Yesterday I posted a list of the top 10 posts on the site based on page-views. Sometimes we can guess which posts are going to generate some traffic; other times, we are surprised both by those that are popular and those. Here’s a list of some of my favorite posts that didn’t make the top 10.
1. Tessered Latin and Greek: A Lexical “Wrinkle in Time”
Mimi Kramer wrote a great story in the Daily Beast about Greek (and a little Latin) in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. This blog has a little cameo…
2. The Difference of A Year: Some Links to Classicists Fighting the Good Fight Online
One of the things we don’t do enough on this blog that I want to try to do more of next year is promoting others’ work online (and off). In this post we highlighted some of the critical work Classicists are doing today. Several months later, the importance of their efforts has only increased.
3. Skatokhasm: Another Word You Know You Need
We posted a good deal of political material over the past year and got some minor abuse for it. It is hard to choose from the many absurd things we posted in response to the degeneration of our public discourse, but this riffing on shit-hole, σκατοχάσμα is one of my favorite.
4. Philology at Dinner: How I Began to Love Classics
Erik wrote a moving and important essay about what drew him to Classics. I have reread it many times. You should too.
5. Parenting While Teaching Greek Badly
I wrote a few essays this year that were deeply personal. This one is a little more uplifting than my bit on death. Also, while I certainly live the latter on a daily basis, I am all the more certain with each passing day that I will miss the parenting and teaching badly the most.
6. Tell Me Aristotle, Why Do We Have Butts?
Dr. Rebecca Raphael mentioned this passage on facebook and I had to post it. It is everything the world needs right now.
Erik wrote this piece as part of defending the use of the colloquial and obscene from the ancient world on this blog and in the classroom. It emerged in part from an ongoing discussion about our discomfort with how popular the Tawdry Tuesday posts are. I don’t think we’re done figuring this one out, but I think we will keep returning to this post to think about it.
This is the first album review to appear on the website! Erik writes movingly about the way Moonface engages with the story of the Minotaur (from his perspective) and humanizes both the monster and the audience by doing so. I have been listening to the album regularly since he posted this.
9. Newly Discovered Text: A Late Antique Dialogue on “The Etymology of ‘Mimosa’”
Benjamin Eldon Stevens posted a funny meme on twitter about the etymology of Mimosa. I butted in and added a different etymology. It turned into a blogpost.
10. The New Sappho Poem: a Student Commentary
This post is the product of work some of my Greek Lyric Class at Brandeis did. It is probably the best thing we did in class over the semester. (Note: teaching lyric is hard!)
Honorable Mentions:
“Your Father Does Not Dine With Us”: Orphanhood and Dehumanization
Science and Humanity
No, Internet, Kerberos is Probably Not “Spot”
Classroom Confession: I am a Terrible Teacher
What Does Helen Look Like?
