Role of Food in the Hellenistic and Roman Colonization of Ancient North Transjordan
- Owen Coats, The Fallen Science: the Tradition and Skepticism of Ancient Astrology
2018-19
- Rose Bugel-Shunra, One Poet in Search of An Audience
- Madolyn Hyytiainen-Jacobson, Mycenaean Feasting and the Reimaging of Greek Temple and Religious Practice
- Kelly Stenger, Chimaera: Aspects, Origins, Depictions, and Functions
Honorable Mention Awards
- McKenzie Carlson, Women of the Cosmos
- Sheila Panyam, Satires III.1
2017-18
- Rose Bugel-Shunra, "Wealth and Time in the the Homeric Hymns"
- Angus Carey-Douglas, "Intertextuality and Shame in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite"
- Jamie Forschmiedt, "Nobody" (poem)
Honorable Mention Awards
- David Bloomsburg, "How the Homeric Gods make Helen"
- Yael Kochin, "...just drawn that way: the female eidolon in Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
- Tyler Valentine, "Unethical Innovation"
2016-17
- Chris Mowers, "Euripides' Medea: A Director's Portfolio"
2015-2016
- Joseph Bringman, Jr. "The Subjectivity of Divinity: Personal and Political Determinants of the Roman Imperial Apothetic Apparatus and Domitian's Desire to be Dominus et Deus in his Lifetime"
- Alexandra Holttum, "Notha Mulier: An Examination of Masculinity and Catullus' Ambiguous Sexual Identity in the Lesbia, Juventius and Attis Poems"
2014-15
2013-14
- Kathleen Noll "Formal Laws and Informal Negotiations: A Look at Consent in Roman Marriage"
- James Piper "On Ankles and Vulnerabilty in Greek Thought"
- Malia Piper "Apples and Access to the Maiden"
2012-13
- Molly Ostheller "Homeric Truth" (honors thesis)
- Megan O'Donald "Rhetoric and its Limitations in Euripides' Medea"
- Amanda Zurita "Modern Travel in Ancient Rome: the eternal tourist experience"
- Julie Feng "Tapestries: Threads of Female Agency in the Classical Novel"
2011-12
- Molly Ostheller "The high stakes game of rewriting Virgil: 4th century Centones" and "Truth in the Odyssey"
- Andrew Larson "Bowl and Lamp Divination in the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri"
- Devin Gleeson (two nominations) "Some Vertumnian Antinomies and a Metapoetical reading of Propertius 4.2" and a suite of 3 short papers written for Classics 330 (The Age of Augustus)
- Allen Snider “‘δῆλον ὅ τ᾽ ἐν τᾷ γᾷ κἠγώ τις φαίνομαι ἦμεν’: agricultural and nautical ways of life in the pastoral tradition”
- David Brodhead "Polifemo the pharmakon"
- Anysia Dumont "A Song of Deadly Desire: The Evolution of the Sexy Siren in Late Antique Allegory"
2010-2011
- Sarah Borsic "The Matrona Character in Plautus and the Display of Anger"
- Jonathan Ettel "Apuleius Talks to Plato"
- Matt King "Ekkehard of Aura's Hierosolymita"
- Ella Wallace "The Art of Rhizotomia: Plant-Cutting and the Magical Uses of Plants in the Ancient World"
2009-2010
- Matt Perkins "Transgressive Plants in A Changing Political Climate: Vergil's Vision of Vegetative Control in the Georgics"
- Marie La Fond "Exposè on Indian Fables in Comparison with their Mediterranean Counterparts"
- Andrew Larson "Love as a Cultural Force in Ovid's Ars Amatoria"
- Daniel Germain "Comics are for Classicists"
2008-2009
- Marie La Fond "The Art in/of the Aeneid"
- Jacqueline Pincus "Effeminate but Effective: The Role of the Proboulos in the Lysistrata "
2007-2008
- Arianna Beck "A Change of Character: Helen, Andromache and the Foil Effect in Seneca's Troades"
- Sam Beckelhymer "All Poems Lead to Rome: Poetry and Society in Catullus"
- Sasa Foster "Bros before Hoes: Rome's Appropriation of the Dioscuri and Rejection of Helen"
- Alanna Muniz (various work)
- Jacqueline Pincus "The Difficulties in Defending Helen and the Inescapable Power of Ambiguity"
- Melissa Sassin "Sister Light, Sister Dark - An examination of Helen and Medea as Achilles' dual brides"
- Michael Seguin "Catullus Challenge: The Poetics of Personal Humiliation"
2006-2007
- Joshua Fincher "Noon and Symbolic Landscape in Ovid's Metamorphoses"
- Leah Orr "Spies on the Inside: Horace, Juvenal, Alexander Pope"
- Michael Seguin (suite of three papers)
2005-2006
- Joshua Fincher "Hippolytus" and "O Sweet Mysteries of Love: Tibullus and the imagery of mystery religions"
- Jaakko Henrik Salminie "Bovem per cornu, caesarem per linguam: Senecan sociolinguistics in Apocolocyntosis"
- Brittany Olson "Harmonia's Dissent"
2004-2005
- Joseph Groves "Imperial Character and the Character of Empire in Tacitus' Tiberian Narrative.
- Brendan Haug "Do Your Grandpa Right: An Imitation of Juvenal 1.3"
- Emily Munro "A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal."
2003-2004
- Jeffery Clackley “The Summi Viri are Dead?!: Exemplary Evidence in Annals 15”
- Thorn Michaels “Helen Journal”
- Lorenzo Battistelli “Helen Journal”
- Brendan Haug “Livy, Polybius and the End of the Second Punic War”
- Emily Munro “A Man with a Mission: Polybius and Book 12”
- Vincent Tomasso “Me Tenet Phaeacia: The Emulation of and Reaction to Odyssean Compositional Structures and Themes in Tibullus 1.3”
2002-2003
- Alyssa Lamb “...And Those Helping Demetria, The Evolution of Greek Marriage Contracts in the Hellentistic Age”
- Elias Avinger “Plato’s Phaedrus, A Critique of Reading”
- James Uden “Masculine Roles in Plautus’ Amphitruo”
2001-2002
- Joanna Valentine “Symposia, History, and Politics: Convention and Idealization in Plato’s Symposium”
- Evangeline Lyons “Banqueting and Luxuria in Seneca’s Epistulae Morales”
- Rose Hurley “Food and Threat: Cooking, Violence, and Deception in Roman Comedy and Satire” and “The Translation of Catullus in English”
- Alexis Watts “Early Bronze Age Burial Sites in the Aegean”
- Amy Piedalue “The Tenets of Athenian Democracy”