LETTER FROM THE PROJECT DIRECTORS

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Dear Colleague:

Many thanks for your interest in our 2006 NEH Summer Institute, Models of Ancient Rome. Application materials are enclosed. We’d like first, however, to take this opportunity to tell you something about how the Institute will run and what we hope it will accomplish.

The idea for this Institute sprang from a combination of excitement and frustration: excitement over the potential of computer modeling to help us understand the Roman world, and frustration that its capabilities are neither widely nor well understood. Though courses on Roman social history, political theory and practice, urbanistics, and popular culture appear with growing frequency in the curriculum, they rarely bring to bear the evidence of Roman buildings and public spaces. Applying textual and material evidence simultaneously to a single problem is not easy, nor is the ability to think three-dimensionally with two-dimensional tools. Students, even when in Rome, find it difficult to work back from what remains on a site today to what was there two millennia ago. Yet digital simulations of Roman buildings are readily available, ranging from the fanciful animations seen in films and television to the QuickTime movies common on educational CDs to fully three-dimensional Virtual Reality models. We need to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the technologies that produce them and the value of such models for teaching and research. This institute was thus conceived with three goals: to demystify the technology, to show what it can do, and to equip participants with the knowledge and the tools necessary to use it in their own work. Helping us realize these goals will be the extraordinary resources of UCLA’s Experiential Technologies Center and the facilities of its Academic Technology Center, which will supplement the more traditional strengths of a major research library and a dedicated faculty.

The Institute will begin with a survey and demonstration of the technologies currently used to recreate ancient buildings, concentrating on the Pantheon at Rome and the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, which we can compare with, in the former case, the existing structure and in the latter, its recreation in Malibu (the newly reopened Getty Villa). We will then concentrate on three famous, highly problematic locales that are the focus of much recent scholarly discussion: the Flavian Amphitheater (Colosseum), The Roman Forum, and the Capitol. We will consider the ancient textual and archaeological evidence for each site, the practical uses and ideological significance of each site, and what computer-generated reconstruction of these structures and their surrounding spaces can add to our understanding of those functions. Participants will have the opportunity to interrogate and manipulate these models for themselves and will be encouraged to consider how best to bring similar experiences to their students. We will be assembling a collection of ancient texts (in translation) and modern scholarship for your use, as well as DVD/CD-ROM versions of the models that you will be able to take home with you. We should thus be able to bring the fruits of current research into classrooms across the country.

The Institute faculty has been drawn from a pool of scholars well known for their innovative efforts to integrate the study of the Roman material world into more traditional studies of Roman literature and politics. The co-directors have complementary interests: Sander Goldberg, from UCLA’s Department of Classics, comes to the study of Roman spaces through the study of Roman literature, while Diane Favro, from the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, builds her work upon a background in architecture and urbanistics. Investigation of our three target sites will be headed by a group of visiting scholars well known for their research in these areas: Harvard’s Kathleen Coleman, for the study of the Colosseum, Robert Morstein-Marx (UC Santa Barbara) and Joy Conolly (NYU) for the Roman Forum, and Mary Beard (Cambridge) for the Capitol. Oxford’s Nicholas Purcell will join our final, more theoretical discussion of urban design.

Our two British colleagues will be joining us via video conferencing technology, but all other visiting faculty will be on hand for instruction and private consultation during their sections of the program. We will also have a session with Dr. Kenneth Lapatin of the Getty Museum’s Department of Antiquities. The co-directors will of course be available continuously throughout the two-week period.

Though NEH guidelines limit participation to those teaching Humanities to American undergraduates and the Institute’s curriculum presumes some familiarity with the textual and/or material record of ancient Rome, applicants need not hold positions in departments of Classics. No specific technological or archaeological experience is required: faculty in institutions with limited technological resources are especially encouraged to apply. Twenty-five participants will be selected, with consideration given to balancing areas of academic interest, geographical regions, and types of home institution.

The two-week Institute will be broken into five units of study, each centered on a specific urban issues in ancient Rome. Topics will be addressed in a two- or three-day seminar with assigned readings. Each day will begin with the Institute co-directors or visiting faculty introducing a question related to urban design and urban function, and reviewing the ancient sources relevant to that question. Afternoon sessions will explore the same question, focusing on the insights revealed through digital technology. Each unit of study will conclude with a workshop in which participants will review and modify a sample undergraduate-level class syllabus component that reflects insights gained through the digital analysis. At the conclusion of the Institute, participants will be asked to write a short statement describing the likely impact of the Institute on their own teaching and research, and articulating their views on the intersection of technology, Classics research, and pedagogy.

The Institute will be held on the UCLA Westwood campus in the facilities of Academic Technology Services (ATS). In addition to ATS’s Technology Sandbox, we will also have access to the Visualization Portal, a state-of-the-art facility ideal for projecting the ETC real-time models of ancient Rome. One day will be spent at the Getty Villa, newly re-opened in Malibu.

A block of rooms will be reserved for Institute participants in a hotel adjacent to the UCLA campus. (Basic accommodation in a single room w/ private bath is expected to cost ca. $60 per night). Restaurants are within easy walking distance of the Institute, both on campus and in nearby Westwood Village, a vibrant neighborhood that supports the campus with a broad mix of eating establishments and shops. UCLA is located in the heart of Los Angeles, with easy bus access to Santa Monica, Venice, the Pacific Ocean, Hollywood, downtown Los Angles and its historic core. Additional materials on transportation, housing, local museums, and activities of interest in Los Angeles will be provided upon acceptance to the Institute.

Participants will receive a stipend of $1800, a course reader, and a CD/DVD version of institute materials. The first half of the stipend will be distributed on arrival; the second half at the conclusion of the Institute upon submission of the final questionnaire.

Application information is included with this letter. The most important part of the application is the essay, which should include any personal and academic information that is relevant; reasons for applying to the Models of Rome Institute; your interest, both intellectual and personal, in the topic; any special qualifications to do the work of the project and make a contribution to it; what you hope to accomplish by participation, including any individual research and writing projects; and the relation of the study to your teaching.

Your completed application should be postmarked no later than March 1, 2006, and should be addressed as follows: Chris Johanson, NEH Summer Institute, Department of Classics, 100 Dodd Hall, P.O. Box 951417, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1417. Applicants will be notified of our decisions by U.S. mail no later than March 31. Those selected for participation will have until April 14 to accept or decline the offer.

Thank you again for your interest. We look forward to receiving your application.

Sincerely,

Sander
Diane