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Professor Paul Burke and his students explore the art, history, language and religion of ancient Mediterranean civilizations. |
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Meet the researchers: Exploring ancient civilizations
Interview with Professor Paul Burke, Fall 2008
In a recent conversation, summarized below, professor of classics Paul Burke discusses the ancient civilization major, his interest in ancient religion and why he likes being at Clark.
The Clark catalog lists you as a professor of classics. What does that mean?
Classics is defined by time and geography to encompass the region of the old Roman Empire from the earliest Bronze Age (and sometimes before) to the collapse of Roman civilization and the rise of predominantly Christian culture—about the 5th to the 6th century of the common era. It's a very multi-disciplinary field that includes the study of language, literature, history, politics, religion, mythology, science, and military history.
How did you become interested in studying classics?
I took Latin as an undergraduate because my parents almost convinced me that I wanted to be a physician. But in my senior year I studied classical Greek, and when it came time to decide what I really wanted to do, I decided I didn't want to apply to medical school after all, and instead went to graduate school for classics. Whether I knew it or not, it's always been a strong love of mine, and it's a way of getting away from the modern world!
What is your current area of research?
For the last 10 years I've been most interested in ancient religion--paganism, ancient Judaism and early Christianity, the way in which these religious cultures interact with one another, the things they have in common, how they borrow ideas from one another and what divides them--often drastically and violently.
Do you find that undergraduates are interested in the study of ancient religion?
I do. Offering a course with mythology or religion in the title guarantees full enrollments. I'm convinced that students, no matter how secular their backgrounds might be, have a real interest in learning about either the spiritual traditions of their own families, of a boyfriend or girlfriend, or just to understand what religion is all about and why people have always felt attracted to it and why it continues to be such a power in the world today. I think it works in almost a contradictory way--the more secular students are raised, and the more that desire is ignored throughout their early lives; the more they want to know about religion, about theology, about the history of thought with regard to these issues.
How many majors does Clark's ancient civilization department have?
At any given time we might have six or seven majors.
If a student wants to pursue graduate work in classics, what sort of foundation does he or she need to acquire as an undergraduate?
To prepare yourself for a Ph.D. program in classics or classical archaeology, you need at a minimum a strong undergraduate background in both Latin and Greek. You also need a reading knowledge of French and German because so many relevant scholarly papers have not been translated into English. Depending on the time period and region you specialize in, you might also need another language--in my case I've had to learn Italian. A good friend has become fluent in Serbo-Croatian because he's been excavating in the former Yugoslavia. The need to start language study early can be a real stumbling block for students who don't realize they're going in this direction until their junior year. Of course it's also important to study history--the order in which things happen and the interrelationship of events. A lot of students are surprised when I tell them it's as difficult to get into a good Ph.D. program in classics or classical archeology as it is a big name law or medical school.
What have some of Clark's ancient civilization majors gone on to do?
Some have become teachers. Others have used the major, like many other humanities majors, as preparation for law or business school. A student from one of my first years at Clark, Max Bernheimer '82, is the International Department Head of Ancient Art & Antiquities for Christie's. He's an extremely important and influential person in the purchase and sale of classical antiquities.
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What if a student just wants to gain some familiarity with ancient Greek or Latin? Do you think that's a useful addition to a liberal arts curriculum?
I think many of the old clichés are true. The study of Greek and Latin really does give you a better understanding of English language and grammar. I spend a great deal of time in my introductory language classes explaining English grammar. Having an understanding of how sentences are put together helps students learn how to write, speak and, ultimately, to think more clearly and logically.
I get a good number of English majors who want to know more about language, and my classes expose them to the study of historical linguistics, which is really just the history of language and words, and the relationships between languages.
You've recently published a paper about a Christian myth linking the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar with a vision of the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus, a myth that inspired a church in Rome, Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Can you talk more about that?
Four or five years ago I became interested in a body of early Christian legends in which classical figures like Augustus, the Emperor Tiberius or even, of all people, Pontius Pilate, become retroactively converted to Christianity. There's no historical basis to these tales, but by the early Christian/early medieval period they were regarded as very useful stories. They presumably strengthened the truth of Christianity as it was thought to be at the time. Researching these stories involves reading some late classical Christian authors, early medieval chronicles, and so forth. Often the stories are connected to particular places, such as the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, and that allows me to draw on the interest I have in ancient and early Christian architecture. It's quite satisfying to be working on this.
In your paper, you indicated that you had located what you thought was the earliest known version of the legend. Does that mean that another scholar might come along and find an even older manuscript? With such a vast amount of literature, how can one person cover it all?
Absolutely, it's always that way. You can never be absolutely sure that a document is the earliest version of a story; rather, it's almost certainly older than any text that you happen to have in your hands. It would be more precise to say that it's the earliest documented version of the story which I have so far been able to locate. With this type of research there's always the unspoken qualification: "as far as we know, pending the discovery of further evidence." The sciences are like that too: "our conclusion is true, until new information becomes available."
What do you like about being at Clark?
I've always considered myself very fortunate to have gotten a job at Clark. I've stayed here because I like it very much, and I've become quite devoted to the place and to Clark students. I think Clark offers its students the same sort of advantages it has offered to me over the years—independence and the freedom to follow interests of my own, which have developed and changed over the years in my case. Both my teaching and my research have changed quite a lot since I was first hired at Clark in the 1970s. And on a much smaller time scale, undergrads during their four years at Clark enjoy an extraordinary amount of freedom to pursue their own interests, find out what those interests are, to identify faculty members that are willing to help them out, offer a direct a directed reading, or to suggest a consortium course. It's a place in which it is possible to develop one's self intellectually in ways that I don't think are quite so readily available at the larger universities where I taught before coming to Clark.
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