Learning Innovation Conversation with Melina Uncapher

Learning Innovation Conversation with Melina Uncapher

 ExCITe welcomes Dr. Melina Uncapher for a Learning Innovation Conversation moderated by ExCITe Director Youngmoo Kim on Tuesday, January 30th at 6pm at the Study Hotel at Drexel University. Dr. Uncapher will speak to innovations in neuroscience and solving real-world problems in education and technology. About Melina Uncapher: Dr. Melina Uncapher is an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Neurology at UC San Francisco, and Director of Education for Neuroscape, a new center that aims to bridge neuroscience and technology. Dr. Uncapher has spent 16 yrs at the forefront of learning neuroscience, and now applies research to solve real-world problems in education and technology. Dr. Uncapher leads a multi-university National Science Foundation-funded network studying how executive function contributes to academic achievement, and is leading a initiative to launch Learning Engineering as a new way to build research-practice partnerships. She co-founded and is CEO of a nonprofit that arms educators and students with practical tools based on learning science, Institute for Applied Neuroscience TDr. Uncapher also runs a NIH-funded research program that investigates whether technology use is associated with neurocognitive changes. She co-chaired a 2015 National Academy of Sciences conference on children and technology, and sits on the board of the Institute of Digital Media and Child Development. She also holds an affiliation with Stanford’s Psychology Department and is a MacArthur Scholar. Her work has been highlighted in media outlets such as the New York Times, PBS, and Frontline. Her science outreach work includes serving as Script Supervisor on the Emmy-nominated PBS TV series The Brain with David Eagleman, and as scientific advisor on an award-winning short film about the brain.

REL 205 Religion and Conflict

Religion and Conflict

HIS 105 HUM 112 Dinesh D'Souza on Alinsky, KKK, the Left

Alinsky, KKK, the Left

HUM 111 Great Wall

China

HUM 111 Goths

Goths

HUM 111 Teenage Wasteland Rome

Rome

REL 212 Unification Church Moonies

Moonie

HIS 105 HUM 112 Hollywood Babylon vs. WASP America, Buffalo Springfield

For What Its Worth, 5:38

HUM 111 Julius Caesar, Veni, Vidi, Vici

Arguably Caesar’s most well-known quote, “veni, vidi, vici” is just another example of Caesar’s superb statesmanship.

One could argue that a good knowledge of PR was the most important skill a Roman politician had to master, seeing as they needed the votes of the people to obtain power. (Whether or not they obtained these votes without bribing the people is another discussion, and such a thing was commonplace, if not legal, in ancient Rome.)

Caesar was perhaps the best Roman statesman throughout Ancient Roman period, as seen by his accomplishments in political and social reform during his period as consul and, later, dictator of Rome. Caesar knew how to form strong bonds with the people and maintain them. The best way to do this while he was away on campaign was to write letters back to Rome, letting the public know what he was doing and informing them of the battles he won for Rome. Doing this, he assured his people that he was off fighting (and winning, for the Romans only cared for a general that won his battles), for the glory of Rome.

While Caesar was away, his legions came under attack from Pharnaces II of Pontus in what is known as the Battle of Zela. After managing to rally his legions and defeat the enemy army after they took Caesar by surprise, Caesar writes his iconic “catch-phrase” of “veni, vidi,vici”, in a letter back to Rome.

This let the Roman people believe that Caesar won a quick and decisive victory in his short war against Pontus, implying Caesar’s great ability as a general.

So, to summarise, Caesar used this phrase to imply a short and decisive victory to inform the Roman people that he was still winning battles quickly and effectively for the glory of Rome for the purpose of keeping a good relation with the Roman people who would later vote him into political power.

HUM 111 112 Renaissance Map 1587

the-largest-early-world-map-is-unveiled-for-the-first-time

HUM 111 Rome & China

Rome and China knew about one another. Or, at least, each one knew that there was another large empire across the great expanse of what we now know as Eurasia, even if they were sparse on further details. Rome knew China as Seres, the land from which silk came (at ruinous expense). China knew Rome as Daqin, and perhaps recognized it as the source of glass. However, no Roman that we know of ever got as far as east as China, nor did anyone from China get as far as the Roman empire. There were a couple of near misses on each side (one Chinese ambassador got to Persia but was misled about the remaining distance to Rome and gave up in despair, while a Roman merchant got only a few days’ journey from Chinese-controlled Kashgar), and it’s at least plausible that Byzantine dignitaries visited China (though, since the accounts of such visitors only exist as brief mentions in Chinese records, it’s unclear if they were real Romans/Byzantines, natives of client states claiming to represent the empire, or simply con men), but China and the classical Roman empire never directly contacted one another.

Obsolete Car Audio: Cassettes

/obsolete-car-audio-part-4

HUM 112 Chopin and Jimmy Page

 At Chopin’s request this was played at his funeral. Hans von Bülow called the prelude "suffocation", due to its sense of despair. In fact, Chopin's last dynamic marking in the piece is smorzando, which means "dying away". But the prelude may have once been given a title. According to George Sand's daughter Solange, who stayed with the composer at the monastery in Majorca when the preludes were written, "My mother gave a title to each of Chopin’s wonderful Preludes; these titles have been preserved on a score he gave to us." ^[1] That titled score is lost. But Solange did record the names of the preludes, apparently without assigning the names to the prelude numbers. It is believed that the title "Quelles larmes au fond du cloître humide?" ("What tears [are shed] from the depths of the damp monastery?") corresponds to Prelude No. 4.  In any case it is clear that this was intended as a mournful piece. 



Prelude No. 4

Prelude No 4 in E minor, Op 28

REL 212 Gen Z Least Christian Generation in American History

/gen-z-is-the-least-christian-generation-in-american-history-barna-finds

REL 212 Google Home Not Jesus

/people-outraged-as-google-home-identifies-buddha-muhammad-and-satan-but-not-jesus-christ

HUM 112 Ritchie Blackmore Ode to Joy

Richard Hugh Blackmore (born 14 April 1945) is an English guitarist and songwriter. He was one of the founder members of Deep Purple in 1968, playing jam-style hard-rock music which mixed guitar riffs and organ sounds. During his solo career, he established a heavy metal band called Rainbow which fused baroque music influences and elements of hard rock. Rainbow steadily moved to catchy pop-style mainstream rock. Later in life, he formed the traditional folk rock project, Blackmore's Night, transitioning to vocalist-centred sounds. As a member of Deep Purple, Blackmore was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2016.

Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. The band is considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although their musical approach changed over the years. Originally formed as a progressive rock band, the band shifted to a heavier sound in 1970. Deep Purple, together with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, have been referred to as the "unholy trinity of British hard rock and heavy metal in the early to mid-seventies". They were listed in the 1975 Guinness Book of World Recordsas "the globe's loudest band" for a 1972 concert at London's Rainbow Theatre, and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide.

Blackmore

HUM 111: Martin Luther Social Networks

Social Networks

HUM 111: Roman auxilia Provincial Society Augustus to the Severans

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.01.34

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Ian P. Haynes, Blood of the Provinces: The Roman 'auxilia' and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans.   Oxford; New York:  Oxford University Press, 2016.  Pp. xviii, 430.  ISBN 9780198795445.  $50.00 (pb).  

Reviewed by François Gauthier, McGill University (francois.gauthier3@mcgill.ca)

Publisher's Preview

Ian Haynes’ monograph is a much-needed update on The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army published by G. L. Cheesman in 1914. It is an ambitious work that looks at the structure, recruitment, religions, and equipment of the auxilia as well as its impact on provincial society. The book is organized into seven sections and twenty-two chapters.

The first part looks at the establishment of auxiliary forces and their incorporation into the professional army created by Augustus. While late Republican auxiliary units were sometimes named after their commander, this practice was gradually abandoned and replaced by tribal, provincial, or ethnic titles. Haynes argues that this reflects a more ordered and formal inclusion of the auxilia into the Roman army. By the time of the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 69) the auxilia were a well-established and essential part of the Roman military system. Over the course of the second century there was a gradual erosion of the status difference that originally existed between legions and auxilia in part because of the growing numbers of Roman citizens in cohorts and alae. The Constitutio Antoniniana effectively removed the distinction between legionaries and auxiliaries. Moreover, by the end of the Severan period, the difference in dress and equipment between legions and auxiliary formations had largely disappeared. The main distinction in unit types was now between infantry and cavalry.

Recruitment is the focus of the second part of the book. Haynes shows the Romans’ remarkable ability to use existing military structures to their own advantage. For example, the forces of former ‘client kingdoms’ were incorporated into the auxilia after the absorption of these kingdoms into the empire. There was no empire-wide pattern of auxiliary recruitment but rather a diversity of methods to recruit and reinforce units. In some areas such as Pannonia, recruitment came from the vicinity of military bases whereas in Africa and Britannia, local recruitment can be discerned. There was no general effort to maintain ethnic stock in any given unit. Recruitment more commonly chose the most convenient source. Haynes thus takes a position against the modern idea that certain units, especially those comprising eastern archers, kept recruiting there because of the existence of ‘natural’ archery skills in this area.

The third section deals with the daily life of the soldiers. Haynes emphasizes the point that military service essentially meant urban life. Since most recruits were drawn from rural communities, this meant they were exposed to styles of living and habits often alien to them. Time was measured according to the Roman calendar; bathing became standard practice as forts were equipped with baths. Mediterranean staple foodstuffs uncommon in northern areas such as olive oil and wine were consumed in garrisons throughout the empire. Despite these common habits, some regional preferences remained, for instance Batavian units drank beer rather than wine.

Religion is the object of the book’s fourth part. Haynes argues that there was no ‘military religion’ particular to the army and distinct from that of the civilian inhabitants of the provinces. The imperial cult, although attested throughout the empire, included important variations of worship from unit to unit and it does not seem to have been rigidly imposed by the state. In some units deities originating from several different areas of the empire were worshipped. For example, the cohors I milliaria Hemenesorum sagittariorum built a temple at Intercisa in Pannonia Inferior for the Syrian god Elagabalus, while several other deities such as Diana Tifana, Isis, Liber Pater, and Jupiter were also worshipped in the same unit.1 Haynes criticises the theory that Mithraism was particularly prevalent in the auxilia, stating that most followers of this mystery cult were actually civilians.

Equipment and tactics are treated in part five. Haynes makes use of the convenient concept of bricolage, coined by Lévi-Strauss, to propose that the armament of the auxilia was a mix of Roman and various other traditions. In the absence of centralized arm factories (not attested until the later empire), there was no single authority to standardize military equipment, even though many similarities were present. Auxiliary soldiers thus had a certain leeway to personalize their weapons and armour. There was an increased tendency towards uniformity in the third century as a result of the movement of units from province to province. There is no evidence for empire-wide reforms of equipment and it is unlikely that one took place as most emperors did not show much interest for these matters.

Haynes proposes that the clear differences in tombstones between foot soldiers and cavalrymen served as status symbols in provincial communities. The depiction of horses on tombstones was a symbol of prestige and a reminder that cavalrymen were better paid and enjoyed a higher status then infantrymen. This may have been a way for provincial tribal elites to reassert their status through service in alae.

Regarding auxiliaries on the battlefield, Haynes re-examines the famous passage from Tacitus (Agric. 35.2) on the battle of Mons Graupius in which the Roman historian credits his father-in-law Agricola for winning the battle using only auxiliary units rather than legionaries and thus sparing Roman blood. Haynes points out that many soldiers of the Batavians and Tungrians cohorts would actually have been Roman citizens. Moreover, auxiliaries regularly played a prominent role in other battles and often fulfilled the same tasks given to legionaries. The adoption of the spear, long sword, and oval shield for both legionary and auxiliary units over the course of the third century is described as a cultural rather than technological change. To be sure, such equipment had been used for a long time by auxiliary units. However, as Haynes recognized in an earlier chapter, armies tend to adopt the best weaponry and tactics irrespective of its cultural associations.1 The change in equipment may in fact reflect that it was simply better suited for the various missions that the Roman army had to perform in the third century.2 The last chapter of part five convincingly argues that most units of particular ethnic origins did not perpetuate distinctive dress and weaponry over time.

Part six examines the role and influence of language and writing in the auxilia. Haynes argues that the army was a powerful factor in the spread of Latin and Greek as auxiliary soldiers needed some knowledge of at least one of these two languages to understand orders and communicate with officers. This does not mean that auxiliaries ceased to speak their native languages. Rather, the auxilia were precisely characterized by the presence of many multilingual individuals. The military was an environment in which one was continually exposed to writing. Of course not all auxiliary soldiers were literate but levels of literacy were more likely to be higher than among the civilian population. For example, a list of receipts for the ala Veterana Gallica shows that twenty-two of the sixty-four soldiers registered could sign their own names. 3 Haynes also shows that military Latin was marked by regional variations and by the occasional mishandling of cases by auxiliary soldiers.
The seventh and last section covers auxiliary veterans. Haynes argues against the idea that veterans were agents of cultural change in their community after discharge. Their small numbers limited their impact and they would thus blend in with what existed rather than create something different. Moreover, there was no central policy of auxiliary veteran settlement.

Overall, Haynes shows an impressive command of the epigraphical, papyrological, and archaeological evidence. His study highlights the problems involved in making the auxilia a systematic agent of ‘Romanization’ (that word itself is controversial in scholarship). Indeed, Haynes’ study shows without a doubt that auxiliary soldiers did not acquire a common ‘Roman’ identity. Rather, their response to contact with the Roman army created various identities, reflecting the diversity of peoples that lived inside the empire. To be sure, service in the auxilia exposed men from all across the empire to a variety of habits and a life style that was markedly different from their own. However it does not follow that they became beacons of ‘Roman civilization’ after the end of their service.

While I certainly understand the basic need to establish boundaries to one’s historical enquiry, I nonetheless think that there could have been more about the evolution of auxiliary units over the course of the third century. Haynes argues that they basically became indistinguishable from legions. How did that play out? How did unit nomenclature evolve in the third century? Maybe this is where the modern divide between early and late empire comes into play, for specialists of the early Roman army are sometimes unwilling to go beyond the mid-third century while those studying the late Roman army would tend to consider anything past that period to be their preserve.

In summary this is a high quality book of tremendous importance for the study of the auxilia in the early empire. The extensive bibliography of some thirty-seven pages is exhaustive and there are a limited number of typographical errors. 4 The work is certain to become the new reference for any study on that topic.

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Notes:
1.   p. 241.
2.   Military equipment did end up being produced by state-owned fabricae in the late third century, see James, S. “The Fabricae: State Arms Factories of the Late Roman Empire”, in J. C. Coulson (ed.) Military Equipment and the Identity of Roman Soldiers, pp. 257-331, Oxford, 1988.
3.   p. 323.
4.   For example: p. 86 muncipia for municipia, p. 157 and 307 solders for soldiers. This is not an exhaustive list.

HUM 112 Week 5 Dich, Teure halle, Marxism

Tannhauser: 'Dich, Teure halle' - Deborah Voigt, 3:44

Deborah Voigt sings Elisabeth's Aria 'Dich, teure halle' from Act 2 of Wagner's 'Tannhauser'. James Levine Conducts The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

https://youtu.be/-sSjRvaty0U



Marxism Explained in 2 Minutes, with Deirdre McCloskey - Learn Liberty, 2:39

“Marx was the greatest social scientist of the 19th century…” says Professor Deirdre McCloskey. “But he got everything wrong.”

https://youtu.be/-np-3g3_Mg0

HUM 111 Classical Myth and Film, Reception Studies

BMCR 2018.01.29 on the BMCR blog

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.01.29

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Patricia Salzman-Mitchell, Jean Alvares, Classical Myth and Film in the New Millennium.   New York; Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2018.  Pp. xviii, 412.  ISBN 9780190204167.  $29.95 (pb).  

Reviewed by Meredith E. Safran, Trinity College (meredith.safran@trincoll.edu)

LoC Preview

[The reviewer offers her sincere apologies for the lateness of this review.]

In answer to the perennial question of “whither Classics,” an increasing number of people in the field have been looking toward the commercial media where most people first encounter the stories and images that continue to capture the imagination of children and adults alike. The number of classicists who now produce substantial scholarly work in this area of reception studies has increased markedly over the past two decades, providing a basis for the next logical step: for instructors to integrate treatments of Greek and Roman narratives in popular culture into our courses, as objects of earnest and engaged study.

Bridging the divide between scholarship and instructional materials is a major goal of Salzman-Mitchell and Alvares’ book, Classical Myth and Film in the New Millennium. Oxford University Press is marketing the volume as a textbook, which the authors “hope…will be of interest both to college instructors and to students, as well as to scholars and a broad readership of myth and movie lovers.” (1) Speaking to such a diverse audience poses significant challenges, which publishers are asking authors who work in this area to meet in order to reach beyond the niche market for academic publications. Considering primarily the educational angle, this volume offers support to instructors by suggesting avenues of inquiry for teaching the selected films, which range from action-oriented blockbusters to young- adult franchises to art-house films. Although the book includes pull-out boxes with plot summaries, brief definitions of key terms, and discussion questions, students, especially in introductory or no-prerequisite courses, may struggle to process the book’s contents without significant assistance.

In their volume introduction (1-32), the authors clarify that they aren’t using film as a vehicle for teaching myth per se, for which readers should consult “mythological dictionaries, compendia, or…myth textbooks.” (1) Their focus is on “thoughtful interpretations of the myths and myth patterns that appear in our movies.” (1) Yet they also acknowledge that the almost inevitable disjuncture between “so-called canonical narratives” and cinematic versions of these narratives is a matter of concern for “purists” (2). Such fidelity criticism is a persistent anxiety in reception studies (addressed by e.g. Pantelis Michelakis, Greek Tragedy on Screen, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). The authors rightly prefer to embrace Martin Winkler’s focus (in Cinema and Classical Texts: Apollo’s New Light, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) on the dialectical dynamic within the still-developing classical tradition, in order to gain purchase on how receptions produce their own meaning. The introduction goes on to acknowledge further approaches that the authors will and will not pursue: most pervasive will be “myth theories” (12-23) that draw from literary adaptations of anthropological and psychoanalytic theory (especially the concept of archetypes, which is a major unifying idea across the book), while formalism in film studies and discussions of the industrial imperatives that influence commercial art will be de-emphasized.

The body of the volume is divided into five thematic parts, all of which are of potential interest to instructors of various courses commonly taught at the college level. The first, “Homeric Echoes,” treats Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy and the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? The second, “The Reluctant Hero,” treats Brett Ratner’s Hercules, the mini-franchise Clash and Wrath of the Titans, and Tarsem Singh’s Immortals. All of these films’ narratives are explicitly anchored in classical myth, but take various liberties with commonly taught mythic literature, therefore providing readers with clear test-cases for the authors’ aim of examining dialectical movements within the classical tradition. Most of the art-house films and young-adult franchises discussed in the latter three parts engage more obliquely with themes and characters from classical myth. Part III, “Women at the Margins,” treats two Spanish-language films, Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and Arturo Ripstein’s Such Is Life. Part IV, “Coming of Age in the New Millennium,” discusses Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Hunger Games, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Part V, “New Versions of Pygmalion,” analyzes Lars and the Real Girl and Ruby Sparks through a lens crafted by Paula James’ 2011 monograph, Ovid’s Myth of Pygmalion on Screen: In Pursuit of the Perfect Woman (Bloomsbury).

The authors are clearly very enthusiastic about their project. The chapters, each 20 to 30 pages long, are all brimming with observations. The choice to integrate less-familiar films into a volume that could easily have treated only movies that students likely have already seen is commendable. At its best, the authors’ choice to consider the concept of “myth” broadly creates opportunities to explore beyond the plots of classical literature. The chapter on Pan’s Labyrinth, for example, discusses the historical context for the film’s setting, after the Spanish Civil War, as a time when recourse to myth’s fantasy world might be necessary, and acknowledges the importance of the fairy tale as the generic framework for the film’s engagement with classical myth. The authors’ use of archetypes in analyzing the young heroine’s “Quest or coming-of-age myth” (193) invites engagement with classical myth as mediated by the literary-psychoanalytic framework that privileges symbolic images and structures (after Northrop Frye, whose influence is several times acknowledged in the volume), and provides richly gendered interpretations of the film’s visual poetics. Instructors looking for concrete links to the classical tradition will find it in sections involving the wild gods associated with pastoral, Pan and Faunus (197-200), and the Demeter-Persephone myth (204-214). Instructors of a course focused on gender and myth may find a congenial companion piece to this chapter in Part IV’s discussion of the first movie in The Hunger Games franchise, which connects back to the feminine pastoral/wild world (here, in connection with Artemis in myth and cult) and the underworld concerns of the art-house film.

Instructors looking to support their students’ understanding of film as a medium for narrative and mythopoesis will note that the authors regularly remark upon a given director’s oeuvre and the reception of a given film by the metrics of box-office receipts and aggregate critical opinion, through references to popular websites like RottenTomatoes.com. Consideration is also given to works of popular culture that likely inform these films more directly than classical literature and visual art. For example, their discussion of Ratner’s Hercules in Chapter 3 is foregrounded by a treatment of Hercules in select films: the mid-twentieth-century peplum genre, Disney’s Hercules, and a 2005 miniseries that aired on NBC. (Instructors may also wish to integrate Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, arguably the most influential televisual representation of the hero, into this conversation.) In Part IV, which focuses on young-adult franchises, the authors incorporate references to the literary source-texts by Suzanne Collins, J. K. Rowling, and Rick Riordan. These discussions, of necessity, are not comprehensive, but they do provide a foothold from which students might launch themselves into further exploration of how material beyond ancient sources shapes the screen-texts of today.
There are a few caveats that people who consider adopting this volume as a textbook should note.
Instructors may feel that inquiring into the process of selection in which filmmakers engage when constructing a film based in classical myth—whether by excavating authorial intent from published interviews, or analyzing what makes it into a film’s final cut—can assist students in formulating a critical perspective on the use of ancient sources. Such instructors will need to provide a significant amount of supplementary material to that end. It is quite understandable that the authors choose not to engage systematically with the many ancient sources through which current knowledge of the narratives of classical myth has been built. Passages like the highly selective one-page summary of “the Matter of Troy”—which begins with “as the myth goes” and stretches from Prometheus’ reconciliation with Zeus to Aegisthus’ murder of Agamemnon (43)—only gesture toward the complexity of that tradition. The authors do recommend that readers look elsewhere for that information (1). Yet some readers (especially those who skip the introduction) may assume that they can rely on a book with “classical myth” in the title for more detailed treatment of that material.
At some points, the capaciousness of the authors’ frame of reference can be overwhelming. The most intense example, the opening paragraph of the introduction to Part II, quotes or paraphrases in quick succession the Gospel of John, Nietzsche, Wagner, the 1953 film The Wild One, Freudian psychology, and H.G. Wells (99). The most curious students may revel in such a wide-ranging set of cultural referents; others will simply ignore what they don’t understand; others will be distressed by this habit. Even when the frame of reference is explicitly cinematic, the authors ask a lot of their readers, including by invoking films that are not treated in the volume, e.g. The Wizard of Oz and 300. Every chapter includes numerous offhanded comparative comments that assume the reader’s prior familiarity with all the films treated in the volume. This choice highlights the continuity of and variations on themes and motifs shared by the authors’ selected films. It also hinders the instructor’s ability to cherry-pick chapters that fit into a given course’s syllabus, which at first glance is an appealing aspect of this book’s organization.

A tantalizing question that hangs over the volume is posed by the third element of its title: “in the new millennium.” Anyone old enough to be considering this volume as a textbook has lived through variations of millennial anxiety that erupted around the year 2000, whether based in theological expectations of a new age, technological anxieties connected to Y2K, existential crises brought on by the events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath, and/or fears of looming ecological disaster. What does the deployment of classical myth in these films contribute to discourses on this new era? Although each chapter ends with a brief discussion titled e.g. “Harry Potter and the New Millennium,” this concept feels least dear to the authors’ hearts. In a way, the concept of the millennium is mythical in its own right: effective when deployed within a particular ideological framework, but outside of such a system, rather chimerical.

Like the concept of the decade, measuring out time in round numbers can provide some conveniences, while obscuring continuities. Various chapters cite ecological disasters, loss of faith in institutional authority, and noxious ideologies based on oppression and hatred as problems of the new millennium, yet these are problems that the world suffered before, and likely will continue to suffer. Instructors who want to push their students to consider classical myth not simply as an artifact of the past, but as a vehicle for discussing contemporary crises will be able to pick up on comments by the authors to stimulate such debate. The fact that all the movies treated in the volume were released in or after the year 2000, and so within the lifetime of our students, may facilitate their ability to recognize and articulate what is at stake in these films, as well as the cultural work that classical myth continues to perform for contemporary societies: a significant pedagogical goal.

The challenge inherent in reception studies generally—that every manifestation of traditional material reflects a particular, even idiosyncratic, engagement with that tradition—is no less true of what once was dismissed as mass entertainment or popular culture than it is of “high art.” A vast and exciting field stretches before scholars and instructors who engage with the question of why the material that we have come to cherish and steward professionally continues to fascinate and delight audiences with no skin in the game of classics—but who may yet be induced to appreciate how their current fandom for Percy Jackson constitutes their participation in the classical tradition. Classical Myth and Film in the New Millennium embraces that project wholeheartedly.