Skip to main content
Sign In |
  Help (new window)
Loyola Logo
Loyola.edu Admission Home
HOME LIFE AT LOYOLA TALK TO US MONEY MATTERS VISIT US
Go Search
 
Joe Walsh - A Classic View
Biography
  

Links
Photos
Archive
Archive (Calendar)

2/28/2012

Decision Time
Some of you may be wrestling with the decision about what college to attend. Pretty nerve-wracking, isn’t it? What if you make the wrong choice? How can you know? I wouldn’t be surprised if your parents are sharing in the anxiety, perhaps even exacerbating it. (OK, I will confess that my family went through this last year with my son.) It can seem like you are confronting three doors – behind one is an anaconda who will squeeze the life out of you, behind the second is raging fire that will melt the flesh off your bones, and behind the third is paradise (that is, of course, the one and only right college). If you choose the wrong college, open the wrong door, you will wind up devoured by snake or flame. Let me make a suggestion, one that may help, perhaps only a tiny bit, reduce the tension. Most students are indeed confronting more than one door, but behind each is something that most likely will turn out to be marvelous. Keep in mind that there is no one and only correct choice, but, far more likely, several correct choices, several great choices. Behind the doors are, if I may switch the metaphor, a brownie, some ice cream, and a slice of your favorite pie. It’s very, very unlikely you will go wrong. So, investigate your options carefully, give them some serious thought, but stay optimistic that whatever college you choose, it will work. Because it almost certainly will. Oh, don’t forget to tell your parents to relax as well.
Posted at 10:21 PM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/24/2012

Expansion
Exciting times for Classics at Loyola! This year we have a wonderful new colleague, Dr. Nandini Pandey, and next year another colleague (name soon to be announced) will be joining us. That means we will have 5 full-time professors, or six, if we include the eminent Professor Bob Miola (English is kind enough to share him with us). This is an extraordinary number of Classics full-time faculty for an institution of our size. The advantages for our students? More instructors to choose among, more courses covering new areas, more faculty with whom to do senior theses and other independent study projects, more mentors to connect with and learn from, and – considering the kinds of folks who are joining us – more fun.
Posted at 8:55 AM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/22/2012

Hello, Again!  Snow?
On sabbatical this semester, after years of chairing Classics and teaching. It’s great to be able to focus on my scholarship, but, alas, I don’t see our students so much, which is the best part of this profession and the best part of Loyola. Five of our finest juniors are in Europe this year, anyway, four in Rome and another in Newcastle, England. OK, for those of you who, like me, love snow and winter but are in mourning because of this dishearteningly mild winter, snow fell in Rome! Yes, in Rome! And three of our students there were kind enough to send us pictures of the snow. You can take a look at a few of the pictures at our departmental website: https://www.loyola.edu/classics/index.html. Alas, I lived in Rome for a year at the American Academy in Rome – a villa where scholars, artists, composers, architects, writers, and the like live, study, and experience Rome – and didn’t see a single flake. One of Rome’s very, very few flaws. As our students are finding out on the spot.
Posted at 10:03 PM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

10/7/2010

Marco Duccio
In 1311, the city of Siena installed the great painter Duccio's Maesta, his masterpiece depicting an enthroned Mary and baby Jesus and a whole host of other scenes, in its cathedral amidst pomp, ceremony, parade, prayer, and, no doubt to the particular delight of many, a day off. Yesterday in my Ovid class, we had a similar and probably more magnificent experience. Mark (aka Marco) executed what might best be described as a chalk-board mural of the entire Pyramus and Thisbe story according to Ovid. This modern masterpiece was wheeled into class with comparable pomp, although, truth be told, no one got a day off. (Sorry, guys...) Students were moved to tears...well...really, laughter, but that was more due to Mark's brilliant and witty commentary on the work of art; it was like having Duccio explain the Maesta, or Michelangelo explain his Last Judgment. The only concern this unveiling presented is that the artistic bar for this class has been set stratospherically high. Next week another group of Ovidians will be performing the heart of the Pyramus and Thisbe scene from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare was one of the great adapters and exploiters of Classical Antiquity, as our colleague Bob Miola has demonstrated in more than one excellent book). I am sure that they have locked themselves into a studio somewhere on campus so that they can rehearse 24/7 - no time for bathroom breaks, either - to put on a performance that matches Mark's Pyramus and Thisbe for brilliance, creativity, and stick figures. I can't wait.
Posted at 8:49 PM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)
Our First Martyr
I have already suggested to my Persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire seminar that my goal is to get them to do all the work. And, at last, I have succeeded! Starting this morning, the student report/classes get started, and Eve is first up. Her martyr is Andrew, and she has made it clear that she feels he has been tragically underrated and underappreciated. Well, not any longer, Andrew! You have a champion. Next up is Kacie, who will reporting on Domitilla and, to judge from our recent discussions, is going to explain to the class how little we can actually know and how vexed and vexing all the sources are. Which is exactly what she should do. (In addition to learning a great deal about the martyrs, the people who persecuted them, and the martyrs' significance after their deaths, we are focusing on learning to be fair-minded, thorough, and logical assessors of evidence, even when that evidence leads us to a bit of frustration. Preparing for this report, though, has gotten Kacie into the catacombs - OK, not literally, at least not yet - and so she intends to take us deep, deeper, deepest into them. Should be fun.
Posted at 6:42 AM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

9/3/2010

More Martyrs
Well, each of my students has a martyr. That is, each of the students in my Persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire has chosen a martyr to report on. The latter half of the semester will consist of their reports on the historicity (some of the martyrs’ tales are extremely dubious, to put it mildly) and significance (ever notice how many churches are dedicated to martyrs?) of their martyrs, and on what the martyrs’ fates tell us about the nature of Christianity in its first few centuries and about the nature of the Roman Empire. The students will go beyond the first few centuries, though, and follow the martyrs’ subsequent fates in cult, art, literature, and the Christian imagination. The class has also been divided into two groups – it is a seminar with 12 students – and at the end of the semester each group will take the class on a martyrs’ tour, one of the Roman Empire (excluding Rome itself) and one of the city of Rome. Needless to say, I expect them to include recommendations on where to get a good cup of coffee between stops. Yes, you have probably figured out that one of my principal goals in the class is to get the students to do most of the work. It’s a very strong group – I already know most of them – and so I know they can handle it. I still need the paycheck, though, since my own son will be going to college soon. Sorry.
Posted at 6:08 AM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/10/2010

Inception
If you read film reviews, you know that responses to the film Inception are quite split, and that the split tends to fall on generational lines, at least we are told. Older folks – like me – are supposed to find the movie puzzling and its lapses of logic irritating. Younger folks – like my students – are supposed to be indifferent to narrative (not to mention scientific) lapses of logic as long as they can enjoy a cinematic roller coaster of visual thrills and chills. Maybe. For me, though, the film offers a wonderful opportunity to enjoy and contemplate the continuing vigor of classical myths. Even better, an opportunity to discuss with my Ovid students this fall the ubiquity of ancient myth in the modern world and how these myths still inform the way we speak, write, conceptualize, visualize, create, and make sense of the world. The plot of Inception is based upon – or, at the very least, makes significant allusion to – more than one ancient myth. Since these myths are among those retold by Ovid in his marvelous Metamorphoses, I have given my students the assignment of seeing the movie and trying to identify the myths the movie employs. Sami has come up with two: Theseus and the Minotaur (think of the name of the character played by Ellen Page), and Jason and Medea (she suggests, “Jason (Cobb) abandons Medea (Molly) and in return she devises a way to take his children away from him”). One more myth is at the heart of the film, as it is at the heart of at least two other movies (of a different era, though) that I can think of. No, I can’t reveal which myth, since the other students in the class will have to come up with it. Any readers, though, care to take a stab at the myth and at the titles of the movies? The first day the class meets in the fall, we will be discussing Inception. I am very much looking forward to hearing what the students have come with.
Posted at 7:08 AM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/26/2010

Summer Latin
It’s such a delight to have students who just want to learn. This summer Sidney and Kacie, two pretty sharp rising sophomores, have undertaken to teach themselves two semesters of Latin. I am playing the role of safety net, though they really don’t need one. Beyond the delights of learning Latin – than which what could possibly be more fun? – we meet at the Evergreen Cafe down the street from Loyola...coffee, muffins, ice cream, bagels, and the like for fuel. And Erin, an incoming freshmen, is teaching herself a semester or so of Latin. Again, coffee, muffins, ice cream... It’s students like these that make this the best job in the world.
Posted at 8:04 PM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/20/2010

Martyrs
I am looking forward to a semester of gruesome death, torment, heroism, hate, cannibalism, conviction, buckets of blood, courage, man-eating beasts, and virgins who may never have existed. In the fall I am teaching a seminar on the persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire and have just sent out to the students the better part of the reading list. The topic is simply fascinating, and it provides an opportunity to span centuries – we will examine the immense impact the martyrs and their stories have had upon religion, life, art, and even tourism long after the Roman Empire was gone – and to span continents – the Roman Empire, after all, entailed provinces in Europe, Africa, and Asia. From a historical point of view (the persecution course is above all a history course) it offers some tantalizing problems: it is difficult to tell which martyr accounts are historical, which are fictional, and which are a mixture of fact and elaboration. There is even considerable controversy over why the Romans persecuted the early Christians, the legal basis for persecution, the extent of the persecutions, just to mention a few of the issues we’ll be tackling. And the stories. Remarkable, horrifying, moving, even comical at times. And the students will get to pick their martyrs. More on that soon.
Posted at 11:25 PM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/10/2009

Pausing 1
My wife, son, and I try to go out to the mountains of western Maryland for a few days every fall. We stay in a cabin – well, sort of a cabin; we don’t exactly rough it, to be honest – and enjoy the changing leaves and the peace. I am a bit of a fall-colors nut, and every year I am apprehensive that when we get there the leaves will not have started to change; every year, however, it’s gorgeous when we get there. My wife and son have fortunately learned to roll with (and laugh at) my nuttiness. The lodge delivers muffins to the cabins, and every morning while we are there, I take a muffin and some coffee onto the porch of the cabin, enjoy the beautiful sounds and sights of nature, and think. Fall semester is always rushed and intense, and this is a chance to decompress and escape. Every year, though, the same odd thing happens. While I sit on the porch and escape and enjoy and think, I invariably wind up contemplating how the semester is going, the texts I have assigned, scholarly projects, etc. Those porch moments are among the most productive and satisfying I have every year, something I neither plan nor anticipate. (Yes, it is fair to ask how in the world I can be surprised by something that seems to happen at the same place at the same time every year...) And I am struck by how rare it is that we have the chance to think. Just to think. I sometimes walk into school, for example, and usually I read while walking. (Needless to say, I am lucky not to have walked, with book in hand and attention in book, out in front of a car.) I need to bring some of the mountains back to Baltimore with me, though, and use those walking opportunities (and many others) to think. Yep, just think. Particularly since there are few things I consider more important for my students than getting them to pause and think. (What’s good for the goose...) Pausing in a college course? More on this in the next couple of days.
Posted at 9:48 PM by Joseph Walsh | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)
1 - 10 Next

 ‭(Hidden)‬ Admin Links