As Professor in the Classics Department at MU, Daniel Hooley’s research includes Roman poetry, the classical tradition, and translation studies, about which he has written three books, including his most recent, Roman Satire (2006). Hooley first became interested in studying the classics through an “accidental journey,” studying the western classics as an English and Humanities graduate student at the University of Minnesota, where he focused his studies on modernism and wrote his dissertation on how Latin poetry was translated by American modernists such as Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot. The dissertation became his first book, The Classics in Paraphrase: Ezra Pound and Modern Translators of Latin Poetry (1988).

The fact that Nancy M. West finds herself focusing so heavily on the visual in her research and teaching may at first seem to be “a sort of a curious thing,” but for the associate professor of English this fascination for the visual extends all the way back to a childhood devoid of photographs. “I love thinking about what photography means to people. Having grown up with very few photographs in my household, I’ve always been drawn to them,” she admits. It was no surprise, therefore, that West stumbled upon her first book project while scrounging through the bargain bin of an antique store: “I came across all of these old Kodak ads from the turn of the century, and I thought they were amazing. The images were just breathtakingly beautiful. The captions were unlike those we see now in ads. They were much more elaborate, much more descriptive. They addressed the consumer in very interesting, clever ways, and I just fell in love with them.” And at that serendipitous moment, the idea for Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (2000) was conceived.

Ugarte discusses the relationship of various ethnic groups in Spain throughout history and how the African "Other" is absorbed in the consciousness of Spaniards.

Langen highlights three major reasons to study Russian literature and humanities more deeply than for simple enjoyment.

Teaching a general course on Russian civilization has helped Langen’s research process by allowing him to connect literary studies to other aspects of Russian life.

Rangira Béa Gallimore’s second book, L’oeuvre romanesque de Calixthe Beyala: Le renouveau de l’écriture féminine en Afrique francophone sub-saharienne (1997), focuses on contemporary Francophone writer Calixthe Beyala. Whereas her first book subverts “the master’s language” by using the French of the slums (les bidonvilles) instead of classic French, her second book attempts to subvert patriarchy itself. Providing counterpart to male writers “who idealized the African woman as this beautiful symbol of the earth,” Beyala offers main characters who are forced into prostitution because of sexual abuse or poverty. “It’s very clear in her writing that she’s using the female body discourse. The body in writing is exposed, it is displayed,” explains Gallimore, and indeed Beyala’s tendency to address taboo subjects has created controversy. “It was very shocking for an African woman to write such things,” yet women’s bodies in Beyala’s novels stand as a “symbol of the violated earth, of the bad and the evil” that they have had to endure through their bodies. “You cannot deny the reality of Africa,” responds Beyala to her detractors.

For a long time the classics were thought of as foundational texts of western culture. Hooley sees the role of classics now as “one body of relatively coherent, related texts that constitute a tradition in themselves.” He says they have become the intellectual currency of our culture and are “great to think with.”

While Hooley’s first book focused on Latin translations, his second book, The Knotted Thong: Structures of Mimesis in Persius (1997), is a study of Roman satire—namely of Persius, one of the three major Roman satirists. Hooley was drawn to this man and his work partly because Persius was considered such a “strange guy.” Satire, Hooley says, “fosters all those things that are healthy for the human spirit—it makes us laugh at silly things and sometimes makes us laugh at things that are egregious and wrong.”

Most recently, Hooley has completed an introductory book on Roman satire. It covers the historical development of satire, explaining the genre as inherently human: “It’s in our blood; it’s hardwired into our brains.” Satire carries a very broad definition: it is partly a reaction to power and a way of expressing resistance, but at other times it provides a vehicle to poke fun at things.

Through Hooley’s work in classical studies he has developed a philosophy about why one should study the classics: “Classics is just good material. The historical distance makes it more refreshing because you see the difference and how we’re the same animals. These texts don’t dictate our ethics and laws, but help our imaginations, which I think is a good reason to study them.”

The fact that Nancy M. West finds herself focusing so heavily on the visual in her research and teaching may at first seem to be “a sort of a curious thing,” but for the associate professor of English this fascination for photographs, and especially snapshots, extends all the way back to a childhood devoid of photographs. Traveling to Rochester, New York, home of the George Eastman House, West spent a week digging through boxes of advertisements (both published and unpublished) and documents ranging in date from 1888 to 1932. Her research eventually resulted in Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (2000), an interdisciplinary study that examines the advertising campaigns of the Eastman Kodak Company and reveals certain key fascinations in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century American culture.

Peace Corps volunteers are trained for about three months before being set loose in their assigned countries. The first step involves staging, which offers a general orientation and a place to meet the other volunteers in their group. “You get your first round of shots and this really quick and dirty cultural training,” Kate Fjell explains. Then they go to the assigned country, where they train intensively for three months. “You learn a lot about the culture, how to fit in, basically, and important cultural clues you should know about,” Julie Feeney laughs, “so you don’t end up getting married by accident!”

This phase is sometimes referred to as “the honeymoon stage,” says Nick Spina. “Everything’s new, everything’s exciting, every experience is the first time. You laugh a lot. You joke a lot because you don’t know how to communicate, so you use a lot of sign language, and you just try whatever you can to get across to people,” Spina recalls. “It’s challenging too, because they dump you with a host family immediately, and you are automatically in a situation where you are completely out of your element for the first time.”

For most of the volunteers, the language training is intense, covering every conceivable topic—“from how to buy things from the market to how to greet people, how to tell people you don’t feel good, and then how to have a conversation about AIDS.” Of course, language learning doesn’t end there. Once the volunteers arrive at their assigned site, the training continues. For instance, Spina had a language tutor, with whom he met once a week: “I would continue memorizing vocabulary and practicing my speaking skills with her, and I steadily improved. Some people work harder at the language than others, and some people learn it better than others. By the end of my service I could communicate whatever I needed to. I could have meaningful conversations. In hindsight, I’m proud of how much I accomplished, but it was a struggle. I mean, Armenian is not a language they teach you in schools, so learning it from scratch was a hard thing to do.”

Beyond language training, which is crucial to the survival of the volunteers, the technical training is also indispensable. “While you’re there, there may be ongoing training that happens throughout the service, depending on your project,” Craig Hutton says.

“We would go on fieldtrips and learn about the soil and different trees,” Matt Rysavy recounts. “We’d talk to different professionals in the government to get their feedback and see how systems worked, to make sure we were on a good starting page, so when we got to the village we knew we had a good background of their local customs, their local culture, and how we were going fit into the bigger national scene.”

“The technical portion was really good, especially for me,” recounts Fjell, “because I had an archeology degree coming out of college. I had done some work in the HIV/AIDS field, and knew the basics, but I didn’t feel very confident teaching about AIDS. The technical training really helped. “