Barbara Boyd

Barbara Weiden Boyd is the Henry Winkley Professor of Latin and Greek at Bowdoin College, where she has taught since 1980. She earned her Ph.D. at Michigan and has written extensively on Latin literature, notably two books on the poet Ovid. In recent years she has prepared a series of school texts and teachers’ guides to Virgil’s Aeneid. She has also been a visiting professor twice at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Her talk on "Translating Virgil" relies on a handout, which you can download in PDF format from our Humanities on Demand website.

Please let us know which translation of the Aeneid you prefer, and why...

Peter Aicher

Peter Aicher is Professor of Classics at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, where he frequently teaches courses on Homer and Virgil, in translation and in Greek and Latin. He combines these literary interests with a fascination with the city of Rome, which has resulted in several books and numerous articles and talks. He recently designed a course entitled “The City of Rome: Romulus and Mussolini,” which explores how an architectural language of power has evolved and persisted over the millennia.

This is only the first part of Professor Aicher’s talk on "The Rome of Augustus." In the second part, he uses maps of Rome and the ancient world to show where the events described in the Aeneid took place. This part of the talk will be available soon on video.

Pamella Beliveau

Storyteller Pamella Beliveau has performed for children of all ages at libraries, schools, festivals and other children’s events throughout Maine and New England. She has created early childhood literacy programs at public libraries, done residency work at schools throughout the state, and been recognized by the Maine Arts Commission for her quality storytelling programs. Here, she shares stories with a group of toddlers and preschoolers, then talks with their parents and caregivers about the strategies she has used.

This storytelling performance took place at a Born to Read family literacy event in September 2006. Please leave your questions and thoughts in a comment on this blog post.

Michael Putnam

Michael C. J. Putnam is MacMillan Professor of Classics and Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University, where he has taught since 1961. Educated at Harvard, he has written 11 books on Latin literature and has edited four others. He is widely regarded as one of the leading interpreters of the work of Virgil. He has been closely associated with the American Academy in Rome for many years and is a summer resident of Rockport, Maine.

Martha Tod Dudman

Martha Tod Dudman’s first novel, Black Olives, turns her unflinching candor and sharp wit on reconstructing the end of a love affair. Dudman is the author of the powerful memoirs Augusta, Gone (which was adapted into an award-winning Lifetime Television movie) and Expecting to Fly. A professional fundraiser, Dudman lives in Northeast Harbor with her son and daughter. She has lived in Maine since 1975.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was nineteen when her father took his family to live among the Bushmen of the Kalahari. Fifty years later, after a life of writing and study, Thomas returns to her experiences in The Old Way: A Story of the First People. She recalls life with the Bushmen, one of the last hunter-gatherer societies on earth, and discovers among them an essential link to the origins of all human society. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of many books, including The Hidden Life of Dogs. She lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Penelope Schwartz Robinson

Penelope Schwartz Robinson, a 2004 Stonecoast graduate in Creative Nonfiction, won the first Stonecoast Book Award for her essay collection Slippery Men. She received an honorarium and a publishing contract with New Rivers Press, a teaching press at Minnesota State University, Morehead. Slippery Men will be published and distributed nationally in the fall of 2008. Robinson’s work has already appeared in Ascent, Willow Springs, Fourth Genre, and River Teeth, among others. At this reading, Robinson, who currently teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Maine, Farmington, was introduced by finalist judge Katha Pollitt.

Flower and Song

“A Dialogue of Flower and Song” is a one-act play written by Stonecoast student Cindy Williams Gutiérrez and performed here by Bridget Madden, Elsa Colón, Julie Manon, Luis Luque, and Kathleen Clancy. Gerardo Calderón of Grupo Condor provides live pre-Columbian music. The play re-imagines a 15th century Aztec literary event, drawing together three women poets from different periods in Mexico’s history—pre-Conquest Tenochtitlan, colonial New Spain, and the current Mexican Diaspora. This recording begins with an introduction and acknowledgements from the playwright.

The play is a work-in-progress. All rights are reserved by the playwright. For permission to reproduce, perform or publish this work, please email Cindy Williams Gutiérrez or call her at (503) 631-4113. If you would like to provide feedback on the piece as part of the development process, please leave comments here.