Introduction / Cathy Callaway -- Linguistics and lentil soup / Pamela A. Draper -- Eugene Lane and Ellis Library / Michael Muchow -- Gene Lane : Commitment to scholarship, teaching, and community / Robert A. Seelinger, Jr. -- Tabula Gratulatoria

Callaway, Cathy

Draper, Pamela A.

Muchow, Michael

Seelinger, Robert A., Jr.

English

University of Missouri: MOspace

Published by The Stoa: A Consortium for Electronic Publication in the Humanities Editors: Anne Mahoney and Ross Scaife Editorial Assistants: Mark Weber and Phillip Sauerbeck Copyright © 2002 by Cathy Callaway and the Stoa Consortium Parthenon Photograph courtesy Leo C. Curran, Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome Introduction Biography Articles Editor Cathy Callaway Assistant Editor Pamela A. Draper Ancient Journeys: A Festschrift in Honor of Eugene Numa Lane Cathy Callaway, Introduction In the Spring of 1998 I was contemplating the next Greek tragedy to be discussed in my class at the University of Missouri-Columbia, when Victor Estevez came in to chat. He was preparing to retire early for health reasons and was interested in our plans for his retirement celebration. "I want a big party," he told me, "but when Gene retires, he deserves something more. He is a scholar of international renown, and should have a symposium or Festschrift." Hence this idea was born, and I am saddened that Victor did not live to see his own much-anticipated party (he died on August 16, 1998) nor the fruition of his idea to honor Gene. The above anecdote both illustrates how this project got started as well as in what high regard people who know and know of Gene hold him. I first met him in the Spring of 1978 when I visited the University of Missouri-Columbia as a prospective grad student. He gave me a painstakingly thorough tour of the library, sure that everyone treasured books as much as he did, and that this one tour of the library would convince me that UMC was the school to choose. Perhaps it was the library that did it, but I like to think it was Gene and the other people in the Department of Classical Studies that made my choice an easy one. I was fortunate to take many classes with him, serve as a grader for him, get to know him and his family, and finally return to the department, after getting my PhD at the University of Washington, and relate to him as a colleague. Some readers of this may not have known Gene as long; many have known him longer. As the organizer of this communal effort, I get to share a few anecdotes out of the thousands that others have. In an early Aristophanes class, where as new graduate students we minced our way through The Birds, we were amazed and chagrined as Gene could balance his checkbook while we stumbled out a translation. He corrected us frequently, made pertinent comments on the Greek grammar and the subject matter of the passage, all without looking at the text. This is the same class that was invited on a bird watching expedition when our knowledge of the different species cited in Aristophanes proved woefully inadequate. I remain certain to this day that he has complete texts of numerous Greek authors floating in his head, waiting to be called upon. Never at a loss for a pithy quote, I still remember him quoting Herodotus as we both gazed out at a lovely snowstorm: "It's raining feathers." The regular entertaining of graduate students and faculty in the department in his home was always appreciated and is still remembered. He and his wife Carol adopted those of us in need, providing storage for precious possessions, advice about travel to their beloved Greece, and their famous egg nog at Christmas time. All this along with raising two wonderful and successful children: Michael and Helen. I have known Gene as a professor, colleague, and friend and can never hope to describe how much he has meant to me in each role. I could certainly never dare to give voice to the gratitude of others, but I hope this project will serve to remind him of our esteem, and as Horace put it, perhaps it will raise him to the stars. At least, thanks to the Internet, somewhere in the aether! After that initial discussion with Victor Estevez in the Spring of 1998 I began contacting possible contributors. There were many who said yes, and many others who had to decline due to other pressing matters that appear in the academic world and life in general. Several had to drop out along the way, which is not unusual in a project such as this, but all those who wanted to contribute an article but were unable, contributed in other, important ways. A few served as referees, some acted as advisors in their field of expertise, many provided support, suggestions and even money. Below is a list of people that deserve thanks. They know what they have given to this project and I hope they realize how grateful I am to them, along with Gene and all the other participants in this endeavor. Everyone involved showed a great deal of patience and faith in the idea that this would actually come into being in one guise or another. To you all, and of course, to Gene, I say, Thank You. My thanks especially go to Pamela Draper, Anne Mahoney, Ross Scaife, and Robert Seelinger. Without their guidance, help and support, this project would never have reached completion! Pamela A. Draper, Linguistics and Lentil Soup When I remember graduate school at the University of Missouri, invariably the first class I think of is Gene Lane's "History of the Greek and Latin Language." Gene's knowledge of the subject was awe-inspiring. It was the hardest class I ever took, but I am grateful to this day that he challenged us and insisted that we meet his high expectations. Studying with a scholar of Gene's distinction was a great privilege. His publication list is evidence of the impressive contributions he has made to the study of the ancient world. But while Gene's significant scholarly achievements are apparent from the list, it doesn't reveal what only those of us who were lucky enough to be his students know. Not only amazingly erudite, he was also enthusiastic, willing to share his knowledge, and that special kind of teacher who didn't think teaching stopped in the classroom. For example, when our Greek comedy class read about lentil soup in The Wasps, he invited the entire class to his home to sample some. He was always accessible, helpful, and never too busy to answer a question or provide research guidance. When I began my dissertation, he arranged for the library to purchase books I needed for my research and, although he was on sabbatical in Greece for part of the time I was working on it, he sent back detailed critiques of my dissertation chapters. In addition to being an excellent teacher, he was concerned for his students as people. My first semester at Missouri was the first time I had ever been away from 2 my family for Thanksgiving. I will never forget Gene and Carol's kindness in inviting the "orphan" graduate students to their home and treating us as part of the family. Gene is not only a scholar and a teacher, but also a person of conviction who is concerned about the welfare of the entire community. A staunch supporter of environmental protection, he worked ceaselessly on behalf of the establishment of a beverage container deposit ordinance in Columbia, a cause in which he deeply believed, and which, after several setbacks, finally came to fruition. He is a shining example of someone who sees a problem and rather than complaining about it, works to create a solution. It has been a privilege to work with Cathy and the distinguished contributors to this Festschrift. It makes me happy to think that I was able to help bring into existence this well-deserved tribute to Gene Lane, a highly-respected scholar, an excellent teacher and a person for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration. Michael Muchow, Eugene Lane and Ellis Library When I first came to Ellis Library as a humanities librarian, people warned me about the faculty liaison for the Classics department, Gene Lane. "He's a curmudgeon," they told me. "He won't give you a moment's rest." Over the course of many years I have decided that, despite his reputation, Dr. Lane is not a curmudgeon. He is a gadfly in the mold of Socrates. While Socrates attached himself as a gadfly to the Athenian state stinging and goading its citizens so they would care for virtue, Dr. Lane has attached himself to Ellis Library. He goads and stings us to take care and maintain the classics collection. For the ten years I have known him, Dr. Lane has never stopped rousing and urging the library to do better. When necessary, he reproaches the library for its shortcomings, but he also commends it when it gets something right. Though he might chide the librarians inside the library, outside the library he has been the library's staunchest supporter, fighting to protect the library's budget whenever it was threatened. Dr. Lane has been the Classics department's library liaison for his entire tenure at Mizzou. This is remarkable because it is a position that professors try to avoid if possible. Junior faculty, who are too green to know better, are usually tricked into the job. As soon as they wise up, they try to get out of the job. In reality, a liaison can do as much or as little as he likes. Most prefer to do little. Not so Dr. Lane. He is the most conscientious of library representatives. He looks at every approval book that comes into the library. He signs every publication announcement slip remotely connected to the ancient world. Sometimes, he is too conscientious. When I arrived at Ellis Library, I inherited a file cabinet full of book purchase requests. When I asked Dr. Lane why we kept hundreds of book order slips, more than we could ever afford to buy, he told me that six or seven years earlier the state legislature had given the library a million dollars to purchase books and he wanted to be sure that the Classics department would have titles ready if funds became available. 3 That is typical of Dr. Lane. He is always looking to the future of the library and its users, whoever they might be and whatever interests they might have. Unlike most professors, he is interested in books outside his research interests. He takes a broader view and looks to the collection as a whole. His tendency to be all-inclusive has sometimes frustrated me, but, on the whole, it has worked rather well. Instead of a collection that is deep in a half dozen areas, the collection is good in almost all areas. When the Classics department hired a scholar interested in Late Antiquity, I feared he would break the budget with orders to fill holes in the collection. As it has turned out, he has not broken the budget and I have not had to order as many books as I feared. Instead, I have discovered that the library has a good collection for the study of late antiquity. I give all the credit to Dr. Lane. Unlike so many of the newer faculty, Dr. Lane loves books and libraries. He comes into the library at least once a week--more often three or four times a week-- and wanders through the entire library. He has been on every floor and, I think, walked down every book aisle. As he goes down the aisles something strange happens. Miscataloged and mislabeled books jump off the shelf and attach themselves to him as ifhe were electrostatically charged. I don't know how he does it, but he has found more mislabeled books than anyone who works in the library. Everyone who knows Dr. Lane knows his formidable intellect. He seems to know everyone who wrote in the ancient world. Obscure authors are his favorites and I am always glad that I do not have to face him in an oral examination. But people might not know that he also has a complete knowledge of the Library of Congress classification scheme. He often discusses it with the Ellis catalogers and explains their mistakes to them. When they appeal to the Library of Congress as their authority, he writes letters to the catalogers there and explains their mistakes to them. His knowledge extends beyond mere classification schemes, however. He also makes a point of knowing the names of the people who work in the library, from the staff at the circulation desk to those in the acquisitions department. As a humanist, he wants to know your name if he is going to goad and sting you. Like a good gadfly, Dr. Lane is persistent. If something is not right, he stings and presses until it is made right. Sometimes journals need claiming. Sometimes books need claiming. Books go missing from the Classics Seminar Room. Whatever it is, he never forgets until it is corrected. Dr. Lane has kept me so busy there have been times when I thought that I worked for him and not the library. But, to be fair, there have also been times when I thought that Dr. Lane worked for the library and not for the Classics department. When we were moving books out of the library to an offsite depository, Dr. Lane spent days looking through books one at a time to be sure that nothing important would be sent away by mistake. As I am frequently the object of his stings and goads, I have frequently been tempted to offer Dr. Lane a cup of hemlock, but I know that all his goads and stings are for a greater purpose--the library collection, and I reconsider. 4 The University of Missouri will lose an excellent teacher now that Dr. Lane has retired, but the library will not lose its gadfly. I expect Dr. Lane to keep coming into the library once or twice a week and to continue sending me e-mails telling me to claim this or that journal issue. Dr. Lane shaped and maintained the classics collection before he retired, and he will continue to shape it after he retires. Future students and scholars who use the collection may not know why it is a good collection, but those ofus who know Dr. Lane will. Thank-you Dr. Lane. Robert A. Seelinger, Jr., Gene Lane: Commitment to Scholarsltip, Teaching, and Community I have known Gene Lane since 1974 when I began a doctoral program in Classics and Classical Archaeology at the University of Missouri. For many ofus Gene has always epitomized the quintessential graduate instructor. No one seemed to know the primary and secondary source material better than he did; he was not only profoundly engaged in his own professional projects but also excited and intrigued by the projects and papers of each of his students; and he always maintained an unquenchable curiosity for the ancient world in all its manifestations. As all good graduate instructors, Gene helped his students become more critical and discerning evaluators, and most of us soon discovered that much of what we thought we knew was based on questionable assumptions and shaky evidence. Whatever the course was, it seemed like we first began by dismantling all that we thought we knew and ended with reconstructing the world of our course on the basis of what we actually knew and on assumptions whose validity we could defend. On many occasions we came away with the important recognition that our understanding of the world of antiquity is often based on the fragile and incomplete record of evidence and a long trail of assumptions and contentions that are accorded more weight than they deserve. In essence, Gene taught us to be demanding of our evidence, distrustful of longstanding generalizations, and always open to re-evaluating our views on the ancient world. Gene's own professional interests and areas of expertise have always been wide-ranging, e.g. ancient religion, historical linguistics, numismatics. Although he usually describes himself as a Hellenist, he has always seemed to be equally comfortable linguistically and culturally with both the Latin and Greek world. In tum, Gene most frequently has returned to the places and times of the Roman empire where the blend of Latin and Greek is so evident in terms of language, literature, religious practice, and material culture. The world of the second sophistic particularly comes to mind. Gene's knowledge of and love for modem Greece (actually for Greece of all periods) has also had a defining effect on his professional and personal life and by extension on the lives of his students. Among other things Gene inspired many of his students to see the ancient world in a fuller cultural and historical context. In tum, Gene's own enthusiasm for Greece has led many of his students to travel, study, and even live there for extended periods of time. As always Gene is eager to share details of recent trips to Greece and discuss his own plans and those of others for future travel there. In addition to his commitment and dedication as a scholar, Gene has also devoted his 5 time and energy to a great number of community and social issues. He has especially been interested in environmental issues and has been both a vocal and active supporter of the development of the Katy Trail (a rails to trails initiative) and a local recycling program involving returnable beverage containers. His tireless commitment and persuasive action has done much to better Columbia and the entire mid-Missouri area. Throughout his life and professional career Gene has been a person who feels strongly about his work and his causes and demonstrates his sentiments by his actions. Through this manifestation of personal integrity and social and professional commitment Gene has made and continues to make profoundly positive contributions to his friends, colleagues, community, and students. Tabula Gratulatoria Paul Alessi William R. Biers Jane Biers Karla Bruntzel Edwin Carawan Jaime Curbera Leo Curran Michael DiMaio Pamela A. Draper Stephen Dyson Anna Estevez Jesse Estevez Patricia Estevez Victor Estevez John Miles Foley William Fortenbaugh Steve Friesen David George Angela Gerling Michael Golden Dale Grote Judith Hallett Michael Hoff James C. Hogan Dan Hooley David Jordan Susan Langdon Ellen McLain Ramsey McMullen Jon Mikalson Sue Ann Moore Michael Muchow John Oakley Lawrence Okamura Danielle A. Parks Kathryn Payne AvnerRaban Marcus Rautman Lynn Roller Robert J. Rowland. Jr. Ralph Rowlett Guy Sanders Jan Sanders Johanna Sandrock Francesca Santoro L'hoir Charles Saylor David J. Schenker Gareth Schmeling Robert A. Seelinger Kathleen Slane Philip A. Stadter Farland Hart Stanley, Jr. Deborah Strodtman Ted Tarkow 6 Victor A. Leuci Terry McGarrity Copyright© 2002 by Cathy Callaway and the Stoa Consortium James Terrv Barbara P. Wallach 7 

Introduction

https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/10355/70101/3/AJ2002-01-Introduction.pdf

Introduction

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Missouri: MOspace