Imagining America @ UF

UF Department of Classics will be participating in a new project called "Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives: Poetry-Drama-Dialogue" (2011-2013). This program represents an important new nationwide partnership between libraries and the theatre supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The program will have an additional focus on cross-cultural impact relating to the African-American, Asian-American, and Latino experience and a special emphasis on veterans and their families and will be guided by consultants specializing in these areas. Gonda Van Steen, Cassas Professor in Greek Studies (gonda@ufl.edu), will facilitate this program as the University of Florida representative.

Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives will travel to 100 public libraries and performing arts centers nationwide to inspire people to come together to read, see, and think about classical literature and how it continues to influence and invigorate American cultural life. The program is organized around four thematic units: 1) Rites of Passage: Changing Worlds, Transforming Lives; 2) Stranger in a Strange Land: Encountering the Other; 3)Homecoming: The Return of the Warrior and 4) From Homer to Hip Hop: The Art of Storytelling.

Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives: Poetry-Drama-Dialogue unites the assets of the Aquila Theatre Company (professional company-in-residence at NYU's Center for Ancient Studies), the Urban Libraries Council (ULC), the American Philological Association (APA), the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC, and the Center for Ancient Studies at New York University.