Newsletter January 2013#

Harm Pinkster, Chairman of the Classics and Oriental Studies Section#

Dear fellow-members,
To start with, I wish you all a very happy and productive New Year. I thank those of you who have supported the Committee in its activities in 2012. The year 2013 will mark the fifth lustrum of the Academia Europaea, with special activities to take place at Wrocław in September. In this letter I ask your attention for four points: (a) Members elected in 2012; (b) the nominations for 2013; (c) the Annual Meeting at Wrocław in September; (d) members who died in 2012 (as far as I was informed); in (e) I mention the compostion of the section committee.

(a) New Members

Last year the committee members and several other members of the AE have been very productive in putting forward names of candidates for the membership. This has resulted in 16 nominations: at the end 15 have accepted their nomination. The names follow below. I would like to congratulate and welcome all our new members and thank those who proposed them for their efforts. Details concerning our new members can easily be found at the internet (also at the site of the AE).

Prof. Alessandro BARCHIESI (Italy)
Prof. Alessandro BAUSI (Germany)
Prof. Barbara Elisabeth BORG (UK)
Prof. Alberto CAVERZERE (Italy)
Prof. Riccardo CONTINI (Italy)
Prof. Mario DE NONNO (Italy)
Prof. Philip Russell HARDIE (UK)
Prof. Peter KORNICKI (UK)
Prof. Gauthier LIBERMAN (France)
Prof. Stephen Phelps OAKLEY (UK)
Prof. Tobias REINHARDT (UK)
Prof. Antonios RENGAKOS (Greece)
Prof. Nicholas SIMS-WILLIAMS (UK)
Prof. Melanie TREDE (Germany)
Prof. Josef WIESENHöFER (Germany)

(b) Nominations 2013

I strongly invite all of you to come up with the names of candidates. It is essential for the future of science and scholarship in Europe that there is a body to which competent organisations can turn for advice. For that purpose the AE needs the top scholars in our disciplines to be members of an equivalent what national academies are at the national, or regional level.

Last year I suggested to submit to me and the Committee simply the name of a candidate and a website that contains sufficient information for the Committee to judge whether the candidate will survive the election procedure. I would like to continue this procedure, although, of course, you are free to use the forms of the AE on its website before consulting the committee. Candidates need the support of two members of the AE, at least one of whom is not a resident of the same country as the candidate.

Criteria for membership used in the Nomination Committee of the AE are the following:

(i) The candidate is a resident in one of the countries of Europa and associated in some clear way with one of the academic institutions in Europe.

(ii) The candidate is either a very promising scholar, judging from both publications in high quality journals and with high quality publishers, and international collaboration (age say 40 – 50), or a mature and active scholar with a very strong list of publications and a demonstrably international impact (age say 55-65), preferably with recognition of her or his work by special prizes, awards, etc. Nominations of older candidates are certainly not excluded, but need motivation.

(iii) The candidate has manifest international contacts.

(iv) The candidate is likely to actively participate in the proceedings of the AE.

I look forward to your suggestions.

(c) Annual Meeting Wrocław

The coming Annual Meeting will be at Wrocław, September 17-19. Details of the program are unknown sofar. I would like to organize a half day session for our Section, possibly in cooperation with the local University. Unfortunately there is no funding, but if for some reason or other some of you might want to attend the meeting and present a paper, please let me know before March. Suggestions for the content and the organization of the session are also very welcome.

(d) Deceased

There is no tradition, as far as I know, of commemorating deceased members of the AE. I have received news that last year Prof. Geza Alföldi and Prof. Werner Sundermann died. In the case of Prof. Alföldi I know that he was among the grandest in his field and his death is definitely a great loss. I would appreciate to receive information of this sort from members who learn about it.

(e) Section committee

Apart from myself, the Committee has the following members:

Prof. Carmela Baffioni (Napoli)
Prof. Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit (Berlin)
Prof Irene J.F. de Jong (Amsterdam)
Prof. Baraba Kellner-Heinkele (Berlin)
Prof. Tonio Hölscher (Heidelberg)
Prof. Juha A. Janhunen (Helsinki)
Prof. Heikki Solin (Helsinki)

At the end of this letter I would like to invite all of you who have suggestions to make the AE a more real organisation with intellectual interaction to let me know.

With my best wishes,
Harm Pinkster