Author Archives: Gregory Crane

The Work of Classical Studies in a Digital Age

Who is the audience for the work that we professional researchers conduct on Greco-Roman culture? Frequently heard remarks, observed practices and published survey results indicate most of us still assume that only specialists and revenue-generating students really matter. If the public outside of academia does not have access to up-to-date data about the Greco-Roman world, whose problem is it? Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on July 20, 2015
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Greek, Latin, and Digital Philology in Germany and the United States (part 2):

I have now released a draft for part 2 of Greek, Latin, and Digital Philology in the United States. This part includes some information about Greco-Romans studies in the US, with some comparisons with the situation in Germany, and then moves on with a very brief and preliminary start for suggestions as how Germany can make itself an (even more) attractive location for a research career in this field. Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on July 14, 2015
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Greek, Latin, and Digital Philology in Germany and the United States

The essay has a very particular point of view: as an Alexander von Humboldt Professor in Germany, my job is to help make Germany as attractive a center for research as possible. I thus begin by exploring the use that my American colleagues make of German Greco-Roman scholarship. The paper published so far is primarily descriptive, invites comment and seeks to lay partial groundwork for further analysis and possible suggestions. Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on July 6, 2015
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Where did holders of German Chairs in Greek, Latin, Ancient History and Classical Archaeology get their PhDs?

As a by-product to a larger study of Greco-Roman studies in Germany and the United States, I have published some figures on where faculty from ranked PhD-granting departments got their PhDs. Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on June 28, 2015
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Update: Where did faculty in US Classics Departments with top-ranked graduate programs get their own PhDs?

On June 11, we published a discussion of the programs from which the top ten departments in a particular ranking of Classics PhD programs chose their faculty. We here publish an analysis based on all thirty-one departments in that ranking. We have sorted the results based upon numbers of assistant professors — this reflects activity over the past decade or so (if we consider both the PhD training itself and the period that assistant professors have served). Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on June 26, 2015
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Where did faculty in US Classics Departments with top-ranked graduate programs get their own PhDs?

Programs would do well to pay close attention to the ways in which the new graduate program at the Institute for Study of the Ancient World had begun developing a broader view of the ancient world and including new digital methodologies in the research that they support [.] Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on June 11, 2015
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The Big Humanities, National Identity and the Digital Humanities in Germany

Two busy years of residence in Germany has allowed me to make at least some preliminary observations but most of my colleagues in Germany have spent their entire careers here, often in fields where they have grown up with their colleagues around the country. I offer initial reflections rather than conclusions and write in order to initiate, rather than to finish, discussions about how the Digital H Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on June 8, 2015
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And the News for Greek and Latin in France is not good either

ShareTweet Gregory Crane Comments to gcrane2008@gmail.com May 2015 Just as I had finished off a blog about bad news on enrollments for Greek and Latin in the US (and Germany), I came saw a story on Al Jazeera about big … Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on May 19, 2015
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Bad News for Latin in the US, worse for Greek

According to statistics published by the Modern Language Association in February 2015, between fall 2009 and fall 2013, enrollments in Ancient Greek and Latin at US postsecondary institutions suffered their worst decline since 1968, the earliest year for which the MLA offers such statistics. The number of enrollments in Greek and Latin declined from 52,484 to 40,109, a drop of 24%. This precipitous and rapid decline may reflect the lingering aftershocks of the financial crisis of 2008, which certainly raised student anxiety levels and may have driven students away from intellectually idealistic activities such as the study of Ancient Greek and Latin. Continue reading →

by Gregory Crane Posted on May 19, 2015
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