honors portfolio
The Semple Scholarship is offered by the University of Cincinnati's Classics Department through the generous gift of Louise Taft Semple. It is a competitive scholarship, provided to higher-level undergraduates of Greek or Latin, and covers in-state tuition. Each year, Semple Scholars are required to present on a topic of their choosing: anything Classics-related is fair game and should cover something the student wants to learn more about.
Showcased below are the presentations that I have given so far at the yearly Semple Colloquia.
My first presentation focused on the classical influences found in The Hunger Games series. In this paper, I hone in on the many different references in the novels and the purposes they served for author Suzanne Collins' overall message. Normally, freshmen scholars give their presentations at the end of their first year, but due to complications with the pandemic, I delivered this presentation virtually in November of 2020.
During my spring semester, I was enrolled in 'Fascism: Violence, Power, and Hatred in the Past and Present.' Part of this class involved doing a case study presentation on a topic about fascism, and through my research on that assignment, I was able to adapt some of my findings into an interesting topic for a Semple project. This presentation focuses specifically on the symbolism of the fasces and how it was appropriated in the 1920s, and more generally, the inspiration that ancient Rome had on the building of the fascist state. This presentation was delivered virtually in April of 2021.
Inspired by my Microbiology course and everything going on with COVID, for my third presentation I chose to look more at infectious diseases in ancient Rome and what caused the Antonine Plague. Part of the presentation involves a survey of some of the key microbes floating around in ancient Rome, and the other piece looks at the Antonine Plague, its impact on Roman society, and the most likely candidate for what caused it. This presentation was given in person (finally!) in April of 2022.
Reminiscing on my time in Athens and hoping to encourage other undergraduates to study abroad, I chose to give my fourth and final presentation on everything I learned from my month-long course through College Year in Athens. The presentation explains what the course looked like on a day-to-day basis, and then gives a brief overview of some of the larger themes of the course, ranging from forgeries to cultural heritage. This presentation was given in person in November of 2022.
A capstone project is required for all Classics majors, not just Semple Scholars. For my capstone, I chose to pair it with my senior year translation course, GRK 4001: Philosophical Prose, where we read Plato's Symposium. My capstone paper analyzed the doctor character Eryximachus and how Plato utilized the external medical discourse to form a new, polished medical genre with ties to philosophy.