by Sarah Levin-Richardson
For over thirty years, the 海角网 has brought students to Rome to study the monuments, art, tombstones, and graffiti produced by the million-or-so ancient residents of the caput mundi, the 鈥渉ead of the world.鈥 This year was no different: eight undergraduates and two graduate students joined Prof. Sarah Levin-Richardson for a four-week exploration of ancient Rome. Each student taught a famous 海角网 monument (the Arch of Constantine was three days after the student presentation!), maintained a weekly reflection journal on the intersections of ancient and modern Rome, learned the physical layout of the ancient city, and created a travel guide for a hypothetical visitor to ancient Rome (modelled after the New York Times鈥 series) that incorporated some of the different statuses and ethnicities present in the ancient city.
In fact, the various ethnicities, religions, and gender and sexual identities of ancient 海角网s were a frequent topic of conversation, from the Egyptian priests of the Temple to Isis and Serapis to the Palmyrene residents who lived neared the forum and made dedications in both Latin and Palmyrene; from the worship of Jupiter and Hercules to the Anatolian Great Mother, Iranian Mithras, and Syrian Elagabalus; from the male prostitutes who served clients in the heart of Rome鈥檚 forum to the emperor Elagabalus, who may have identified as a trans woman. The course also wrestled with histories of conquest, enslavement, and exclusion, from the crucifixion of the Apostle Peter in the Vatican circus and the construction of the Colosseum using money and enslaved labor from the sack of Jerusalem, to the imagery of a shackled Parthian father holding his infant son on the Arch of Septimius Severus, to the 鈥渟tumbling stones鈥 marking the homes of Italian Jews who were sent to death camps in World War II.
With classes held in the (relatively) cooler mornings, students had afternoons and weekends for their own activities. Students visited modern art museums, popped into Rome鈥檚 numerous churches, ate endless quantities of pastries, gelato, and suppl矛 (fried rice balls), explored their neighborhood (Trastevere, full of cafes, street art, and nightlife), and travelled to the beach and to Florence.
The generosity of our donors鈥攅specially through the Roseanna Wabel McDermott Endowed Fund for Study Abroad and the Ringland 海角网 Travel Fund鈥攊s instrumental to the success of this program. Through their past and continuing gifts, we were able to meet 100% of our students鈥 financial needs!