Trajan's Column Meets the Classroom:
Pedagogical Applications of the 2006 NEH Summer Seminar

This panel is an outgrowth of the seminar which was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and held at the American Academy in Rome in the summer of 2006. The seminar, “Trajan’s Column: Narratives of War, Conquest, and Commemoration,” was directed by Michael Maas of Rice University and Richard Talbert of UNC-Chapel Hill. Its twelve participants came from various backgrounds, including studio art, classics, and history. Trajan’s Column was the focal point of our discussions, which ranged from representations of warfare in ancient Rome to current issues of foreign policy. We also shared ideas on the ways in which our experiences in the seminar could impact the courses which we offer at our academic institutions.

At the 2007 CAMWS meeting in Cincinnati there was a panel of papers delivered by four participants in the seminar. The presenters in this session, “Contextualizing Trajan’s Column: The 2006 NEH Summer Seminar,” expanded on the research which they had begun in Rome the previous summer. Each paper considered Trajan’s Column within a different literary and cultural context, ranging in time from the early Empire to late antiquity.

The speakers in this proposed panel will focus on pedagogical issues and will discuss the ways in which they have incorporated Trajan’s Column into their courses. The first speaker is an artist who produced 40 watercolor sketches of scenes from the Column as her seminar project in Rome and created a website with these images. In her paper, “‘A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words’” she will discuss the ways in which she used her sketches in an introductory art history course. Her presentation will include video clips of classroom discussions, as well as images from the website. The second paper, “Teaching with a Memorial Website: From Trajan to Iraq,” will be presented by a military historian who offered a course on the function and design of memorials of commemoration from Ancient Egypt to Medieval Europe and included Trajan’s Column in her study. In her paper she will discuss her students’ project of designing a memorial for those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq and will present the website which she designed for this course, as well as teaching materials and class projects. The third paper, “A Fruitful Intrusion: Trajan’s Column in the Russian Civilization Classroom,” will be presented by a specialist in Russian literature. She will focus on the integration of the Column of Trajan into a course on Russian civilization in which her students consider the mechanics of cultural memory. In the fourth paper, “‘The Age of Trajan’: Introducing Undergraduates to Roman Civilization,” the presenter will discuss a humanities course which she offered on the history, literature, and art and architecture of the Trajanic period. In addition to discussing the format of the course and the readings and creative projects assigned to her students, the presenter will offer a critical evaluation of the course in the hope of generating suggestions for improvement from the panel and audience. At the conclusion of these papers, Professors Maas and Talbert, co-directors of the seminar in Rome, will offer comments on the NEH’s commitment to sponsoring seminars which advance the quality of instruction at America’s colleges and universities.