Stories

Carolynn Roncaglia

Favorite (Non-Classics) Book: City of Fortune by Roger Crowley

I'm continuing my research on the ancient Adriatic world in the second half of the first millennium BC. I'll also be continuing my work with Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) in coordination with the San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project and will be taking Santa Clara students along to Rome and San Giuliano in June for the 2026 fieldwork season. In the classroom, I've enjoyed developing a new, quarter-long simulation game on the Archaic Greek polis. During the Winter Quarter I'll be teaching a new ancient art history class called "Sacred Treasures".

Daniel Turkeltaub

My favorite recent reads have probably been Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series and Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy.

It's been another year. I've enjoyed settling back into the comfortable role of no longer being department chair and getting to teach a full course load. My course load last year included Introductory Greek, a Greek reading course on Euripides, Greek Civilization, and Greek Justice and Democratic Juries. Notice a trend? This year I'm excited to be teaching Introductory Latin for the first time at SCU as well as a Latin reading course for the first time in several years. To celebrate my return to Romanitas, I've been reading through Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series of mystery novels, which weave their detective through the various legal and political intrigues and conflicts from Cicero's first court case (Pro Roscio) down to the assassination of Caesar. They're quite fun. The Medical and Health Humanities minor that I now co-direct with Matthew Newsom Kerr (History) is thriving and now has over 30 minors. I also was invited down to Loyola Marymount University in L.A. in October to give a talk about oral poetics and humor in Homeric poetry entitled "Homer's Slippery Songs: Odysseus's Mighty Hand and the Fall of Glorious Ajax." Here's a picture of me giving the talk. If you're surprised to see me wearing a long tie rather than a bow tie, it's because I had accidentally left all of my bow ties that went with the outfit in my office. Oh! And I was given the John B. Drahmann Advising Award at this year's College of Arts and Sciences convocation. I was quite flattered.

Jordan Cohen

Favorite (Non-Classics) Book: Mort by Terry Pratchett

I've officially completed my first year at Santa Clara, and am enjoying the Classics department immensely! I've recently published a chapter in the edited volume, Theorising Comparative History for the Ancient Mediterranean: Asking New Questions of Old Evidence, entitled, "Comparative Medical Experimentation: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Slavery and the Ancient Mediterranean." In January, I will present on the access slaves had to medicine in the ancient Mediterranean at the upcoming SCS conference. In addition, I'm writing an article that will address how enslaved peoples served as assistants for doctors. This past year, I taught my new class, Eureka!, which traces the development of how ancient Greeks and Romans discovered anatomy and physiology and made medical (and cosmetic) interventions on their bodies. The course was great fun, even when we discussed bodily fluids. I am also developing a class that will trace the reception of ancient Greek and Roman slave systems into the 18th and 19th-century United States.

Lissa Crofton-Sleigh

Recently, I have enjoyed the escapism of reading rock star memoirs (close to 20 now: Keith Richard’s Life is probably my favorite).

I’m excited to share that my Latin-Virtual Reality project, Lingua Vitae (‘Language of Life’), is nearing a university-wide and then public launch in 2026. It will be an open access program downloadable to PCs from Steam, Itch, and other platforms. Being department chair has prevented me from teaching my usual courseload or developing a lot of new courses in the past year, but I was pleased to develop and offer an advanced Latin course on Roman Satire, in addition to teaching Intermediate Latin and my Roman Baths course. Even more fun was discovering ancient Roman bath sites in the middle of downtown Beirut when I visited Lebanon with my family over the summer (see photo). I also highly recommend the National Archaeological Museum in Beirut – many beautiful and well-preserved antiquities. When I’m not busy teaching, developing VR in the Imaginarium, or doing chair duties, I’m watching my almost four year old daughter play soccer and swim! My favorite fiction book, in case you were dying to know, is Michael Cunningham’s A Home at the End of the World.

Nicholas Lindberg

My favorite book I read this year was Ian Bank's Player of Games.

Since last December my research has focused on the role of housing as a sign of wealth and status in Greek democracies. I've submitted two articles to journals, "Living Magnificently: the Politics of Housing in Fourth Century Athens" and "Better Homes (But No Gardens?): Housing, Horticulture, and Identity in Classical and Hellenistic Greece." Teaching wise, I've developed and taught a new course for the College Honors Program entitled "Warfare, Violence, and the Last Days of the Roman Republic" on state-sanctioned violence in early Rome.