Classics and World Religions

Charles Ellwood Jones, who maintains the blog AWOL: The Ancient World Online, has just posted a lengthy list of open access journals on the ancient world. If you’re not familiar with the term Open Access is “the principle that all research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication…”

The journals listed cover both the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman World, and in some cases date back to the nineteenth century. A few of the English language titles are:

• American Journal of Archaeology Online Book Reviews
• British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES)
• Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR)
• Bulletin of the School of Classical Studies at Athens
• Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies (GRBS)
• Illinois Classical Studies
• Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World
• New Voices In Classical Reception Studies
• The Pompeiiana Newsletter
• Review of Biblical Literature (RBL)
• Scholia Reviews

One word of warning, however: based on my brief perusal of the complete list, at least a few of the journals do not appear to have complete open access. Upon trying to view or download an article, a message appeared saying that I was not subscribed and asking for payment for the articles.

Eta Sigma Phi is currently accepting new and/or prospective members. Feel free to drop in on a meeting if you’re interested. Meetings are held on Mondays at 6 p.m. in Ellis 213b.

Free GREEK tutoring is offered Mondays and Wednesdays from 7 p.m.-8 or 9 p.m. in Ellis 213b.

Free LATIN tutoring is offered Mondays and Thursdays from 7 p.m.-8 or 9 p.m. in Ellis 213b.

For private tutoring, contact your professor for the list of available tutors and/or visit the AAC webpage.

L’Année Philologique, the major database for Classical Studies, has had major updates over the summer. The process of converting the older printed volumes into online format is now complete: As of June 2009, the time span of the database extends back to 1924, the year the annual printed volumes began publication.

For items pre-dating 1924, let me recommend strongly that you give Periodicals Index Online a try.

On the modern end of the time spectrum, L’Année Philologique  “will pre-publish online the latest available records from the different offices prior to their publication in the print volume and the annual update of the database. The list of journal issues and edited volumes posted online will be updated each month on this page. These records are fully retrievable through a search in the database, but are displayed in a separate tab (Interim records).”

Professor Jim Andrews and Royce Best

The Harry Hultgren Award is recognition of an outstanding Latin student.

Professor Elizabeth Collins with Elizabeth Chinn and Liz Merkowitz

Professor Ruth Palmer with HTC Graduate Meghan Dudley

Businessman Steve Forbes and Eckerd College classicist John Prevas have recently co-authored a book entitled Power Ambition Glory : The Stunning Parallels Between Great Leaders of the Ancient World and Today and the Lessons You Can Learn. The book examines the lives of classical figures such as Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Augustus, and others examining the parallels with modern leaders and the lessons to be learned from these leaders of the Greco-Roman world.

Forbes magazine also did a special report related to the book, including interviews with a number of individuals ranging from Rudy Giuliani to Teller (of Penn and Teller fame) in which the interviewees answer questions such as:

• If you could invite one classical figure to dinner, who would it be and why?
• Tell us about a time when lessons learned from the ancients contributed to your success.
• Greeks or Romans?

The special report also includes excerpts from the book.

Congratulations to Steven Kimbler, Evan Scherer, and Tyler von Moll, all three of whom tied for 40th place on the College Greek Exam for first-year students of Ancient Greek. Nationwide, a total of 311 brave Hellenists ventured to take the test–a very competitive subset of all those students who have begun the study of Greek this year in American universities. Congratulations to all ten O.U. students who took the exam–ἀριστεύετε, λύγκες!

You never can tell what you’ll run across in OhioLINK! Just today, in browsing through its directory, I discovered that OhioLINK’s Electronic Book Center has a couple of fundamental reference tools that I’d not known about: The Oxford Classical Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.

Since the publication of its first edition in 1949, the OCD has been a major source for brief information about Greco-Roman antiquity. The online version is the current third edition, revised, originally published in 2003.  The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium was published in print in 1991 and was the recipient of numerous awards and accolades at the time.

As always with titles in  OhioLINK’s Electronic Book Center, these two reference tools have restricted access. Off-campus users will need to log in and identify themselves as part of Ohio University before getting access to the entries.