Friday January 26, 2024
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Meeting Both In-Person and by Zoom
Dampeer Room, Second Floor of Kelvin Smith Library*
Case Western Reserve University
Dear Colleagues:
Donald Trump’s election as President, and performance in his office, immediately prompted comparisons to ancient Rome and Greece. In fact, a December 8, 2016 column in The Economist titled, “Dude, Where’s My Toga?” commented that, “as the parade of billionaires and generals joins Donald Trump’s cabinet, it’s hard not to be reminded of the Roman republic.” As the Trump administration evolved, or devolved, critics sometimes compared him to Roman emperors – but so, occasionally, did defenders. The comparisons to Rome during both the Empire and the Republic seemed to me both important and good topics for discussion, so I was and am grateful that Tim Wutrich of our Department of Classics was willing to join us in both 2017 and 2018 for discussions.
I sort of hoped not to have to ask Tim again. However…
The comparisons or maybe even analogies to classical times appear at least as relevant today. This is a matter of both person and situation. If we want to compare President Trump to Roman emperors, for example, part of the story might be how the reaction of the U.S. Republican Senate compared to how Roman Senates responded to emperors. And if we want to think about how candidate Trump compares to threats to the Roman Republic before its fall – such as the conflict between Marius and Sulla or, closer to the collapse, the career of Publius Clodius Pulcher – we should also consider what made the Roman Republic vulnerable. What kind of pressures and internal divisions made it possible for Caesar and later Augustus to break the Republic? There are some good reasons to believe the Roman Republic fell because that system of government wasn’t working at all well. Maybe that sounds a bit familiar?
Please join us for what I’m sure will be an informative discussion!
In-Person and Virtual Attendance
We will meet this week in our regular room, the Dampeer Room of Kelvin Smith Library. We will have to use Mather House 100 on February 2. As far as I know right now, we have the Dampeer Room for the rest of the semester.
We continue also to offer the meetings on Zoom. We do require pre-registering so as to avoid “zoom-bombing.” The pre-registration link is posted below. The discussion begins at 12:30 p.m., but the room should be open no later than Noon. We try to have beverages and refreshments set up soon after that. Participants should be able to sign on to Zoom also by Noon. But please remember not much will be happening online until the talk begins at 12:30 pm. Please also be prepared to show identification when entering Kelvin Smith Library.
Zoom participants should speak up when asked for questions or comments, or submit thoughts through Zoom’s chat function. Please keep yourself muted until you are choosing to speak.
Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. When you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. If you do not get the newsletter, you should also be able to get the information each Monday by checking http://fridaylunch.case.edu Then if you choose you can use the contact form on that website to request the registration link.
This week’s Zoom link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYvcuyrrTotGdeb0SJc50-bGLmJo3t2MewJ
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please also e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about arrangements or any suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Timothy Wutrich is the author of the book Prometheus and Faust: The Promethean Revolt in Drama from Classical Antiquity to Goethe. His scholarly interests include all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman drama, Homer, Vergil, and the Classical Tradition in literature and the arts. At CWRU, Dr. Wutrich teaches Greek and Latin language and literature, Greek and Roman drama and theater in translation, Greek and Roman literature surveys, Greek and Roman civilization, and Greek and Latin etymology.
Timothy Wutrich’s scholarship and teaching interests also connect with his outreach activities. For many years he organized Vergil Week, a campus-wide celebration of the poetry, life, and times of Vergil, Rome’s greatest poet. Dr. Wutrich also has been involved with the Society for Classical Studies’s Committee on Ancient Drama and Performance (CAMP), serving as the committee’s chair from 2016 – 2019. He has acted in a number of ancient plays, as well as in plays from the Classical Tradition. Since 2020 he has been chair of Theater in Greece and Rome (TIGR), a group he co-founded, which is dedicated to the study and performance of ancient theater. TIGR is affiliated with The Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS). In 2021 Wutrich directed a TIGR Zoom production of Plautus’s Amphitryon for which he translated some Renaissance Latin scenes designed to fill a lacuna in the play.
* Kelvin Smith Library requires all entrants to show identification when entering the building, unless they have a university i.d. that they can magnetically scan. We are sorry if that seems like a hassle, but it has been Library policy for a while in response to security concerns. Please do not complain to the library staff at the entrance, who are just doing their jobs.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
February 2: The Future of Local Journalism. With Denise Polverine, Publisher, Cleveland Magazine. Alternate Room: Mather House 100
February 9: TBA
February 16: TBA
February 23: TBA
March 1: TBA
March 8: The 2024 Elections. With Colin Swearingen, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science, John Carroll University.
March 15: Spring Break
March 22: Thinking About Generative AI. With Satya Sahoo, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Science and Director, Biomedical and Health Informatics Ph.D. Program.
March 29: TBA
April 5: WTFentanyl? What We Need to Know About the Current Opioid Crisis. With Ryan Marino, MD, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Psychiatry.
April 12: Conspiracy Theories and Climate Change Skepticism in Europe. With Andreas Sobisch, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science, John Carroll University.
April 19: TBA
April 26: TBA |
