The Department of Classics at Gustavus Adolphus College will host a lecture at 5 p.m. Saturday, May 8 in honor of Professor Will Freiert, who is retiring at the end of the academic year after devoting 38 years of service to the College.
Professor Daniel Levine from the University of Arkansas will deliver the free public lecture in room 103 of the F.W. Olin Hall for Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science. Levine is a prodigious scholar and celebrated teacher who has won numerous teaching awards. He has served on the Managing Committee of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, where he has also served appointments as Director of the Summer Session and the Gertude Smith Professor. Levine’s lecture is titled “Shaky Hands, Misty Eyes, and Weary Limbs: Greek Poetry of Retirement.”
Freiert has taught at Gustavus since 1972, but was instrumental in founding the Department of Classics as a separate department in 1979 along with his wife Patricia and Stewart and Marleen Flory. Under the direction of those four individuals, the department flourished into a nationally recognized department.
Freiert was the 1986 recipient of the Edgar M. Carlson Award for Distinguished Teaching and the 2005 Faculty Service Award. He has also received the American Philological Association’s nationwide Award for Excellence in Teaching. In addition to his time at Gustavus, Freiert also taught in Japan at Kansai Gaidai University in 1992 and served as a Fulbright lecturer at Tohoku University in 1997-98. He serves on the Board of Directors at the Minnesota Humanities Commission and is the Hanson-Peterson Professor of Liberal Studies at Gustavus. Much of Freiert’s research and published work examines the influence of the Classics on modern literature and the arts.
In addition to the lecture in honor of Freiert on May 8, the Department of Classics will also be hosting the fifth biennial Festival of Dionysus from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in the Linnaeus Arboretum. This theatrical festival showcases the creativity of Gustavus students, who direct, choreograph, and perform in their own interpretations of ancient drama. Past festivals have included original musical compositions, performances in masks, and choral dances in Greek.
The Department of Classics at Gustavus strives to introduce students to the foundations of western culture in the civilizations of Greece and Rome. The department offers courses in the Greek and Latin languages and literatures as well as Classical Studies courses. The department is currently in the process of creating the Flory-Freiert Fellowship, which will honor the four founding members of the department and provide funds for current Classics students at Gustavus to pursue academic projects. For more information about the Flory-Freiert Fellowship, visit the Department of Classics website at gustavus.edu/academics/classics.
For more information about the lecture in honor of Will Freiert or the Festival of Dionysus, contact Associate Professor of Classics Eric Dugdale at 507-933-7161 or edugdale@gustavus.edu.
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