Meet the Penn Classical Studies Class of 2023!

Introduction

On this day, May 15, 2023, another class of Classical Studies majors has passed through the doors of Claudia Cohen Hall for the last time as students. While the hardships of global disruptions marred large swathes of their undergraduate experience, the class has nevertheless paved a unique path through this aged institution. Every year—to mark the momentous occasion that is their undergraduate graduation—Discentes publishes a profile on each of these remarkable students. In doing so, we hope to illuminate the unique interests, experiences, and goals of each year’s class. Please join us as we bid farewell to this year’s batch of scholars and wish them the best in all they will achieve!


Adrian Altieri

What made you decide to study Classics?

Although I originally was not planning to major in the subject when I arrived at Penn, I chose to switch to Classics to continue to explore some of the interests that I had taken up while studying Latin in high school. Studying Classics in a university setting has allowed me to immerse myself in the material far deeper than only high school-level study had.

Fave mythical figure? Defend your answer.

My favorite mythical figure would be Odysseus. He brings the best of both worlds in terms of ancient hero traits—he is both courageous but also calculated and cunning. He does not let his anger get in the way of his journey (as Achilles’s did), but he also embodies the “traditional hero” that has been a role model for many generations after Homer.

Best piece of advice for undergraduates wanting to study Classics?

For someone wanting to major in Classics, I would definitely recommend taking at least the 101/102 courses in both Greek and Latin. Even if they don’t pursue the language/literature track or a major, some knowledge of the languages allows you to read primary sources from antiquity to really “bring the material to life” and helps you understand the meanings of many English words, even if you’ve never seen them before.

Favorite myth:

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Favorite god:

Athena


Katelyn Boese

What made you decide to study Classics?

I came to Penn considering a minor in Classics because I loved studying Latin in high school. I was really impressed with the approach this department uses to study the ancient world, so I became a major instead!

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I’m headed off to do my Ph.D. after graduation, hoping to study evolutionary genetics and maybe become a biology professor (which will probably take slightly longer than 10 years but close enough). I’ll always love Classics, though, because it reminds me that genes aren’t the only way we pass things down.

Fave mythical figure? Defend your answer.

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I’m going to go with Hercules because he has a different personality in every story and that’s endlessly entertaining for me. (Thank you Prof. Meng-Brassel for making me aware of this fact!)

Approximately how many times have people asked you “What’s classics” when you tell them what you study?

More than I can count. Most people assume it means I study classical music…


Emma DeMonte

What made you decide to study Classics?

Reading Federalist No. 70 in high school —“every man the least conversant in the Roman story knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man” — made me realize that I was not the least conversant in the Roman story! My first love was American history, and I firmly believe that to be a good Americanist, one must have a solid foundation in the Classics.

What’s the funniest Classics fun fact you learned while at Penn?

More “ancient history” than “Classics,” but in Egypt, ducks were sometimes mummified and put in special duck-shaped sarcophagi so they could be eaten in the afterlife.

Fave mythical figure? Defend your answer.

Hebe. She was the daughter of lettuce, and she was married to Heracles. What more could you want? From Thoreau: “She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy, and robust young lady that ever walked the globe.” 

Favorite myth:

Eros getting stung by a bee

Favorite classical hot take:

Jason and the Argonauts (1963) is cinematic genius. It’s the best piece of media in the last 100 years that was inspired by classical mythology.


Margaret Dunn

 

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I would love to be working in journalism or for a publishing house in ten years. I feel that my experience studying Classics at Penn has set me up well for a career in a writing-related field, and I just hope that I am working on projects that I find fulfilling. I also hope I’ll have a few dogs and a little apartment somewhere in NYC—I don’t know how the multiple dogs meets shoebox apartment will work, but I will find a way.

What’s the funniest Classics fun fact you learned while at Penn?

I’ve always loved the castration of the Athenian hermai during the Peloponnesian War. 11/10 sabotage and pot-stirring. Conspiracy! Scandal!

Fave mythical figure? Defend your answer.

Virgil’s Dido. A powerful female ruler who led her people to found a new civilization and held her own in a fraught political landscape. It’s not her fault the gods and fate got in the way when they paired her up with Aeneas. And going out by cursing your ex-boyfriend and his whole line! Phenomenal.

Best piece of advice for undergraduates wanting to study Classics?

Go for it. Don’t let the fact that people ask you—is that like, Shakespeare?—deter you. You are going to love your courses (much more than the Wharton kids like theirs). The skills you pick up while reading these texts and writing these papers will help you in other areas of your academic career. Pursue your passion. Do the reading. And don’t forget to cite your sources.

Favorite myth:

Orpheus and Eurydice—hurts my heart.

Favorite mythological or archeological site:

Hades. All the fun stuff happens down there.


Annie Ma

 

What made you decide to study Classics?

Becoming a Classics major took me by surprise. In high school I enjoyed self-studying Homer and Athenian tragedy; my school didn’t offer any sort of Classics courses so I knew I wanted to take at least one as an elective when I entered college. During my freshman fall at Penn, I took two incredible classes with two incredible professors: Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece and Rome with Prof. Wilson and The Iliad and Its Afterlife with Prof. Murnaghan. The rest is history…

Fave mythical figure? Defend your answer.

Patroclus! Although he’s a great warrior (he has the most named kills in one book out of anyone including Achilles), Patroclus is remembered for his kindness. For me, one of the most powerful passages in the Iliad is when we hear from Briseis for the first time as she laments Patroclus’s death. There’s so much to say about his character as Achilles’s double and foil, representing Achilles’s humanity, etc. Patroclus is the heart and soul of the Iliad.

Best piece of advice for undergraduates wanting to study Classics?

Get to know the professors and go to Colloquium! The faculty and the grad students are all incredible in their own right and truly make the department feel like family.

What do you think will happen to the field of Classics in the near future? What do you wish will happen?

I believe (and hope!) that the future of Classics is in postcolonial and reception studies.

Favorite classical hot take:

Clytemnestra was right.


Lily Nesvold

What made you decide to study Classics?

I started taking Latin in sixth grade and continued through AP Latin my junior year and an advanced Latin course on Catullus my senior year. I first fell in love with the Latin language in high school, and when I started studying at Penn, I learned there was so much more to studying Classics, including art, history, and archaeology.

What’s the funniest Classics fun fact you learned while at Penn?

Carried on Roman ships, sacred chickens were offered food and their decision to eat (or not) was a good (bad) omen for the upcoming battle. My favorite example of their usage is when Claudius chucked them overboard in the First Punic War because they didn’t eat.

Best piece of advice for undergraduates wanting to study Classics?

Take all kinds of courses in the Classical Studies department. I regret not discovering my love for archaeology until my junior spring when I took my first class in the discipline.

What do you think will happen to the field of Classics in the near future? What do you wish will happen?

I worry that fewer and fewer students will want to study Classics in college, especially given the pre-professional culture at Penn and other competitive schools. I hope that in being a Classical Studies major that is pursuing a career in finance I can show others that you can have a liberal arts background and still succeed career-wise.

Favorite god:

Themis

Favorite mythological or archeological site:

Forum Romanum


Joshua Rose

What made you decide to study Classics?

I did not know I was going to study classics when I came to Penn, but then I happened to take Professor Struck’s Greek and Roman Mythology class which I enjoyed, and things kind of just took off from there. In particular, I discovered that I like the way the people from antiquity think, and their perspective has given me a different way of looking at the issues in the politics and philosophy of our current day. The fact that Classics can apply to a wide variety of other fields made it very appealing to me.

You are serving as a senator under Caesar. You hear about the conspiracy to overthrow him. What do you do?

I make sure that my name is not Brutus, Cassius, or Decimus.

Approximately how many times have people asked you “What’s classics” when you tell them what you study?

Fewer people ask me what Classics is than seem to have an expression of “why would that be useful” when I tell them what I study. Don’t let that discourage you from studying classics, however. People who think that way don’t have anything interesting to say anyways.

Favorite myth:

Narcissus and Echo

Favorite god:

Apollo

Favorite classical hot take:

Greek politics > Roman politics


Luke Snyder

What made you decide to study Classics?

In the sixth grade, I took a class offered at my middle school called Ancient History. Throughout that semester, I fell in love with the study of antiquity and the unique personalities each civilization, person, and concept possessed. I knew I wanted to study Classics at that point, so the real question for me, when I arrived at Penn, was what else I would study (my parents weren’t exactly enthusiastic about Classics).

Best piece of advice for undergraduates wanting to study Classics?

Don’t let yourself be dissuaded from pursuing a major out of interest. At lots of universities and especially Penn, the pre-professional atmosphere around most people can make anyone studying a more esoteric major doubt its purpose and use. Regardless of the many benefits that studying Classics can bring, it is ok to study something purely because it interests you. Not everything someone does in college has to be setting them up for a future career.

Approximately how many times have people asked you “What’s classics” when you tell them what you study?

More times than I can count. Just the other day, a friend I’ve known for years was surprised when I told him Classics didn’t include medieval history.

Favorite mythological or archeological site:

Hadrian’s Wall

Favorite classical hot take:

Caesar didn’t deserve it.