In spring 2019 the Classics Department at Johns Hopkins launched an exciting initiative for undergraduates: a research “laboratory” in which students can enroll for credit as they would any normal course. Each lab project will be different, but each will engage students in direct, empirical research connected to the current work of the faculty member in charge. Some projects will complete their work in a semester, others may be ongoing or intermittent; in the latter case, students may join for just a term, or return.
Current Projects
The John Addington Symonds Project (JASP)
launched spring 2019, continued fall 2019, fall 2021, spring 2023
PIs: Shane Butler, Classics, and Gabrielle Dean, Sheridan Libraries
The John Addington Symonds Project (JASP) investigates the work of the Victorian writer John Addington Symonds, author of one of the first major studies of Ancient Greek sexuality, which was privately printed in ten copies and circulated anonymously. The lab so far has been engaged in two major efforts. The first is to produce a digital edition of the various redactions of Symonds’s groundbreaking essay. The second, more ambitious, is to reconstruct the contents of his private library. The results of the lab’s work appear in real time on its website, where users can already read the 1897 version and browse hundreds of books Symonds is known to have owned.
Read an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education about the John Addington Symonds Project. (Authentication may be required.)
Antioch Recovery Project (ARP)
launched spring 2020, continued fall 2021
PI: Jennifer Stager, History of Art
Launched in Spring 2020, this CRL project investigates mosaics from the ancient city of Antioch-on-the-Orontes. These mosaics are now dispersed across at least twenty-five locations around the world, including over thirty now in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Phase II will focus on three chronological moments: the diverse, multilingual city of ancient Antioch, Baltimore’s role in the 20th century excavations carried out between the two world wars, and the contemporary afterlives of these mosaics that connect the selection in Baltimore with fragments around the globe. We will continue to digitally reunite these dispersed fragments, with an emphasis on those mosaics in Baltimore. More information at antiochrecoveryproject.org. Under the supervision of the project’s director, Jennifer Stager (History of Art), participants will learn advanced research methods, travel to museum collections, generate new knowledge, and disseminate their results.
Read an article from the Krieger Arts & Sciences Magazine about the Antioch Recovery Project.
The Peabody Cast Collection (PCC)
launched fall 2020, continued fall 2022
PI: Emily Anderson, Classics
The Peabody Cast Collection (PCC) project revolves around a remarkable collection of plaster casts of classical Greek and Roman sculptures, created ca. 1879 for the pioneering Peabody Institute (now part of JHU), a gift of Baltimore & Ohio Railroad baron John Work Garrett. Such cast collections were a highly valued cultural resource in Europe and North America during the later 17th-early 20th centuries. Because of the technical process of the cast formation, based directly upon the ancient sculptural surface, these collections brought contact with the actual classical artifacts into temporally and spatially distant contexts—including the burgeoning urban space of 19th century Baltimore. The Peabody’s collection of 157 casts was on display from 1881 into the 1930s, before being gradually dispersed and the remainder sold to the State of Maryland. The current whereabouts of many of the casts is unknown while others have suffered under poor conditions. The PCC lab’s initial undertaking will be archival and field research to ascertain the objects’ biographies and locations. Production of a virtual exhibition will involve 3D reconstruction of the casts’ original display contexts within the Peabody based on hand-written ledgers and photographs. More than merely a tool, the digital software will also stimulate our consideration of the plaster casts themselves, as an earlier technology for the virtual reproduction and artificial gathering of dispersed originals, thus highlighting questions of replication, authenticity and access pertinent to the ongoing history of the collection and city. A second lab phase would potentially involve conservation and display of casts at JHU.