Celebrating the 26th Annual Agnes Michels Lecture with University of Chicago's Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer

On the weekend of March 23rd graduate students in the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies held the twenty-sixth annual Agnes Michel Lecture. Each year graduate students in classics invite a distinguished scholar of Classics to give a lecture and seminar in celebration of the career of Bryn Mawr College alumna, Agnes Michels (Ph.D. ‘34). This year’s honored guest was Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor of the Classics at the University of Chicago. The event was organized by Classics graduate students Olivia Hopewell, Stella Fritzell, and Julianne Rowe.

As a scholar of the Roman literature and of classical reception, Professor Bartsch-Zimmer’s set out a course of scholarship for the weekend that effectively drew upon her contributions from authorial intent to Chinese politics. In her engaging lecture to a full room of attendees, she gave a talk titled “Beyond Odysseus: Aeneas’ Political Fictions.” In her lecture, Professor Bartsch-Zimmer investigated the political motivations of Virgil’s epic through the lens of the stories Aeneas tells Dido, which might in fact be fabrications. On Saturday March 24th, Professor Bartsch-Zimmer hosted a workshop for all of the Classics graduate students. Together, the seminar addressed the impact of Western Classics on the crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989, which was excerpted from her forthcoming book on reception of Western Classics in modern China. 

The lecture series is organized in honor of Agnes Kirsopp Michels, who started her career at Bryn Mawr College as an undergraduate, receiving her A.B. in Latin in 1930 continuing to a Ph.D in the same department. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1934, she taught at Bryn Mawr until 1975, and was Professor Emerita until her death in 1993. Her doctoral work involved a study of pottery from excavations at Minturnae run by the University of Pennsylvania, but she turned toward Latin poetry thereafter, publishing her book "The Calendar of the Roman Republic" in 1967. She was characterized by her passion for research and teaching, being particularly committed to graduate education at Bryn Mawr. Her engagement with classical topics through historical, archaeological, and literary lenses has contributed greatly to our understanding of Roman life and Roman religion. After her death in 1993, the Agnes Michels Lecture was established and funded to honor her wide-reaching scholarly impact by inviting distinguished scholars to campus who embody these same qualities. Past speakers include Jenny Strauss-Clay, Robert Palmer, Richard Thomas, and Gregory Nagy.

The success of the event was marked by a lively dinner in Bryn Mawr’s town center. Hosted by the organizers of the Agnes Michel Lecture, Professor Bartsch-Zimmer was joined by graduate students and faculty of the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies as a token of appreciation for her visit to the college.