Friday, September 18, 2015

Happy Fall! and Welcome to CIG, Sarah and Vicki!!!

The autumn season has arrived and CIG has been up and running now for three weeks after our August recess. September brings many things to Athens and Greece (besides the national election this Sunday). One of them is the arrival of our Institute Fellow and our Wilfrid Laurier University undergraduate intern.

Since the beginning of the month our Neda and Franz Leipen Fellow, Sarah Nash, has been familiarizing herself with the Institute and its many activities. An Ontario native with her BA and MA degrees from Wilfrid Laurier University, she is a doctoral candidate in Classical Archaeology in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. A talented linguist, Sarah has archaeological field experience in Ireland, Wales and Italy besides travelling widely in Europe.  Her doctoral dissertation is an examination of the identification of Graeco-Roman historical women with queen Omphale of Lydia, in an attempt to account for the diverse connotations of these associations.  Although much of the material culture addressed in her thesis is Roman Imperial, and so merits evaluation in this particular social context, the genesis of the iconography and connotations evoked by such images lie firmly in the Hellenistic era. During her nine-month tenure as CIG Fellow she intends to conduct intensive research on her topic and commence the writing of her PhD dissertation. Sarah plans to participate in a number of conferences, where she will present the work-in-process and other related topics to the academic community. One of these appearances will be as a lecturer in the Institute’s Winter/Spring Lecture Program! During the 2015/2016 academic year Sarah will be assisting me in digging through the Institute’s archives and adding content to the CIG Portal to the Past.

Another Ontarian, Victoria (Vicki) Newson is a fourth-year Classical Archaeology student in the Department of Near Eastern and Classical Archaeology at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is no stranger to Greece as she dug in 2013 at the American School of Classical Studies’ excavations at the Minoan town of Gournia in Crete and this summer participated in the Western Argolid Regional Project’s pedestrian survey northwest of Argos under the aegis of the Institute.  She has also dug on a pioneer site in Ontario and volunteered in Israel.  After graduation Vicki hopes to pursue an MA in Underwater Archaeology with emphasis on trade in the eastern Mediterranean in the Bronze Age. An outstanding student she is also an active athlete. The Pamela and Gerald Schaus Scholarship supports each autumn the undergraduate intern from Wilfrid Laurier University. During her three-month tenure this fall she will be assisting us in sifting through our archives, organizing material in them and scanning documents and imagery.

So when our Fall Lecture Program and Friends’ Events start next month you will have a chance to meet Sarah and Vicki and to welcome them warmly to the Athenian archaeological community.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

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