Barbara McManus

Last updated
Barbara McManus
Born(1942-10-05)October 5, 1942
DiedJune 19, 2015(2015-06-19) (aged 72)
Academic background
Education College of New Rochelle (BA)
Harvard (PhD)
Thesis Inreparabile tempus: A Study of Time in Virgil’s Aeneid (1976)

Barbara McManus was a professor of classics at The College of New Rochelle and an expert in classics and comparative literature, feminism, mythology, and women in antiquity. She was acknowledged both for her research and for innovative teaching approaches, and had a significant influence on both the teaching and research of women in antiquity, and women as classicists. [1]

Contents

Career

Barbara McManus gained her BA from the College of New Rochelle in 1964. She moved to Harvard for her MA in 1965, and PhD in Comparative Literature, which she gained in 1976, writing a thesis on "Inreparabile tempus: A Study of Time in Virgil's Aeneid". [2] [3]

In 1967 she became an instructor in classics at The College of New Rochelle, where she stayed until her retirement in 2000, by which point she had become a professor. [4] She also contributed to the growth of the College of New Rochelle's Women's Studies Program, particularly through the establishment of the newsletter Eos and the Women's Center in 1978. [5] In 1997 she gave the lecture "Crossing The Boundaries Of Gender: Vergil's Aeneid and Augustan Rome," at Hamilton College, funded by the Winslow Lecture Fund. Between 1997 and 2000 she was part of the team who developed the innovative 'VRoma Project', providing Latin resources and an 'interactive virtual Roman world', which was funded by a 'Teaching with Technology' Grant from the NEH, and later became the director of the project until 2015. [6] She also contributed significantly to understanding on female pioneers in Classics, through her research on the life and history of Grace Macurdy, including reenactments of scenes from her life. [2] :212–14 [7]

Along with this grant, McManus received NEH grants in 1983, 1989, and 2006. [3] She served on various Society for Classical Studies (then called the APA) committees, including the Committees on the Status of Women and Minority Groups, and Outreach. [2] :214 She was elected as a member of the APA Board of Directors (1994–1997) and Vice President for Professional Matters (2001–2005). [8] In 2003-2004 she launched the first census of classics for the APA. [8] In 2009 she was awarded the APA "Distinguished Service Award" for her work on their behalf. [9] She also served as president of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (CAAS) in 2005, and their webmaster between 2005 and 2010. [9] She also served as vice-president and centennial historian of the New York Classical club, and as webmaster of the Women Writing Women's Lives Biography seminar, both in New York. [2] :212

McManus was awarded an ovatio by the CAAS in 2001, and in 2011 the same organisation established the "Barbara McManus Leadership Award" in her honour. [9] The Women's Classical Caucus created the annual Barbara McManus Award for the best published article in gender studies each year in her honour in 2012, and in 2016 she became the first recipient of their own Leadership award. [4] :547 She was also recognised with awards from The College of New Rochelle, including their Alumnae Association's Ursula Laurus award in 1994 and in 2014 their "Woman of Achievement" award. [9] In 2012, the University of Maryland hosted an international, interdisciplinary conference in her honour. [2] :214

Selected Works

Related Research Articles

The Society for Classical Studies (SCS), formerly known as the American Philological Association (APA), is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization founded in 1869. It is the preeminent association in the field and publishes a journal, Transactions of the American Philological Association (TAPA). The SCS is currently based at New York University.

Elaine Fantham was a British-Canadian classicist whose expertise lay particularly in Latin literature, especially comedy, epic poetry and rhetoric, and in the social history of Roman women. Much of her work was concerned with the intersection of literature and Greek and Roman history. She spoke fluent Italian, German and French and presented lectures and conference papers around the world—including in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Argentina, and Australia.

Elizabeth Vandiver is an American classical scholar. She is the Clement Biddle Penrose Professor of Latin and Classics at Whitman College, having previously taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Philological Association in 1998. She also won awards for her teaching from Northwestern University and the University of Georgia. In May 2013, she was awarded Whitman College's "G. Thomas Edwards Award for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship", the highest award that Whitman College gives to a faculty member.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Macurdy</span> American classical philologist (1866-1946)

Grace Harriet Macurdy was an American classicist, and the first American woman to gain a PhD from Columbia University. She taught at Vassar College for 44 years, despite a lengthy conflict with Abby Leach, her first employer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inez Scott Ryberg</span> American academic and archaeologist (1901–1980)

Inez Gertrude Scott Ryberg was an American classical archaeologist and academic, who specialized in archaeology, Roman art and architecture.

Judith P. Hallett is Professor and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Emerita of Classics, having formerly been the Graduate Director at the Department of Classics, University of Maryland. Her research focuses on women, the family, and sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome, particularly in Latin literature. She is also an expert on classical education and reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Amy Ellen Richlin is a professor in the Department of Classics at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Her areas of specialization include Latin literature, the history of sexuality, and feminist theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz</span>

Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz is a classical scholar, specialising in ancient Greek literature and intersectional feminism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ida Hill</span> American archaeologist

Ida Carleton Hill was an American archaeologist, classical scholar and historian. Hill had a strong interest in the relationship between history, geography, and archaeology, which was reflected in her research and publications over her fifty-year career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Hazelton Haight</span> American classical scholar and academic

Elizabeth Hazelton "Hazel" Haight was an American classical scholar and academic who specialised in Latin teaching. She spent most of her career working for Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Haight was the second female president of the American Philological Association, and first woman to chair the Advisory Council of the American School of Classical Studies at Rome. She published eleven books in the field of Classics, as well as histories of Vassar and James Monroe Taylor. Her works focused on Latin Literature and the Greek novel, before she began the study of symbolism in Latin literature in her final publications. She was involved in Vassar's war efforts during World War I, and supporting foreign scholars during World War II, and was consistently interested in promoting women's education as a force for good in American society.

Kathryn J. Gutzwiller is a professor of classics at the University of Cincinnati. She specialises in Hellenistic poetry, and her interests include Greek and Latin poetry, ancient gender studies, literary theory, and the interaction between text and image. Her contribution to Hellenistic epigram and pastoral poetry has been considered particularly influential.

Eleanor Winsor Leach was the Ruth N. Halls Professor with the Department of Classical Studies at Indiana University. She was a trustee of the Vergilian Society in 1978–83 and was second and then first vice-president in 1989–92. Leach was the president of the Society of Classical Studies in 2005/6, and the chair of her department (1978–1985). She was very involved with academics and younger scholars – directing 26 dissertations, wrote letters for 200 tenure and promotion cases, and refereed more than 100 books and 200 articles. Leach's research interests included Roman painting, Roman sculpture, and Cicero and Pliny's Letters. She published three books and more than 50 articles. Leach's work had an interdisciplinary focus, reading Latin texts against their social, political, and cultural context. From the 1980s onwards, she combined her work on ancient literature with the study of Roman painting, monuments, and topography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara P. McCarthy</span> American Hellenist and academic

Barbara Philippa McCarthy was an American Hellenist and academic. McCarthy is mainly known for her work on Lucian of Samosata and his interactions with the Menippean satire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Starry West</span>

Grace Starry West was an American classics scholar, best known as co-translator of a popular English edition of four texts on Socrates. She taught at the University of Dallas in Texas, and at Hillsdale College in Michigan.

Sarah B. Pomeroy is an American Professor of Classics.

Michèle Lowrie is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor of Classics and the college at the University of Chicago. She is a specialist in Roman literature and political thought.

Susan Braley Franklin was an American classical scholar and educator.

Janet Marion Martin was an American college professor. Martin was a professor of classics at Princeton University from 1973 to 2010, and was recognized as an expert on medieval Latin.

Sharon Lynn James was a Classicist and Professor of Classics at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was an expert in Latin poetry, women and gender in antiquity, New Comedy, and Italian epic.

References

  1. McHardy, Fiona (13 October 2017). "Remembering Barbara F. McManus". Medium.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Hallett, Judy (2019). "Appendix: Barbara F. McManus - a Biography". In Hall, Edith; Wyles, Rosie (eds.). Women classical scholars: unsealing the fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780198725206.
  3. 1 2 "MCMANUS, Barbara Wismer". dbcs.rutgers.edu.
  4. 1 2 Brown, Mary; Hallett, Judith P.; Marsilio, Maria; Raia, Ann (2016). "Barbara F. McManus". Classical World. 109 (4): 547–548. ISSN   1558-9234.
  5. McManus, Barbara F.; Brennan, Monica (1983). "Women's Studies as a Catalyst for Change within a Women's College: The College of New Rochelle". Women's Studies Quarterly. pp. 16–18.
  6. "About - VRoma: A Virtual Community for Teaching and Learning Classics". 19 July 2021.
  7. McManus, Barbara F.; Hallett, Judith P.; Stray, Christopher (2017). The drunken duchess of Vassar: Grace Harriet Macurdy, pioneering feminist classical scholar. Columbus (Ohio): The Ohio State University Press. ISBN   978-0-8142-5389-2.
  8. 1 2 "In Memoriam Barbara F. McManus | Society for Classical Studies". classicalstudies.org.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "In Memoriam: Barbara F. McManus (1942-2015) | CAAS-CW". 26 June 2015.