I’d like to start by congratulating our 2024 graduates, including our BAs, MAs, and PhDs. Our recent PhDs have landed a range of great jobs, including teaching at Tufts University and the University of Washington and working as a Training Content Specialist at McGee Air Services!
We had two big developments in our Department this year. First, Stephen Hinds retired in June after 32 years (!) at UW. In addition to his stellar career as a scholar, Stephen has been a fantastic teacher, advisor, and mentor, truly going above and beyond in all respects. We’ll miss his daily presence in the Department, but we’re very fortunate that he’ll be teaching part-time for us a few more years. We’re also delighted to announce that we made a fantastic hire in the area of Roman history in a global context. Ray Lahiri, who earned his PhD in Classics and Comparative Literature at Yale in 2024 and whose research interests include Greek and Roman historiography, has joined our faculty as an Assistant Professor. Welcome, Ray!
In other news, our Department’s work on the ancient Greek and Roman worlds is thriving. This year, our students presented their work at UW’s Undergraduate Research Symposium and at the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest annual conference, and our faculty got attention for their work on, among other things, Asian American Classical reception and the emotional landscape of Roman slavery. Our Early Fall study abroad program in Rome was once again a huge success, and our graduate students, alumnx, and faculty were very active at the annual Society for Classical Studies/Archaeological Institute of America meeting in Chicago, presenting their research, presiding over and organizing panels—and, in the case of alumna Yurie Hong (PhD '07), receiving the SCS Award for Excellence in Teaching at the College Level! Other UW Classics alumnx have been busy working on topics as varied as a notorious Athenian sex worker, food and identity in early Christianity, representations of the ancient world in animation, and material culture that tells the stories of Odysseus.
Our current students, impressive as ever, received many awards this year. Some of these were internal to the UW—the Aaron-Peterson Scholarship in Arts and Sciences, the Chester William Fritz Scholarship, a Graduate Student Conference Presentation Award, two Joff Hanauer Graduate Fellowships, the Elizabeth Kerr Macfarlane Endowed Scholarship, and a Top Scholar Award—while others were external, like the Janice and Herbert Benario Award from the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. We were also able to grant a number of Departmental awards this year—thanks to the remarkable generosity of our donors!—including the Classics Department Scholarship, the Classics Student Travel Endowment, the Estelle and Philip De Lacy Endowed Fund in the Classics, the Harvey Densmore Scholarship, the Jim Greenfield Dissertation Fellowship, the Jim Greenfield Travel Award, the Jim Greenfield Undergraduate Scholarship, the Meg Greenfield Undergraduate Essay Prize, the Roseanna Wabel McDermott Endowed Fund for Study Abroad, the Nesholm Family Endowed Fellowship, the Ringland Classics Fund Travel Scholarship, and the Pamela Stewart and Julie Golding Endowed Student Scholarship.
Finally, we are excited to be hosting another great lineup of talks by visiting speakers this year. Most of our talks are hybrid (i.e. both in-person and over Zoom), so you can attend remotely if you’re not nearby (or even if you are!). If you’re interested in joining the list-serv for our talks and events, please contact us at clasdept@uw.edu.
Deborah Kamen, Chair, Classics Department