Division of Arts and Humanities

Historian Henry Lovejoy wins $60,000 NEH fellowship

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:41:10 +0000

Historian Henry Lovejoy wins $60,000 NEH fellowship Rachel Sauer Wed, 01/15/2025 - 17:41

NEH funding also was awarded for two other humanities projects at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��

University of Colorado Boulder Department of History Associate Professor Henry Lovejoy has won a $60,000 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to allow him to research and write a book about involuntary African indentured labor between 1800 and 1914.

Lovejoy’s research focuses on the political, economic and cultural history of Africa and the African Diaspora. He also has special expertise in digital humanities and is director of the Digital Slavery Research Lab, which focuses on developing, linking and archiving open-source data and multi-media related to the global phenomenon of slavery and human trafficking.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of History Associate Professor Henry Lovejoy has won a $60,000 NEH fellowship to research and write a book about involuntary African indentured labor between 1800 and 1914.

Additionally, Lovejoy spearheaded the creation and update of the website www.liberatedafricans.org, a living memorial to the more than 700,000 men, women and children who were “liberated” but not immediately freed in the British-led campaign to abolish African slave trafficking.

The term “Liberated Africans” coincides with a now-little-remembered part of history following the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 by the United Kingdom’s Parliament, which prohibited the slave trade within the British Empire (although it did not abolish the practice of slavery until 1834).

Around the same time, other countries—including the United States, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands—passed their own trafficking laws and operated squadrons of ships in the Atlantic and Indian oceans to interdict the slave trade.

However, in a cruel twist of fate, most of those “liberated” people weren’t actually freed—but were instead condemned as property, declared free under anti-slave trade legislation and then subjected to indentures lasting several years.

Lovejoy said the NEH fellowship is allowing him to take leave from work to write his book, focused on lax enforcement of anti-slavery laws, migratory patterns of African laborers, their enslavement and subsequent use as indentured laborers around the world from 1800 to 1914.

“I’m deeply grateful for being awarded this opportunity, as the NEH plays such a vital role in supporting the humanities by funding projects that foster our cultural understanding, historical awareness, and intellectual inquiry,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lovejoy said he is also writing a biography about Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a “liberated African” who was apprenticed by Queen Victoria, after conducting research in royal, national and local archives in England, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Lovejoy also wrote the book Prieto: Yorùbá Kingship in Colonial Cuba During the Age of Revolutions, a biography of an enslaved African who rose through the ranks of Spain’s colonial military and eventually led a socio-religious institution at the root of an African-Cuban religion, commonly known as Santería.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Professor Patrick Greaney (left) won a $60,000 NEH fellowship to research and write a book about German manufacturer Braun; Wilma Doris Loayza (right), teaching assistant professor in the Latin American and Latinx Studies Center, along with co-project directors Joe Bryan, Leila Gomez and Ambrocio Gutierrez Lorenzo, won a two-year, $149,925 grant to develop course modules and educational resources about Quechua and Zapotec language and culture.

Lovejoy’s NEH fellowship was one of three NEH awards to ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� faculty. Other awards granted were:

Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures Professor Patrick Greaney won a $60,000 fellowship to research and write a book about German manufacturer Braun, National Socialism and the creation of West German culture between1933-1975, focusing on Braun from the beginning of the Nazi regime through the 1970s in the Federal Republic of Germany. Greaney’s research focuses on literature, design and modern and contemporary art.

Wilma Doris Loayza, teaching assistant professor at the Latin American and Latinx Studies Center, and affiliated faculty of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies, along with co-project directors Joe Bryan, Leila Gomez and Ambrocio Gutierrez Lorenzo, won a two-year, $149,925 grant to develop course modules and educational resources about Quechua and Zapotec language and culture as part of efforts to expand and strengthen the Latin American Indigenous Languages and Cultures program.

The awards to ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� faculty were part of $22.6 million in grants the NEH provided to 219 humanities projects across the country. The awards were announced Tuesday.

“It is my pleasure to announce NEH grant awards to support 219 exemplary projects that will foster discovery, education, and innovative research in the humanities,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe.

“This funding will strengthen our ability to preserve and share important stories from the past with future generations, and expand opportunities in communities, classrooms, and institutions to engage with the history, ideas, languages, and cultures that shape our world.”

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NEH funding also was awarded for two other humanities projects at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��.

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Historian still making a strong case for Black Majority

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 22:53:30 +0000

Historian still making a strong case for Black Majority Rachel Sauer Mon, 01/06/2025 - 15:53

Bradley Worrell

CU Adjunct Professor Peter H. Wood’s seminal 1974 book on race, rice and rebellion in Colonial America recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with an updated version

If Peter H. Wood wants to stump some University of Colorado history majors about early American history, he’ll ask them which of the original 13 colonies was the wealthiest before the American Revolution and also had an African American majority at the time.

“Often, they will see it as a trick question. Some might guess New Jersey or New York or Connecticut, so most people have no idea of the correct answer, which is South Carolina,” says Wood, a former Rhodes Scholar and a Duke University emeritus professor. He came to the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of History as an adjunct professor in 2012, when his wife, Distinguished Professor Emerita Elizabeth Fenn, joined the department.

Peter H. Wood has been an associate professor at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� for more than a dozen years, following a lengthy career teaching American history at Duke University.

South Carolina colonial history is a topic with which Wood is intimately familiar, having written the book Black Majority: Race, Rice and Rebellion in South Carolina, which was first published in 1974 and has been described as one of the most influential books on the history of the American South of the past 50 years. W. W. Norton published a 50th anniversary edition of the book in 2024.

Recently, Wood spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine about how he first brought the story of colonial South Carolina to light, reflecting on how the book was received at the time and why this part of history remains relevant today. His responses have been lightly edited for style and condensed for clarity.

Question: How did you become aware of this story of colonial South Carolina, which was unfamiliar to many Americans in 1974 and perhaps still is today?

Wood: I knew when I was an undergraduate that I wanted to study early American history. After a two-year stint at Oxford in the mid-1960s, I came back to Harvard for graduate school.

At that time, the Civil Rights Movement was going on. I’d been very interested in those events, as most of my generation was, and I wanted to see how I could put together my interest in interracial problems with my interest in early American history.

What I found was that early American history was very New England-oriented in those days. Ivy League schools were cranking out people writing about the Puritans, and when they wrote about the South, they would mainly write about Virginia. They talked about Jefferson and Washington. South Carolina had hardly been explored at all. There are only 13 British mainland colonies, after all, so to find that one of them had scarcely been studied was exciting.

Specifically, I was motivated by the Detroit riot in 1967, watching it unfold on television in the summer of 1967. Roger Mudd, the old CBS reporter, was flying over Detroit in a helicopter the way he’d been flying over Vietnam. He was saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going on down there.’ I realized that he was supposed to be explaining it to us, but he didn’t really have a very good feel for it himself. No white reporters did.

And the very next morning I went into Widener Library at Harvard and started looking at colonial history books to see if any of them covered Black history in the very early period … and South Carolina was completely blank. So, that was what set me going.

Question: If there wasn’t any significant scholarship about South Carolina prior to the American Revolution, particularly about African Americans living there, how did you conduct research for your book?

Wood: I went to the South Carolina State Archives in Columbia, not knowing what I would be able to find. I understood that if I did find materials, they would be written by the white colonists … because enslaved African Americans were not allowed to read and write. There wasn’t going to be anybody who was African American keeping a diary.

But what I did find was that the records were abundant. That’s partly because these enslaved people were being treated as property; they had a financial value. So, when I would open a book, there would be nothing in the index under ‘Negroes’ (that was the word used in those days). But I would look through the book itself and there were all kinds of references to them. They just hadn’t been indexed, because they weren’t considered important.

At every turn, there was more material than I expected, and often dealing with significant issues. …

And when you’re researching early African American history, you learn to read those documents critically. The silver lining of that sort of difficult research is that it forces you to be interdisciplinary and to use any approach you can.

Black Majority by CU Associate Professor Peter H. Wood was updated for its 50th anniversary in 2024. First published in 1974, the book broke new ground in showing how important slaves were to the South Carolina economy in Colonial times.

So, I ended up using some linguistics and some medical history (about malaria) and especially some agricultural history. Most people back then—and most Americans still today—don’t realize that the key product in South Carolina was rice. I argued successfully and for the first time in this book that it seemed to have originated with the enslaved Africans. The gist of the book is that these people were not unskilled labor; they were skilled and knowledgeable labor, and it was a West African product (rice) that made South Carolina the richest of the 13 colonies.

Question: With regard to Black Majority, you made the statement, ‘Demography matters.’ What do you mean by that?

Wood: I realized early on that demography was a very radical tool in the sense that it obliges you, or allows you, to treat everybody equally. In other words, to be a good demographer, you have to count everybody: Men, women and children, Black and white, gay and straight—everybody counts equally. As a born egalitarian, that was appealing, especially in a period where there were lots of radical ideas bouncing around that I was a little leery of.

But demography seems very straightforward, as in: All I have to do is count people. So, the very title of the book, Black Majority, is a demographic statement. It’s not saying, ‘These people are good or bad’ or anything else. It’s just saying, ‘Here they are.’ It becomes what I call a Rorschach test, meaning it’s up to the reader as to what they want to make out of these basic facts. …

The book—especially in those days—was particularly exciting for young African Americans, because they’d been told they didn’t have any history, or that it was inaccessible.

Remember, this was even before Alex Haley had published Roots. I actually met Alex while he was working on his book, because I was one of the only people he could find who was interested in slavery before the American Revolution. Most of the people who were studying Black history—which was only a very small, emerging field in those days—were either studying modern-day Civil Rights activities and Jim Crow activities, or maybe the Civil War and antebellum cotton plantations.

Question: You initially undertook your research on this topic to write your PhD dissertation. At what point in the process did you think your findings could make for a good, informative book?

Wood: Very early on, I thought I wanted to write a book. I mean, I wanted to be able to publish something and I wanted to start at the beginning. … If I could go all the way back to 1670, when this colony began, and find records, and tell the story moving forward—instead of going backwards from the Civil Rights movement—I wanted to do that.

If I could write a book about that, then it would show lots of other people that they could write a book about Blacks in 18th-century Georgia or 19th-century Alabama, for example. All of those topics had seemed off limits at the time.

So, I was going to start at the beginning and move forward and see how far I had to go to get a book. I thought, ‘I’ll probably have to go up to 1820,’ but by the time I got to 1740, by the time I got through the Stono Rebellion—which was the largest rebellion in Colonial North America, in 1739, and it was unknown to people—I had enough for a book.

I had enough (material) for a dissertation so I could get my degree, but I also had enough for a book. And, luckily for me, it was just at the time when there was a lot of pressure on universities to create Black Studies programs, in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

That put a lot of pressure on New York publishers to find books about Black history. And so, Alfred Knopf in New York took the book and gave me a contract within two weeks. I was very lucky in that regard: That was a moment where it was just dawning on everybody that, ‘My goodness! There’s a huge area here where we have not shone a searchlight.’ …

I'll tell you a funny story. At Knopf, they said, ‘You should go talk to our publicity director,’ because they were excited about this book. I walked into her office, and she was this burly, blonde advertising woman. Her face just dropped. She said, ‘Oh, Dr. Wood, I thought you were Black!’ And then she brightened up. ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘I'll get you on the radio.’ (laughs)

Peter H. Wood, here exploring chimney remains, is revising his book Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America, which will be published in an expanded edition this year.

So, that just illustrates, if I’d been Black, it would have been even better, but at that point, anything was grist for the mill, especially if it was opening up new territory in American history.

Question: That actually raises a question: Did you face any criticism as a white author writing about Black history, like author William Styron did?

Wood: That was the controversy about William Styron’s 1967 book, The Confessions of Nat Turner. Styron was a white Connecticut author, and quite well-informed and well-intended. He had been raised in Virginia himself, so he’d grown up with versions of this story.

He was not a historian. Still, he wanted to try to write about Nat Turner’s rebellion from Turner’s perspective. So, he had the freedom of a novelist, of trying to put himself inside Nat Turner’s head. That effort was troublesome to a lot of folks.

It bothered some Black folks because it was a white author trying to do that and showing a complicated version of things. It was also upsetting to some white folks. If they knew about Nat Turner at all, it was that he was some crazy madman who killed people, so the idea that you should try to get inside his head, that was upsetting to them.

But, in answer to your question, I was lucky in that … the critique that white people shouldn’t do Black history had not really taken hold. At that time (1974), very little was being written about African Americans in Colonial times … and so there was a desire for anything that could shine some light on the subject.

Question: Why do you think Black Majority has maintained its staying power over the years? And what changes were made for the 50th-anniversary edition that W. W. Norton published?

Wood: As I’ve said, it came along at the right time. Along with other works, it opened up a whole new area, and so early African American history is now a very active field.

When I did the revisions for this 50th-anniversary edition, I didn’t change it drastically, because it is a product of the early 1970s, of 50 years ago. I think the points I made then have held up pretty well. That’s why I’d say it has been influential in the academic community, but for the general public, not so much.

Question: Why do you think that is?

Wood: It’s very hard to change the mainstream narrative, especially in regard to our childhood education about early American history. From elementary school on, we hear about Jamestown and about the Puritans; we learn that colonists grew tobacco in Virginia, but almost nothing beyond that. …

I think that’s part of our failing over the last 50 years. The idea of having a national story that everyone can agree upon has fallen apart, and I wish we could knit it back together. It may be too little, too late. But if we if we can ever manage to knit it back together in a more thorough, honest way, African Americans in Colonial times will be one of the early chapters.

Twenty years ago, I worked on a very successful U.S. history textbook called Created Equal, where I wrote the first six chapters. Even then, our team was trying to tie all of American history together in a new and inclusive way—one that everyone could understand and share and discuss. … I hope that book, and Black Majority, is more relevant than ever.

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CU Adjunct Professor Peter H. Wood’s seminal 1974 book on race, rice and rebellion in Colonial America recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with an updated version.

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Top image: Remnants of rice fields along the Combahee River in South Carolina. (Photo: David Soliday/National Museum of African American History and Culture)

American Philosophical Association recognizes Iskra Fileva for op-ed

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 15:31:25 +0000

American Philosophical Association recognizes Iskra Fileva for op-ed Rachel Sauer Fri, 01/03/2025 - 08:31

Fileva, a ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� associate professor of philosophy, won a 2024 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest

Iskra Fileva, an associate professor in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Philosophy, has won a 2024 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest from the American Philosophical Association for her blog “Is It Hubris to Think We Matter?”

Fileva’s article was originally published in 2023 in Psychology Today, for which she is a regular contributor. With her permission, the article was later reposted on the Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine website.

Iskra Fileva, an associate professor in the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of Philosophy, has won a 2024 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest from the American Philosophical Association.

Fileva specializes in moral psychology and issues at the intersection of philosophy, psychology and psychiatry. She also studies aesthetics and epistemology. Her work has appeared in a number of journals, including Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophers’ Imprint, Philosophical Studies and Synthese.

In addition to her academic work, Fileva writes for a broad audience, including op-eds for the New York Times. She writes a column in Psychology Today that has addressed a wide variety of topics, including perfectionism, self-sabotage, parents who envy their children, asymmetrical friendships, love without commitment, fear of freedom, death, dreams, despair and many others.

In announcing the award, the American Philosophical Association noted that winning submissions “call public attention, either directly or indirectly, to the value of philosophical thinking” and were judged in terms of sound reasoning and “their success as examples of public philosophy,” as well as their accessibility to the general public on topics of public concern.

Fileva said she’s pleased with the reception the article received and honored to be recognized by the American Philosophical Association.

“Receiving the public philosophy award was a very nice way to end the year,” she said. “It also drew attention to the essay, and I heard from people who read it and who likely would not have found it otherwise. It took me a day or so to re-read it as I don’t, in general, know what I would think of anything I’ve written several months ago, but I did re-read it, and I was happy to discover that I still agreed with what I’d written.”

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Fileva, a ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� associate professor of philosophy, won a 2024 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest.

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Meeting a little princess in the secret garden

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 23:46:38 +0000

Meeting a little princess in the secret garden Rachel Sauer Mon, 12/23/2024 - 16:46

Adamari Ruelas

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Associate Professor Emily Harrington examines the enduring power of stories we read in childhood and what we can learn from them as adults

When many people think of December, their minds are filled with thoughts of snow, warm drinks, family and childhood. This is the time of year when memories of childhood bubble to the surface—burnished by time to seem simpler and happier.

For avid childhood readers, a profound element of those memories is the books they read in their youth, which can continue to play a significant role in their adult lives. Frances Hodgson Burnett, who died 100 years ago this fall, was the author of such books—the kind that young readers devour and still swoon over in adulthood.

“In these books like The Secret Garden, the kids are the ones who are empowered to figure things out for themselves and who are in worlds that are magical or partially magical. That kind of magic attaches itself to the kids,” says Emily Harrington, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� associate professor of English.

Her most famous works, including A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, continue to be fan favorites for young children and books that many adults consider the beginning of their reading careers.

Remembering Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett is a household name in the world of children’s literature. Her beloved novels are perennially popular with children and have been made into multiple film adaptations. However, says Emily Harrington, an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Colorado Boulder, who has taught a course on children’s literature, it is important to critically examine even the beloved books of childhood—not allowing memory to obscure what adult readers may recognize as controversial aspects of children’s literature.

Critics and educators have been noted how Hodgson Burnett portrayed characters of color in her novels. For example, in The Secret Garden, the character Mary is unhealthy because she grew up in India. Martha, a sympathetic character, contrasts people of color with "respectable” white people. Modern readers have questioned the effect that could have had on the children reading these stories.

Harrington notes it’s important to teach the novels in a way that doesn’t dismiss their issues: “Both (A Little Princess and The Secret Garden) have some super problematic, racist attitudes. It’s not why they’re remembered but I think it’s important to acknowledge,” Harrington says.

When looking back on novels written in the early 20th century, it isn’t uncommon to discover undertones of racism or sexism.

Some argue that racism was more normalized at the time some books were written, but even in the context of a work’s time, it is important to recognize and consider these issues when they exist in novels written for children, Harrington says. She also notes Burnett’s questionable views about medicine, which are apparent in The Secret Garden, when a wheelchair-bound child is able to walk after a little exposure to fresh air. Burnett believed that nature and God were the solution to most medical issues, which can change the meaning of the Secret Garden as being a magical place outside that fixes all medical ailments.

A lifetime effect

However, even if some of their content makes a modern reader pause, the novels that young readers enjoy can have lasting echoes in their lives as adults. Childhood fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and many other novels may continue to visit those worlds in their minds as adults or to wish they could be transported by books in the way they were as children. This includes Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novels, which many readers continue loving into adulthood. A large part of this connection is how the books made young readers feel while reading them, Harrington says.

“In these books like The Secret Garden, the kids are the ones who are empowered to figure things out for themselves and who are in worlds that are magical or partially magical. That kind of magic attaches itself to the kids,” Harrington says.

"All the people who enjoy these books can take the parts that they love and keep them," says Emily Harrington, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� associate professor of English. (Illustration: by Inga Moore from The Secret Garden)

Due to this escape that children can experience while reading these novels, the stories, characters and places can stay with them into adulthood. It isn’t rare to see someone who is still as deeply infatuated with novels such as A Little Princess or The Secret Garden as an adult because those books have been those escapes for many generations of children. And as parents or grandparents read these novels to children, the cycle continues, and the literary love is passed to new generations.

Even with Hodgson Burnett’s questionable beliefs, as well as aspects of her novels that trouble modern readers, readers still are able to take the best parts of these magical worlds and make them their own, Harrington says. That, in turn, allows the children who read them to make these fictional worlds their own, she adds.

She notes that this is a process that many children experience while reading these novels as a form of escapism: “[As they grow up, children may think] ‘This magical world is mine now, and it’s not going to be racist or anti-trans. I’m gonna imagine myself in it in my own way and reject the parts of the legacy that I don’t want.’

“All the people who enjoy these books can take the parts that they love and keep them, and hopefully had enough alternate influences that counteract the colonialist ideology,” Harrington says, citing common issues with The Secret Garden and A Little Princess.

Best friends forever

For many avid childhood readers, books have been a major part of their lives for as long as they can remember and the characters in them their lifelong friends. Those reading experiences can transfer deeply into their adult lives, especially when correlating reading with comfort, Harrington says.

Further, a study published in the journal Psychological Medicine last year found multiple points of positive correlation between early reading for pleasure with subsequent brain and cognitive development and mental well-being. Also, the most recent Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report finds that while 70% of 6- to 8-year-olds love or like reading books for fun, that number shrinks to just 47% among 12- to 17-year olds.

R. Joseph Rodriguez, a teaching fellow with the National Book Foundation, told NEA Today, “The joy of books has been killed. Suppressed, tested and killed. I hate when students are called ‘struggling readers.’ We need to see them as students who need a revival! I want a revival!”

Educators, researchers, parents, health care professionals and children themselves study and discuss how to support and encourage reading—from alleviating testing pressure to proving time and space for reading, supporting diversity in children’s literature and not dismissing the literature that children actually enjoy as “frivolous.”

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Associate Professor Emily Harrington examines the enduring power of stories we read in childhood and what we can learn from them as adults.

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Top illustration by Inga Moore, 1944

Outstanding grad unearths roots of challenges to Black women authors

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 15:10:36 +0000

Outstanding grad unearths roots of challenges to Black women authors Rachel Sauer Fri, 12/20/2024 - 08:10

Clint Talbott

Jane Forman, who is earning her BA in English, summa cum laude, is named the college’s outstanding graduate for fall 2024

Jane Forman has painstakingly recounted evidence that Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones and other prominent Black women authors have faced challenges to the authenticity and quality of their work, and that these critiques emanate from racist and sexist conceptions of who is rightly considered an author and an authority.

Forman, who is earning her BA in English, summa cum laude, deeply impressed her faculty committee, and she has been named the outstanding graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences for fall 2024.

Her thesis is titled “Deconstructing Archival Debris in the Margins: How Black Women Writers Navigate Intersectional Oppression During the Authorial Identity Formation Process.”

Jane Forman, who is earning her BA in English, summa cum laude, is the College of Arts and Science outstanding graduate for fall 2024.

In this work, Forman considers cases of Black women authors who were unfairly denigrated and rebuked because their intersectional identity made them targets. Forman cites troubling episodes of Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard; Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the Pulitzer-winning 1619 Project; Toni Morrison, winner of a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize; and others.

When she spoke recently with Daryl Maeda, interim dean of the college, Forman described her thesis as a “contemplation of how our history continuously influences contemporary figurations of American life.”

In her thesis, she concludes: “The history of slavery is all of ours to confront, disregarding our contemporary racial and gender positionality in America. The virulent debris that emerged from slavery’s formal demolition continues to infect society today … We are all implicated in how this history attempts to exert influence over our collective present and future.”

Jennifer Ho, director of the Center for Humanities and the Arts, Eaton Professor of Humanities and the Arts and professor of ethnic studies, served as Forman’s thesis advisor. In her written narrative to the faculty thesis defense form, Ho said Forman’s thesis was made especially strong by her tracing of the “archival debris” across three periods of Black female authorship:

“Using critical race theory as her main theoretical touchstone, Jane considers the intersectional oppression that plagues Black women writers—the way that they must continuously navigate charges of plagiarism, incompetence and illegitimacy. Combining close reading/explication with theoretical applications of critical race theory, Jane takes readers through the troubling trend of discounting Black women writers due to sexism and racism, linked to U.S. history of anti-Black racism and white supremacy.”

In a letter of support for Forman, Emily Harrington, an associate professor of English who served on Forman’s committee, said Forman’s work “is easily the best senior thesis I have read during my career.”

Through all her thesis chapters, Forman “draws a direct connection between the various ways in which Black women authors have been questioned both in their authenticity and in the quality of their work, from the ‘first’ African American poet to the present day,” Harrington said, adding:

“Having also taken graduate seminars as an undergraduate, Jane is the most advanced undergraduate I have encountered at CU. … She has been a leader in our department, and I cannot think of a more ‘outstanding undergraduate.’”

In the acknowledgment section of her thesis, Forman shares some personal reflection and advice:

“For anyone uncertain of what they should do or where they should go, I urge you to follow the path that leads you toward the most expansive feeling. Three years ago, I dropped out of Georgetown University, unsure of what my life would be like. I didn’t know where I wanted to be, but I knew I couldn’t stay there. Despite the tumultuous journey that led me here, I feel eternally grateful for where I ended up.”

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Jane Forman, who is earning her BA in English, summa cum laude, is named the college’s outstanding graduate for fall 2024.

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Spinning stories of birds, magic and 19th-century science

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 14:30:00 +0000

Spinning stories of birds, magic and 19th-century science Rachel Sauer Mon, 12/16/2024 - 07:30

Cody DeBos

In new novel The Naturalist Society, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� alum Carrie Vaughn offers a fresh take on historical fantasy

For New York Times bestselling author and University of Colorado Boulder graduate Carrie Vaughn (MEngl’00), the boundary between science and magic is a playground.

Her latest novel, The Naturalist Society, released last month, transports readers to an alternate Victorian era in which scientific discovery and arcane magic coexist. Here, the Latin binomial nomenclature used to classify plants and animals grants extraordinary powers to certain scientists.

The novel is a departure from Vaughn’s usual urban fantasy or mystery settings, for which she's been nominated several times for the Hugo Award and won the 2017 Colorado Book Award in the genre fiction category. She recalls a friend joking, “Hey, you like birds, you should write a book about them!”

In her new novel The Naturalist Society, Carrie Vaughn (MEngl’00) explores an alternate Victorian era in which scientific discovery and arcane magic coexist.

From that comment, she spun a tale blending 19th-century Victorian science and a distinctive magic system—with a splash of romance added for good measure.

“I tend to do this a lot, take several different ideas and smoosh them together to see what happens,” Vaughn says. “The story developed pretty quickly and went in some unexpected directions. It’s not just historical fantasy, but also alternate history.”

When research meets imagination

Creating an immersive world for the protagonist of The Naturalist Society to traverse was more than a work of imagination. Vaughn immersed herself in research while preparing to write the novel.

“I read a bunch of history of the natural sciences, about Darwin and the impact of his ideas,” she says. “And I kept my Sibley Field Guide to Birds on my desk the whole time.”

Vaughn also drew inspiration from Victorian-era literature.

“I read some Edith Wharton to get that flavor of upper-class New York City in the late 19th century,” she says.

As any writer can understand, Vaughn’s work on The Naturalist Society didn’t come without challenges. Stepping away from her familiar urban fantasy worlds—she reached the New York Times Bestseller list with her long-running novel series about Kitty Norville, a Denver DJ who is also a werewolf—to tackle a historical setting took Vaughn on a lengthy fact-finding journey.

Despite completing extensive research, Vaughn admits the process felt never-ending. “As much research as I do, it never feels like quite enough. It’s impossible to be completely thorough.

“Using a concrete historical setting means I’m very aware of all the possible mistakes I could make. I’m waiting for readers to start emailing me about what I got wrong,” she jokes.

Still, Vaughn considers these trials part of the creative process. She strives to remain open to all ideas and let her stories evolve naturally—a tricky balance to strike while keeping The Naturalist Society grounded in history.

The Naturalist Society is a departure from the urban fantasy and murder mystery genres in which Carrie Vaughn has widely written.

Embracing the unexpected

For Vaughn, The Naturalist Society is more than just her latest novel; it’s part of a larger journey as a writer. Throughout her career, Vaughn has written more than 20 novels and 100 short stories spanning every genre from urban fantasy to murder mystery.

“I’m always looking for new stories to tell,” she says. “I go where the stories tell me to go. I like the challenge of trying new genres and tropes.”

Vaughn’s exploratory approach to storytelling is rooted in experimentation. She says she enjoys the surprising outcomes that emerge after taking time to reconnoiter new settings or blur the lines between genres.

This approach helps The Naturalist Society exist as a historical fantasy novel while also transcending the conventions of the genre.

From ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� to a career of discovery

Vaughn’s ability to weave complex stories is no accident. She credits her time at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� for giving her a firm foundation in her craft.

“I need to give a big shout out to Professor Kelly Hurley,” Vaughn says. “Her seminars on Victorian and Gothic literature have stayed with me.”

She says these classes, among others, helped shape her understanding of storytelling. Time spent reading and discussing books and literature during her degree studies also played a pivotal role in Vaughn’s career.

“If I can write across genres and settings, it’s because I’ve read across genres and settings,” she explains. “I go back to Professor Hurley’s ideas and reading lists all the time. She helped fill a well that I’m still drawing on.”

Advice for writers

Every aspiring writer’s journey is unique, Vaughn says, and her experiences emphasize the value of exploration and risk-taking. Her advice to writers looking to try new genres or settings?

“Read widely! Look for inspiration in unlikely places.”

She also encourages writers to embrace bold ideas and trust their instincts.

“When I’m working on an idea and find myself thinking, ‘This is crazy, people will never go for this,’ I know I’m on the right track,” she says.

With The Naturalist Society, Vaughn has unlocked yet another creative direction for her work, but her latest novel is just the beginning of her foray into historical fantasy. She’s already working on a sequel and aims to build further on the world she created.

Learn more about Carrie Vaughn and The Naturalist Society on her website.

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In new novel The Naturalist Society, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� alum Carrie Vaughn offers a fresh take on historical fantasy.

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Diane Mayer taught philosophy and also practiced it

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 18:40:20 +0000

Diane Mayer taught philosophy and also practiced it Rachel Sauer Wed, 12/11/2024 - 11:40

To put herself through ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� graduate courses, she worked as a switchboard operator for sub-minimum wage, then became a dispatcher for campus police

Editor’s note: Diane R. Mayer, instructor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Colorado Boulder, died Dec. 2, 2024. She was 78. Before her passing, she wrote her own obituary. The text follows:

I was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in the same hospital that saw the birth of Jack Nicholson.

I spent my first 25 summers at the beach, body surfing and reading literature by folks like Jane Austen. In high school, I helped lead a student strike against the poor food options in the school cafeteria.

During high school and college, I worked as a long-distance operator for AT&T. Thanks to an alumni sponsor, I was admitted to Smith College, where I majored in religion and biblical studies.

Having been a dedicated atheist since second grade, when I got my father to confess that Santa is not real, I was curious about religion. Martin Buber’s I and Thou, with its sound moral vision, also influenced my decision.

Upon graduation, I was admitted to Duke divinity school, but felt my atheism was too strong for that to be a good idea. So, I went to work for the NYC social services department, working in Harlem to check on the well-being of those on my caseload. The only requirement to meet in order to be hired way proof of a BA.

I next the spent two years in San Francisco, working as a crew leader for the 1970 census, where I was also assigned to convince reluctant persons—like an ambassador from Turkey or a poor Italian family with no English and only a kerosene lamp for light—to complete the long form. This was a great way to see a great spectrum of folks and areas in SF.

During these years, 1966 through 1986, I took several weeklong backpacking trips in Wyoming, mainly in the Wind Rivers. I also played on the Boulder women’s softball team sponsored at the time by Tico’s Mexican Restaurant.

Despite having no undergraduate philosophy, I was admitted to the graduate program in philosophy at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��. To pay for the program and living expenses, I worked first at the CU switchboard for less than the minimum wage.

I saw a student in uniform writing parking tickets and found that she made twice as much per hour, so I applied and was hired. I worked mainly as a dispatcher for the next 10 years, during a time of social unrest, including the Los Seis bombing.

I was intent on understanding existentialism and phenomenology but ultimately wound up writing on Kant. After completing and defending my dissertation on his Critique of Pure Reason, I began to work for the department as an administrator and an instructor. Ultimately, I became the assistant chair for undergraduate studies. As an instructor, from roughly 1985 until 2011, I mainly taught courses in applied normative philosophy. They included the course Philosophy and Women. (I was recently stopped on the Bobolink trail by a woman who told me that the course “saved my life, let me find my way out of despair.”)

When George W. Bush began contemplating invading Afghanistan, I brought back the course War and Morality, with a focus both on Just War Theory and nonviolence. Students had a lab requirement that consisted of films illustrating various points in both; All Quiet on the Western Front, for example.

Environment Ethics covered both the moral status of nature and animal rights. The assigned film is a documentary: Earthlings. My other courses included Ethical Theory, Social and Political Philosophy, Intro to Ethics, Major Social Theories and Philosophy and Society. In the latter, we read key political theorists (libertarian, social contract and distributive justice) and then explored topics such as the education system, the criminal justice system and global justice (cf World Poverty and Human Rights).

The courses were designed to tie abstract ideas to the real world and to help students formulate and justify their moral visions. Some final exams consisted of students adopting a view and then forming groups to defend their view against objections made by those defending a different view.

The stupa at the Drala Mountain Center, formerly the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, at which Diane Mayer attended several month-long retreats. (Photo: Drala Mountain Center)

During these years I also volunteered at the Rocky Mountain Peace Center and was part of the planning for the Encirclement of Rocky Flats. I also planned, with others, the Mother’s Day Actions at the Nevada Test Site. (A warning at the site read “NO DANGEROUS WEAPONS ALLOWED.”)

I also volunteered at the Boulder Safehouse and served on the boards of RMPC, the Safehouse and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In the late ‘80s, a time of emotional upheaval, I began a Buddhist practice. I completed the eight-week “warrior” training and attended several “dathuns” (month-long retreats) at the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center west of Fort Collins.

My library is full of inspiring texts by contemporary Buddhist thinkers. I also went with Christian Peacemaker Teams to accompany indigenous folks in Chiapas Mexico during the Zapatista uprising. I turned 50 on that trip. I realized that it was silly not to know Spanish, so I made several trips to Spanish-speaking countries over the years:

First to Cuba, which I visited several times—once for a philosophy meeting, where I delivered a paper on non-violence. Then to Guatemala, the least expensive place to have one-on-one tutoring in Spanish. I would live with a local family for a month, often in Quetzaltenango, and once joined a project there to work with girls in their schools in the remote mountain villages.

Upon retiring, I took up the task of relearning the game of bridge, which I had played extensively in high school and college. It took 19 years to feel competent at the game. After attending many tournaments in places like San Francisco and New Orleans, I wound up a “Ruby” Life Master.

I also wrote about 500 letters and op eds published in the Daily Camera, using multiple pen names.

Having no longer any contribution to make to the world, and despairing at the horror (imo) of this century with its wars, its destruction of nature, our elimination of many species and our new (anti-) “social media” bringing destruction to human community and well-being, and its recent rise in and acceptance of misogyny, I choose now to shuffle off this mortal coil.

To put herself through ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� graduate courses, she worked as a switchboard operator for sub-minimum wage, then became a dispatcher for campus police.

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Notre Dame cathedral rises from the ashes

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 15:38:23 +0000

Notre Dame cathedral rises from the ashes Rachel Sauer Tue, 12/03/2024 - 08:38

Doug McPherson

Five years after a devastating fire, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Professor Kirk Ambrose reflects on the significance of the renowned cathedral’s Dec. 7 reopening

When University of Colorado Boulder Professor Kirk Ambrose thinks of the famed cathedral Notre Dame in Paris, his mind goes back to when he lived near the site while researching European art and architecture.

He’d make a point of walking past the church every morning―repeated encounters that made him appreciate how much the building is part of the life of the city.

Kirk Ambrose, a ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� professor of classics, notes that since its beginnings, Notre Dame has been the center of Paris.

He recalls that there was a regular vendor who sold pet birds in the cathedral’s shadow.

“I relished the entanglements of soaring towers and buttresses vis-à-vis these caged flying animals,” says Ambrose, whose great aunt was married in Notre Dame. “In other words, Notre Dame offers a lens through which one can understand Paris. This notion is underscored by the vista from its towers, which offer unparalleled views of the city.”

Ambrose, a professor in the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of Classics who studies and teaches the art and architecture of medieval Europe, says from its beginnings in the 12th century, Notre Dame was at the center of Paris. (It is literally the city’s center: In front of the church, a small plate engraved with a compass is known as “point zéro des routes de France,” which marks where all distances to and from Paris are measured.)

Five years after the April 15, 2019, fire that collapsed the cathedral’s famed spire, consumed its wooden roof and heavily damaged its upper walls and vaults, Notre Dame is set to reopen to the public Dec. 7, with the first mass held the following day.

In his public remarks following the fire, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “Notre-Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche, the place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicenter of our lives.”

In the more than 800 years since its first stone was laid, Notre Dame has not only come to symbolize Paris but become one of the world’s great buildings. When it burned in 2019, people around the globe mourned, and its reopening is garnering international celebration.

An 800-year history

Throughout its multi-century history, Notre Dame has not been stagnant, but has reflected the shifting currents of culture, Ambrose says.

“This was the seat of the bishop of Paris and was a stone’s throw from the king’s residence,” Ambrose says. “Given these royal associations, there were many renovation campaigns to keep the building looking stylish, in line with the latest building trends.”

During the Middle Ages, the streets surrounding the cathedral were home to bookshops, ivory shops and other niche workshops. “The towers of the cathedral loomed large, both physically and conceptually, over these artistic activities,” Ambrose says.

After extensive renovation following a devastating April 2019 fire, Notre Dame will reopen to the public Saturday, and the first mass will be said Sunday. (Photo: Stephane De Sakutin/Getty Images)

The height of Notre-Dame de Paris's tower is 226 feet, and its spire is 315 feet. Until the Eiffel Tower was completed, Notre Dame was the tallest structure in Paris.

Historians note that the cathedral was an easy target during the Napoleonic Wars, when it took such a pummeling that officials considered razing it. To boost awareness for the church and revive interest in Gothic architecture, the renowned author Victor Hugo wrote the novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in 1831.

Ambrose says Hugo’s novel made the building a vivid character for readers’ imaginations. The book was met with immediate success, and in 1844 King Louis Philippe ordered that Notre Dame be restored.

“By the way, Hugo was friends with many of the leading architectural historians of the day,” Ambrose says. “Thanks largely to Hugo, the building was subsequently the subject of films, of garden sculptures, of gargoyles, etc.”

But five years ago, all of Notre Dame’s beauty and history was nearly lost. According to news reports, a fire broke at about 6:20 p.m. April 15, and in fewer than two hours, the spire collapsed, bringing down a cascade of 750 tons of stone and lead. It’s been speculated that the fire was linked to ongoing renovation work, but officials have yet to name a definitive cause. By 9.45 p.m., the fire was finally brought under control.

Saturday, the cathedral will reopen following a restoration supported by about 340,000 donors from 150 countries who contributed almost $1 billion.

Might Notre Dame become even more popular after the fire and subsequent restoration? Ambrose says there’s reason to believe it will.

“As a medievalist, I can say that fires often make buildings more popular,” he says. “The great cathedral of Chartres [a Catholic cathedral in Chartres, France, much of which was destroyed by a fire in 1194] leaps to mind as a comparison. In medieval lore, fires were often interpreted as expressions of divine will; that’s to say, they were interpreted as commands to make a building even more splendid.

“In the case of Notre Dame, the fire will, I believe, also make us appreciate this remarkable monument all the more, not taking this historical legacy for granted.”

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Five years after a devastating fire, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Professor Kirk Ambrose reflects on the significance of the renowned cathedral’s Dec. 7 reopening.

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Top photo: notredamedeparis.fr

Defying gravity… and the box office

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 18:08:25 +0000

Defying gravity… and the box office Rachel Sauer Tue, 11/26/2024 - 11:08

Adamari Ruelas

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� lecturer Marla Schulz examines the Broadway-musical-turned-film Wicked and how the movie musical endures

Since the Broadway musical Wicked opened in fall 2003, it has been beloved by both critics and audiences. Based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, it has dominated Broadway, becoming the fourth-longest-running musical of all time and amassing more than $5 billion in sales worldwide via the Broadway show and a touring production that has been to more than 100 cities in 16 countries.

So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when Universal Studios announced plans to bring the musical to the big screen in 2014. After a slew of delays, many due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was finally released on Friday, following a months-long, pink-and-green global marketing blitz.

Marla Schulz, a lecturer in the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of Theatre and Dance, says part of Wicked's appeal is the story of a misunderstood girl turning into a misunderstood villain.

During its opening weekend, the film grossed $165 million worldwide—the biggest-ever opening weekend for a film based on a Broadway musical, demolishing the previous record set by Into the Woods—and currently has a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes. What makes this Broadway-to-film musical so successful when several of its recent predecessors—including Dear Evan Hansen and Cats—flopped?

According to Marla Schulz, a lecturer in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Theatre and Dance who earned her MFA in dance with an emphasis on musical theater, there are many things that make Wicked special.

“A lot of people resonate with the story of a misunderstood girl turning into a misunderstood villain. It feels clever and also poignant,” Schulz explains.

Stage to film

As with anything that fans deeply love, however, there are those who argue that adapting a Broadway musical to a film is unnecessary, especially if it is considered “perfect” as is, like Wicked.

“(But) going to see a musical can be quite difficult, especially for people who might have fewer resources or live in rural areas,” Schulz says. “Tickets to go to the theater can be expensive, especially if you want to see a union production. To see the original production, you frequently have to travel to a large city to either see a touring production, or you can spend a lot of money to go to New York. Adapting live musicals to film makes the artform significantly more accessible.”

The cheapest ticket to see Wicked on Broadway is almost $200, which doesn’t include travel or accommodation costs for those who don’t live in New York City. For many, this can be an insurmountable expense, even for the biggest fans of the original book and Broadway musical. Once the production is made into a film, however, it becomes accessible to millions.

Of course, like most things that have huge, passionate fanbases, stage-to-film adaptations inevitably draw backlash, even before the film is released. In everything from casting choices to set design, Broadway musicals often draw intense scrutiny when they are adapted into film.

“It’s not an easy thing to do,” Schulz says. “You have audience members who are comparing the movie version to the staged version. In most cases, the writers have a specific reason they wanted this story told as a musical, on stage, with the opportunities and limitations that it provides.

Cynthia Erivo (left) plays Elphaba and Ariana Grande (right) plays Glinda in the film Wicked. (Photo: Universal)

“When it moves to a film, the big question that comes up is what does this new medium have to add to the story? And if it doesn’t have anything to add, then why are we doing it?”

This can be part of what makes the musicals-turned-film flops so notorious: They failed to do the original production justice, Schulz says. Perhaps inevitably, both critics and fans ask, “How?”

Everything from bad costumes and editing to inconsistent world-building can add up to a bad adaptation of a beloved musical. The 2019 film adaptation of Cats—a beloved musical that ran for 18 years and almost 7,500 shows on Broadway—is a recent example.

Schulz says that it can be quite easy to mess up an adaptation. “The Dreamgirls movie musical is an example of what can go wrong when you don’t properly set up the world of a musical. For a large majority of the movie Dreamgirls, all the songs are diegetic (heard by both the film’s characters and audience), emanating from a performance or a recording session. When 30 minutes in we finally get a song that is non-diegetic, it’s quite jarring. If you’re going to do a musical film, do that from the beginning in all aspects; embrace it.”

Defying gravity

Gauging by its opening weekend box office totals, the Wicked film adaptation has so far avoided the pitfalls of the so-called flops that preceded it. The second half of the story—Friday’s release covers Act I of the stage musical—is scheduled for release in 2025.

The film also has recouped its $150 million production cost.

At a time when the box office success of Broadway-to-film adaptations can most accurately be called inconsistent, Wicked is so far defying expectations (and gravity).

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� lecturer Marla Schulz examines the Broadway-musical-turned-film Wicked and how the movie musical endures.

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Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda in Wicked (Photo: Universal)

Gladiators make a comeback on the silver screen

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 22:08:52 +0000

Gladiators make a comeback on the silver screen Rachel Sauer Thu, 11/21/2024 - 15:08

Bradley Worrell

Even if historical films like Gladiator II, debuting Friday, are inaccurate on key points, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of Classics Assistant Teaching Professor Travis Rupp sees value in them as a gateway to getting students interested in real history

As an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he teaches a class on ancient sports, Travis Rupp gives the Roman-era period film Gladiator decidedly mixed marks for historical accuracy.

That does not mean he is not big fan of the movie, however.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� classics scholar Travis Rupp teaches a course called Ancient Sport and Spectacle.

“I get asked about the movie Gladiator all the time. Most people just assume that I hate the movie. And actually, I love it. Gladiator is one of my top five movies of all time,” says Rupp, who teaches Greek and Roman archeology, Egyptology and Roman history, with a special focus on ancient food, alcohol and sports.

“What’s funny about it is that the movie came out in 2000, while I was an undergrad at the University of Iowa, and one of my roommates and I got so obsessed with the film that, no joke, I think we saw it a dozen times. I wasn’t even a classics major at the time; I was an English major. We just loved the movie that much.”

With Gladiator II hitting the big screens Friday, Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine asked Rupp for his take on what Hollywood gets wrong (and right) about gladiators, how today’s movies about the Roman era compare with those made in the Golden Age of Hollywood and whether historical films can ever be 100% accurate and still engaging.

Question: What did Gladiator director Ridley Scott get wrong and right in the 2000 film?

Rupp: There are some big deviations. One thing I would say they got right is the setting of the film. The film starts off with Emperor Marcus Aurelius at war on the northern frontier with ‘barbarian’ tribes, and that’s accurate. Marcus Aurelius spent essentially his entire principate at war.

And one thing I think Scott did well was with the casting of (Richard Harris) as Marcus Aurelius, because he (Harris) captured the role with his cerebral manner and trustworthy cadence and delivery. The real Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher and someone far more literarily focused on his philosophical ideologies than he was war, even though he spent his entire time as emperor at war.

Things begin to deviate pretty quickly from there. When Commodus (played by Joaquin Phoenix) is introduced in the film, there is this idea that Commodus is still trying to curry his father’s favor and get his dear old dad to name him heir to the throne. However, we know from history that Commodus was declared co-ruler before the death of Marcus Aurelius, and there is nothing to suggest that Commodus had his father killed, like in the movie. But it works in the movie to create the idea of him as the antagonist. There’s no way you can’t hate Commodus from that moment on in the film.

At the same time, the movie does capture that Commodus, as he’s recorded in history, was kind of a looney. He was megalomaniacal in a lot of ways, and he was hated by a lot of people, including a lot of people in the Roman Senate. He wanted to be this dictatorial ruler in every sense of the word.

Actor Russell Crowe starred as General Maximus in the 2000 film Gladiator. (Photo: Universal/Getty Images)

He also fancied himself a gladiator, as depicted in the movie. He was actually trained as a full-fledged gladiator, and he was obsessed with the games.

Then there is the character of General Maximus (played by Russell Crowe), who is entirely fictitious. Ridley Scott said Maximus represented a composite of several historical figures.

In terms of the storyline that’s been built into the film, of this idea of a general of such high esteem or regard being singled out for execution, that’s not out of the question. These guys (Roman leaders) were pretty rough with each other, and if you crossed the line with the wrong person, they would find a way to get rid of you.

But the idea of Maximus ending up in a gladiator school is pretty far-fetched. That seems highly unlikely, especially given that he was a free man. He had rights as a citizen. But the storyline needed that to drive the film forward. Obviously, that’s how Scott creates our protagonist, so I suppose it’s understandable.

As for what happened to Commodus, he was assassinated, but there is no indication he was killed in the arena, as in the movie. And Commodus was emperor for about 12 years, whereas in the movie it seems like he is barely into his rule when he’s killed, so the film’s timeline doesn’t really play out right.

Question: As it relates to the gladiator battles in the Colosseum in the film, how realistic are those to actual history?

Rupp: I would say the games are 50-50 in terms of accuracy and how they are presented in the film. Some of the accuracy concerns how the Colosseum is displayed in the film, including with trapdoors and these surprises that could jump out at you, like wild animals, to shock and awe the crowds.

But what’s not real is the way the fighting is displayed or portrayed. Today we don’t actually think that most of the fights were to the death. Up until the 1990s, most scholarship presented the idea that most gladiators died probably within their first three battles, which would mean most of them only survived about two weeks.

As we’ve dug deeper into the topic over the last 30 years, we don’t have the archeological evidence to support that. We do have gladiator graves or cemeteries, but they’re not full of tens of thousands of people that were killed in the games.

Kirk Douglas starred as gladiator Spartacus in the 1960 film. (Photo: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, we have a great deal of evidence that there were rules to these games, and that there were hand gestures and signals gladiators could give to stop a fight. There were two referees on the arena floor at all times who were watching for hand signals and could stop the contest if needed. So, why all of these rules and why referees if they are no-holds-barred events?

Hollywood has glorified the bloodthirst and the idea people wanted to watch gladiators die day after day, but the brutal truth of gladiation is that most of these men and women were enslaved, and to put it bluntly, they were really expensive property. Their owners put a tremendous amount of money into feeding them, training them and getting them ready for the games, so they would not want to see them get killed or maimed.

Question: Do you think Hollywood has to fictionalize certain story elements to make a film that audiences are interested in seeing?

Rupp: I think so, absolutely. With a lot of these ancient storylines, if they were to make it 100% accurate, I think they’d lose their audience immediately.

I have friends and colleagues who are probably going to scoff at this new Gladiator film. I’m sure some people are going to want to tear it down because of its inaccuracies.

For my part, I don’t think that’s the way to approach these things, even from a scholarly perspective. … We’ve all watched these super-dry documentaries, and it’s like, ‘Can you Ken Burns it up a little bit here, so I can actually get engaged in the subject?’

It’s the same thing for these (historical period) movies. It’s reviving these storylines and giving them a new voice for a new era to keep the story moving.

Question: The film industry has been making period pieces about the Roman era for a long time, including Ben-Hur and Spartacus, from the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood. Any thoughts as to whether movies today are more or less historically accurate than those from past eras?

Rupp: That is a great question. I think it really depends upon the film. When you look back on Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, that was just a phenomenal film. With Spartacus, there was a lot of research and analysis from scholars telling them how the military worked. There is that really cool scene at the end of the movie, the last battle, with Spartacus’ men against the combined forces of Pompey and Crassus, where there’s the slow movement of troops over the hill and you can just feel the tension of war as you see how the Roman legions move.

With Ben Hur, the chariot race sequence is really well done. It is phenomenally accurate in so many ways.

Pedro Pascal (left) and Paul Mescal (right) star in Gladiator II, opening Friday. (Photo: Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Pictures)

I think there’s been more deviation in the modern era, just in trying to tell a good story, and often accuracy is sacrificed in that way. In Troy, for example, it’s a highly contentious film in the field of classics because, for the lack of a better term, it just butchers the stories of the Trojan cycle in a lot of ways. But at the same time, it’s a really entertaining film, and it dared to do something that no other filmmaker had really done before, which was to try to give this comprehensive look at what the Trojan war looked like in that last year. How does one judge the reality or authenticity of what was heavily mythologized in the first place?

Question: Do you think movies are a good way to learn about history?

Rupp: I do, actually, even when the movie itself may not be very historically accurate. I think it’s a good way to hopefully get people curious and get them to go explore and learn more. For those who are naturally curious, I think historical-themed movies are kind of like a gateway drug to the classics, so to speak. So, a movie like Troy might actually get a student or an adult to pick up a copy of the Iliad and start reading it.

Even movies and TV series that majorly deviate from history have merit, I believe. The Spartacus Blood and Sand series on Showtime was like the movie 300 meets Spartacus. There was just blood everywhere.

But I love it because it keeps history alive. It keeps a select portion of my students interested in history, and saying, ‘I’m going to go to the library and find a book on this,’ or ‘I really want to go to Rome and see these things for myself.’

Without that, our field dies, and we lose history. So, I think Hollywood and films are helping us keep history alive in a lot of ways.

Question: So, are you planning on seeing Gladiator II in the theater?

Rupp: Absolutely, yes. I’ll be seeing it as soon as I possibly can, and I’m really excited to see what they do, because they have an all-star cast including Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal. I’ve always liked Ridley Scott’s films; they’re very entertaining. Say what you will about him, Ridley Scott knows how to make a good movie.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about classics? Show your support.

Even if historical films like Gladiator II, debuting Friday, are inaccurate on key points, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of Classics Assistant Teaching Professor Travis Rupp sees value in them as a gateway to getting students interested in real history.

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Top image: Paul Mescal stars in Gladiator II. (Photo: Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Pictures)

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