California Classical Association

May 14th, 2011 Saturday 2:00PM

April 29 & 30 2011

http://www.humanitieswest.org/currentCrete.html  

A prosperous and powerful maritime society flourished on Crete from ~2700 to ~1400 BCE. Around 17th-16th century BCE a devastating volcanic eruption at nearby Thera (Santorini), followed by a tsunami, destroyed the Minoan navy and economy, triggering the gradual collapse of this Bronze Age civilization. Egyptian records, paintings of Cretans bearing gifts to the Pharaoh, and Minoan paintings found in Egypt testify to this brilliant culture. The magnificence of its art and architecture and the sophistication of the urban culture of Knossos were not rediscovered until archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans excavated Knossos from 1901-1930. Archaeological finds in Crete and Santorini showcase Minoan Crete as a flourishing sea empire until a shift in power transmitted and transformed Minoan culture onto the European continent and into the palatial empire of the Mycenaeans.



April 26th, 2011 Wednesday 7:00 PM

April 2010

Release the Kraken!

April 2010

Fresh perspectives on Caesar and his authorship to be followed by a open discussion with the topic, "CCA, Classics, and You".

March 26th, 2011 Saturday 2:00 PM

Saturday, March 5th, 2011

CCA will hold a joint meeting of the Northern and Southern sections at San Francisco State University on the subject of the new AP standards for Latin, in conjunction with the ACL and College Board.  Register.

Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 2:00pm
Using as a point of the departure the Legion of Honor Museum’s recently purchased volute-krater attributed to the Baltimore Painter, this talk explores the unique imagery found on Apulian vases, particularly on those vases of monumental scale, which not only reflects their funerary use, but also provides clear evidence for frequent dramatic performances (both tragedies and comedies) in this region despite the lack of evidence for permanent theaters.

Februrary 11th opening night

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/theeagle/

Saturday, December 4, 2010 - 2:00 pm
All extant Greek tragedies were performed as part of the spring festival of the god Dionysus.  The religious dimension appears strongly in the Oresteia trilogy of Aeschylus, where human events manifest the will—the purposes—of the gods: cross-generational violence in the House of Atreus leads to the divinely ordained establishment of the jury in ancient Athens.  Seeing the drama is itself a religious exercise, taking the minds and emotions of the spectators away from their mundane concerns.  Focusing on his translation of the Agamemnon, Merrill suggests that the religious, even ritual, aspect of the play is conveyed in the music of choruses and lyric dialogues.  The formal meters, which he represents in English as closely as possible, enhance the experience.   Hearing him recite passages from his translation helps a modern audience to appreciate the exciting musical rhythms of the Greek meters and understand how they reinforce the dramatic impact.

http://www.sfsu.edu/~museumst/?q=node/145

http://www.facebook.com/pages/San-Francisco-CA/San-Francisco-State-University-Museum-at-SFSU/61276385853

November 13, 2010 9:30am-2:00pm   REGISTRATION

Danny Wood is featured in the BBC series Wood Brothers: On Hannibal's trail.  Danny and his brothers Ben and Sam followed in the footsteps of the three ancient Carthaginian brothers Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Mago.  They cycled from Cartagena, Spain to Zama, Tunisia -- the route that Hannibal and his army took over 2200 years ago.  Along the way they filmed a documentary aired on the BBC in July 2010.    

http://www.woodbrothers.tv/

Patrick Hunt, director of the Stanford University Alpine Archaeology Project.  Since 1994, the Stanford University Alpine Archaeology Project has explored, excavated and conducted first-hand archaeological research in the Alps.  In addition to ongoing excavation in the Grand-St. Bernard pass between Switerland and Italy, at least every other year they have tracked Hannibal's passage through the Alps in 218 BCE with his army of men and elephants to the astonishment of the Romans.  Using the accounts of Polybius and Livy as source texts, they attempt to match relict topography with both past eyewitness and reconstructed narratives.  This continuing exploration is done mostly on foot hiking over several Alpine passes almost 10,000 ft. in elevation.  To date they have hiked over twenty passes and mostly eliminated candidates for Hannibal's crossing while cementing the probability of a few passes for Hannibal's feat.

Saturday, November 6, 2010 - 2:00pm 

http://www.ancientartcouncil.org/program/11-06-10.htm

This lecture explores some aspects of the representation of war and warriors in archaic Greece (ca. 800–480 B.C.): the Greek warrior ethic, the phalanx and its representations, and the popular but puzzling figure of the solitary hoplite. Since archaic Greek warfare was a mass affair where formation and discipline counted for everything, the solitary hoplite is both an anomaly and an anachronism. Or is he? The presentation also addresses the ever-present specter of death and the warrior’s code of honor, with a side glance at his memorialization in funerary sculpture. It concludes with the Persian Wars (490–479 B.C.) and the battle imagery generated in response to them.

Saturday, October 23, 2010 - 2:00pm  

http://www.ancientartcouncil.org/program/10-23-10.htm

In the second quarter of the fifth century B.C., following the defeat of the Persian invasion, Greek painters and sculptors began to abandon long held conventions of depicting human and mythological figures to develop more naturalistic modes of representation. The development of this Early Classical style is particularly evident in Athenian red-figure vase-painting, including important works in the Ancient Art collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

October 8-9, 2010 For Program: http://classics.berkeley.edu/news/BAIR_PRELIMINARY_PROGRAM.pdf

http://classics.berkeley.edu/news/articles/story.php?id=66

The Berkeley Ancient Italy Roundtable (BAIR) will take place October 8 and 9, 2010 on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.  This
will be the first edition of what we hope will become an annual
event that brings together students of the archaeology, history,
and art history of ancient Italy (broadly defined both
geographically and chronologically) based in the Bay Area and
further afield in the western United States.   Our aim is to
promote interaction among this group of scholars with a view to
advancing the development of a more cohesive professional
community.

Saturday, October 2, 2010 - 2:00pm

http://www.ancientartcouncil.org/program/10-02-10.htm 

Among the most engaging and popular creations of archaic Greek art are small containers for exotic, luxurious perfumes. At their best, these include masterpieces of craftsmen working in diverse media, such as faience, glass, silver, and clay.  One such has recently been acquired by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco through the generous funding from the Elios Charitable Foundation.

July 22- August 15th  

http://www.stanford.edu/group/summertheater/  

In 2010, Stanford Summer Theater presents our 12th annual SST Festival, "Around the Fire," featuring a production of *The Wanderings of Odysseus* (translated and adapted from *Odyssey* 1-12 by Oliver Taplin), performed in THE NITERY (Stanford’s Old Union) July 22-August 15.

In addition we offer staged readings of Derek Walcott's *Omeros* and *Performance: Iliad* (based on Homer's *Iliad*, translated and adapted by Rush Rehm), in Pigott Theater August 3-4 and August 10-11.

Our free film series “Epic Cinema” plays Monday evenings July 12 - August 9, 2010, and our Continuing Studies symposium, Epic in Performance, takes place Saturday July 31, in Pigott Theater.

July 17 - 28, 2010 

Vergil, Aeneas and Augustus:A Workshop in Italy for AP Latin Teachers

This 12 day program is designed to help High School teachers prepare for teaching the AP Vergil syllabus in their classrooms. New teachers, teachers planning to start an AP program, and experienced teachers looking to develop their teaching skills will all benefit from it.

July 2-17/19, 2010

Vergillian Society summer 2010 Tour: Turkey "Alexander the Great, from Troy to Gordion/Issus"

The trip has been designed to cover the route traced by Alexander the Great through Anatolia between 334 and 333 BC. Participants will begin the journey in modern Istanbul and view the famous Alexander Sarcophagus at the Archaeology Museum, then head off by bus to cross the Hellespont via ferry and begin tracing the path of the Macedonian army. Major sites along the western coast of Turkey in the Troad, Mysia, Lysia, Ionia, and Caria will include Troy, the Granicus River, Sardis, Ephesus, Priene, Miletus, and Halicarnassus....

August 2 - 14, 2010

The Archaeology of Identity in Coastal Campania: How Ancient Italians and Greeks Became Romans on the Bay of Naples

In Rome's long march from isolated village to world domination, Campania and the Bay of Naples were early and influential laboratories for forging a Roman imperial identity. Through a reciprocal process of "Romanization," many formerly hostile peoples of central and south Italy (Latins, Etruscans, Volscians, Samnites, Lucanians and Greeks) came to accept a new Roman identity...

November 2009

Private docent led tours at the De Young followed by a lecture from Dr. Janet Richards, Associate Professor of Egyptology, Department of Near Eastern Studies and Associate Curator for dynastic Egyp, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.