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Dr. Ellen Lee

@ellenleephd.bsky.social

800 followers 320 following 170 posts

Feminist, queer, & cognitive approaches to ancient lit + equity pedagogy in language classrooms. UMich PhD, UTexas BA. USW Steelworker. (she/ista) FirstGen

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Aug 15

And here it is! Lee's Latin: An Open-Access Supplement to Wheelock's Latin Textbook, a free online resource, can be accessed here, starting today:
sites.google.com/view/leeslat...

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Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Higher Education Labor United (HELU) @higheredlabor.bsky.social · 2d

HELU's International Campus Worker Protections (ICWP) Campaign is organizing to pressure our institutions to stand up for international workers. Read more about this campaign in a recent piece by organizer Bobby Huggins higheredlaborunited.org/2025/09/22/t...

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · 4d

(Pre)reading exercises where they label words with their part of speech or 'chunk' the text into blocks of meaning can help students at this stage to see that translating and reading aren't the same. I usually assign this kind of reading for homework and save the translating for class.

Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · 4d

Working on reading expectations in this way also means that, as Rob said, they need to know vocab first! But I always want to discourage them from thinking that knowing vocab = just knowing the English meaning of words instead of understanding the function and expectations of the word.

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · 4d

Like, when you see a preposition, what do you expect to follow after it? What kind of verbal ideas might prompt indirect discourse? Working through a passage looking for these kinds of context clues prompts them to start by doing something other than immediately translating into English.

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · 4d

Yes, all the things @thelgo.bsky.social said! I'd add that I like to focus on strategies for comprehending (and demonstrating comprehension) other than translating. There are a ton of ways to do this, but in a class where they're still getting grammar under them, I focus on reading expectations...

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · 7d

As Hoo-dith Butler always says, gender is perfor-molt-ive

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · 7d

Well, see, the lady owl is wearing a hairbow, that's how you know it's a girl.

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Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Debby Sneed @debscavator.bsky.social · 15d

Coming up, I'm giving some talks, including a free online talk about my newest project, which is focused on Greek sculpture and the place of disability within it, on Sunday, October 19 at 10am Central:

AIA Event Listings - Virtual Symposium: Disability in the Ancient Greek World - AIA-Nashville Society, Nashville Parthenon, Metro Nashville Parks & Recreation, Centennial Park Conservancy

Archaeological event listing for AIA-Nashville Society, Nashville Parthenon, Metro Nashville Parks & Recreation, Centennial Park Conservancy

www.archaeological.org

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Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 25d

My review of @sarahebond.bsky.social's latest book, Strike, just came out in the Classical Journal! It was a pleasure to read and review and I really hope everyone will check it out!

CJ-Online -- 2025.09.02

Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire. By SARAH E. BOND. Yale University Press, 2025. Pp. 272. Hardcover, $35.00. ISBN 978-0-300-27314-4.

Reviewed by Amy Pistone, Gonzaga University (pistone@gonzaga.edu)

Bond offers a compelling historical account and a provocative claim: the histories we tell about labor organizing ought to start earlier than the medieval guild system or the industrial revolution. Her argument is persuasive and she effectively balances careful historical analysis with invitations to draw connections between ancient and modern labor, a theme well served by her strategic use of modern terminology. For example, Bond’s decision to describe manual laborers as “essential workers” (37) is at once jarring in its apparent anachronism and also very effective at prompting the reader to consider parallels between ancient craftspeople and modern workers during the COVID-19 crisis. With Strike, Bond carries the banner for unapologetically political scholarly analysis. In a way, critical engagement with this book—a book which will inevitably receive criticism in some circles for politicizing ancient history (horribile dictu!)—forces the reader to grapple with whether apolitical history is possible, particularly on topics like labor and collective action.

A great strength of this work is Bond’s transparency about the methodological challenges of a history like this: the dearth of sources and elite biases in the sources that do survive. Bond is transparent and regularly returns to the question of how to deal with scant and fragmentary sources. Further questions arise with mythohistorical sources and determining what we can learn about material realities from legends about an imagined past. Rather than debate the historicity of, say, Livy’s account of the Struggle of the Orders, she instead highlights how we can excavate Livy for a sense of what Romans might have considered the “imaginable types of popular resistance and collective action” (22). Ultimately, articulating and expanding “the imaginable” is precisely the role that Strike plays more generally, asking us to reconsider how we interpret ancient sources and to cultivate more capacious historical imaginations. Scholars of the ancient world will know that we constantly imagine what the past might look like when we connect the dots of incomplete sources. Often, contemporary political circumstances narrow our sense of the possible or we unconsciously replicate the lines of inquiry found in the scholarship that shaped us. What Bond offers in this work is a welcome invitation to dream a little bigger.

To be clear, she also offers a detailed examination of Roman history through the lens of labor, and it would be an injustice to her to elide the thorough yet accessible scholarship just because this reviewer wants to wax poetic about historical imaginations. Strike is organized into seven chapters (plus an introduction and conclusion) that are mostly chronological in their treatment of Roman history, though each period is also approached through thematic lenses. The first chapter deals with early Roman history and offers a reading of stories found in sources like Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus that is attentive to class conflict. Chapter Two looks at the Late Re…

Chapter Three, on the fall of the Republic, takes freedom of assembly as its theme. We see how elite anxieties and suspicions about large assemblies are balanced against the realization (most notably, by Caesar) that large groups of lower-class people could also be an effective source of power. Chapter Four develops these themes, looking at how Augustus co-opted and promoted associations that benefited him, even as associations of entertainers and religious groups found themselves in more tenuous positions across the Empire.

Chapter Five, about the Imperial Period, focuses on the ongoing power negotiations between workers and the state, particularly in Asia Minor where associations often flourished and work stoppages among coloni were frequent. Chapter Six focuses on Late Antiquity, the rising problem of compulsory labor, and an increase in surveillance, all done under the guise of “anticorruption.” I found that some of her interpretations, including the effect of reforms around coinage, lacked the evidence to be completely persuasive, but her speculations raise interesting questions about the evidence that does exist. Finally, as an avid sports fan, I devoured the final chapter’s analysis of athletic factions and the role the arena and spectacles play in mediating social and political relationships.

Space precludes thorough treatment of all the themes of this book. Bond offers an accessible survey of Roman history that decenters the upper classes and instead looks for the experience of both free and enslaved labor within the changing political landscape of the Roman Empire. I see so much potential to use this book in a classroom context, where it would serve as a helpful tool for introducing source criticism, historiography, methodologies for engaging with fragmentary sources, and the uses and limits of comparisons between the ancient and modern world. The open, readable style makes this book suitable for advanced high school students, classics majors and non…

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Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Joanna Kenty @jokenty.bsky.social · 28d

New post on Humanist! Do I think fondly on (or even remember) oral exams in grad school? No. But do I want to experiment with them now, especially after reading more literature about how to use them to engage students in deep learning? Yes.

#AncientBlueSky
#classicsBlueSky
#TeachLearnSky
#EduSky

Going old school with oral exams

Oral exams have been proposed as a solution to AI-assisted plagiarism. Adding that interpersonal dimension of oral communication can result in more durable learning and a greater feeling of satisfacti...

humanist.ghost.io

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Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Rich Lord @richelord.bsky.social · Sep 9

Was (or is) your campus experience one of conforming to norms, or challenging them? @publicsource.org wants your take on academic freedom for potential inclusion in our new series "Gagging Academia" www.publicsource.org/academic-fre...

What has Academic Freedom meant to you?

Share your input on academic freedom in higher ed — the freedom to research, publish and discuss relevant issues without censorship.

www.publicsource.org

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Sep 6

A heads up that many many academic books are on this list! Find out if yours is here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Sep 4

If you're in PA (or OH) and want to chat about Pitt's College in High School Latin program as an alternative (or addition) to AP, let me know!

Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Liv Mariah Yarrow (pronounced 'leave') @profyarrow.bsky.social · Sep 2

I maintain this list and celebrate each new addition and funding improvement to allow all to access our discipline. It feels equally important to mark the rollback of past successes. Programs at UVa, Columbia, Cornell, and Rutgers, now no longer exist. RT pls. 1/ livyarrow.org/funded-mas-a...

Funded MAs and More

Additions and Corrections Welcome esp. for Fall 2025 applications! How to use this list. The organizational principles is application closing date. I have grouped by month–the later in the cycle th…

livyarrow.org

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Sep 2

YESSS

AI policy for Speculum:
The use of generative AI to write any part of an article’s text or notes or to generate ideas is strictly prohibited.
AI cannot be considered an author of submitted works, as AI tools cannot take ethical or legal responsibility for their output or enter into legal agreements.
If prohibited AI use is discovered even after an article has been accepted, the article will not be published and the offense will be treated as plagiarism.
Authors must fully disclose and cite their use of any content created by AI tools in their manuscripts at the time of submission. This includes data, images, figures, or any other type of content.
Authors must accept full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and citation of content created using generative AI systems, including factual and citation accuracy.
Software that assists with grammar, spelling, or translation of your own words is not considered generative AI and doesn’t require disclosure.

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Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Dr Hannah Čulík-Baird @opietasanimi.com · Aug 30

yesterday @eosafricana.bsky.social sent out their notice for Eos WRITES, which is a really great opportunity to work on writing, give feedback, and build community. here’s their link to sign up: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We are writing to invite you to the first iteration of Eos WRITES.

WRITES is a workshopping series designed to help members support each other's writing. After creating groups of up to 5 society members, we will make introductions, then provide some helpful guidelines for scheduling 2 hour long workshopping sessions and creating a supportive environment. For the academic year, all 5 members of each group will act as both readers and writers, sharing their work and soliciting feedback.

Please send us your expression of interest by submitting this form by Monday, September 8, 2025.

With all best wishes for the new academic year,

The Eos Executive Committee

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Aug 30

On that same note of learning from each other: we're reading your thoughts on approaching Latin as a human language in my pedagogy seminar next week! I can't wait to talk about it with our grad students!

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Aug 19

People of the Boston area! If you're around Tufts on September 24, I'd love to see you come out to this talk, which will be open to the public.

Poster for a talk called: "The AI Heist: How the Tech Industry Exploits the History of Art & what we can do to stop it."

Wednesday I September 24 I 4:15pm I Tisch 316

Abstract: Over the last several years, universities and museums have partnered with commercial
technology firms like Google, Microsoft, and Meta, who have promised that their AI products will
enhance both historical research and accessibility to historical collections. These promises are
not supported by the reality of what computer vision--the branch of AI most relevant to the
history of art--can achieve. So why have major institutions in education and the arts been so
quick to take up these firms' offers?

This talk responds to this question by providing an introduction to computer vision's origins in
military surveillance, an overview of its development under late capitalist regimes of exploitative
micro-labor, and an orientation to how computer vision works. However, the main focus of this
talk is not what computer vision does. Rather, I consider the culture of the AI industry, its main
objectives, and the dangerous vision for the future that it promises--and whether those
promises are credible or even in good faith. This vision for the future has relied on an exploitation
of history, and art history in particular, and I argue that it is our responsibility as art historians to
be knowledgeable about the forms this exploitation takes. I conclude with suggestions about
what we can do to protect the subjects and practitioners of our discipline, as well as education
in the humanities more broadly, against this incursion. I do not intend an intransigent rejection of
a given technology; rather this talk articulates a challenge that is grounded in knowledge of the
historical origins and corporate practices of the AI industry today

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Aug 20

But I'll only do it if I can find an appropriate article that already has a genAI summary. (Certain journals seem to autogenerate them in a way that drives me nuts.) I'm not going to enter anyone's scholarly work into the plagiarism machine (and I won't model that behavior for my students)!

Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Aug 20

I've decided not to ask them to do their own genAI bib query, bc I'm afraid it'll backfire (& we spend a lot of time on how to do a bib search). But I am thinking about having students compare an AI summary to the article itself, as a way to adapt my 'how to summarize scholarship' assignment.

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Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · Aug 17

Each year, we publish lists of books, journal articles, and chapters published by historians working off the tenure track. It's never too early to start collecting, so if you or someone you know has something with a 2025 publication date to submit, have at it!

Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians

Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...

contingentmagazine.org

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Reposted by Dr. Ellen Lee

Asian and Asian American Classical Caucus @aaacc.bsky.social · Aug 14

Forget your triremes, the strongest ship is mentorSHIP! Applications are now open for the 2025–26 AAACC + Mountaintop Coalition Mentorship Program! Sign up to be a mentor and/or a mentee by September 8! (You can be both!) Head to our website for details.

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Aug 12

WHAT!?! I honestly cannot wait to read this!!!

Liveright @liveright.bsky.social · Aug 12

Happy publication day to Scott McGill and Susannah Wright, whose translation of THE AENEID (w/ introduction by THE ODYSSEY and THE ILIAD's @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social) is now available wherever epic works are sold! wwnorton.com/books/978132...

Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Aug 12

Teaching beginning Latin or ancient Greek this year? Feeling daunted by the prospect of overburdened students, AI cheating, and hostile admin? Join us to swap strategies for a successful semester! TODAY!!!

Women's Classical Caucus @womensclasscaucus.bsky.social · Jul 21

The WCC invites you to the workshop, Why Are You Taking This Class? Student-Centered Strategies for First-Year Language Instruction, facilitated by @ellenleephd.bsky.social and @apistone.bsky.social

Register now! www.wccclassics.org/events/wcc-p...

WCC Pedagogy Series: Why Are You Taking This Class? Student-Centered Strategies for First-Year Language Instruction

A Women's Classical Caucus pedagogy workshop
Register now! https://www.wccclassics.org/events

In our current educational and technological environment, teaching language classes is hard. Join Dr. Ellen Lee and Dr. Amy Pistone to explore strategies for meeting our students where they are and helping them develop as self-motivated learners.

Tuesday, August 12, 2025
1pm ET (on Zoom)

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Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Aug 11

unless you want to have them buy an intermed reader with a lot of grammar review/explanation built in (maybe Pratt's Eros at the Banquet, paired with her Essentials of Greek Grammar book, if that's not too expensive?)