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Since joining the faculty at R-MWC in 1994 I have combined my graduate training as a Classical philologist with my research as an archaeologist: I currently teach all levels of Latin language and literature as well as courses in ancient art and archaeology. A specialist in the archaeology of late and post-Roman North Africa, over the last decade I have directed archaeological excavations of two early Christian basilicas at Carthage (Tunisia). The excavations included an archaeological field school for graduate and undergraduate students and resulted in the publication of two books and numerous articles and book reviews. I was a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks (1992-93), the recipient of the Katherine Graves Davidson Award (1997) and a fellow at the American Academy in Rome (1999-2000). In addition to my fieldwork, my collaborative research includes participation in a J. P. Getty Museum Grant at the Muse national de Carthage (1993), a National Endowment for the Humanities Project entitled "Devotion and Dissent, the practice of Christianity in North Africa" (1996) and an interdisciplinary project, "Roman Burial and Memorial Practices and Earliest Christianity," funded by the Shohet fellowship of the International Catacomb Society (2004-05). These experiences lead me to encourage students to participate in interdisciplinary research and experiential learning. In the summer of 2002, funded by a grant from R-MWC's Summer Research Program, for example, I supervised two students in organizing and cataloguing the Classics department collection of objects of ancient daily life (ceramics, coins, bronzes). I am also an avid student of modern languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Arabic) and an advocate of study-travel abroad: I urge Classics majors to study in Rome or Athens for a semester and I have led study tours to Tunisia, India and Italy.
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I received a B.A. in Classics (Greek) at Yale University, and then a Ph.D. in Classics, with a minor in Comparative Literature, at Stanford University. My doctoral work focused on the interpretive implications of doubling and the three-actor convention in Greek tragedy. At Randolph my students and I put that work on its feet by continuing the R-MWC Greek Play tradition, begun in 1909 by Greek Professor Mabel K. Whiteside. Directing the plays provides insight into the realities facing the ancient playwrights, and my research continues to argue that you cannot understand the plays without understanding how they were played. I have now directed seven productions using original practices, six in the Whiteside Greek Theatre on campus and one in Greece as part of the 2009 summer travel seminar, "Practical Wisdom: Philosophy and Drama in Greece." Although Greek drama is my specialty, I love teaching any course that leads students into an understanding of ancient literature and culture, in translation or in the original language. I haven't met an obscure grammatical term I don't love, and I do my best to inspire your passion for them as well in my ancient Greek courses. I also try to help students remember that the point of learning that declension or conjugation is to be able to read the words of the ancients, and to draw us that much closer to understanding them and their importance to us. When I have time, I see movies, read novels, and knit. I live happily on Garland Hill with my husband Chris, my sons Spencer and Leo, and my daughter Helen.
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Lynn Laufenberg
(e-mail)
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