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GUEST ROOM | Classics is the Best Subject to Address Our Current Age

At Cornell, I’ve come to realize that, by this point in history, to think that anything at all is unprecedented is simply to have not read enough history. There is no question that someone else has not already tried to answer, no issue that another society has not previously addressed (if not in content then at least in form). If, therefore, we find ourselves so unable to locate a prior moment comparable with our own, perhaps we just need to look further back in time.

Finding Little Joys: Romanticizing Your Education at Cornell

Seeing the good in an 8 or 9 a.m. class is hard. Sometimes, it’s hard to haul myself out of bed for mine. My mattress is too comfortable; I’m too warm and cozy beneath the covers … but I still get up. Why? For starters, it helps that despite it being so early in the morning compared to any of my other classes this semester, I do genuinely enjoy my 8:40 a.m. Greek class. That certainly adds incentive. Otherwise, it comes down to the fact that I’ve found it easier to stay on top of things for the rest of the day by going to my first classes, no matter how early they are. 

CHAZAN | Creon’s America

“What report do you come bringing us from god?”

“A good one! For I say, things hard to bear might chance to mean good luck — if, by some chance they turn out straight.”

Thus, Creon reintroduces himself to Oedipus after a long journey, bearing significant news. His report is of course not good. This I the first thing I said as I walked onstage for three nights, in the recent Classics department production of Sophocles’ Oedipus. This circular, beguiling phrase, swollen with hope and deceit, has come to haunt me.

Under the Eyes Of the Gods

They’ve had their breasts painted green by architecture students. They’ve been stolen by miscreant frat boys. They’ve been rolled down Libe Slope on Slope Day and they’ve weathered the storms of misuse and assault.