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Last updated: 9/26/02 As a Classics student, you have a lot of career options. You could,
e.g., become Joanne Kathleen "Jo" Rowling (1965 - ),
best-selling author and multimillionaire Ever wondered about all the Latin
in the popular "Harry Potter" books or in the recent
movie (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 2002)? Between
1983 and 1986, J. K. Rowling studied French with a subsidiary (i.e.,
minor) in Classics at the University of Exeter in Britain.
Her books about the orphaned wizard Harry and the Hogwart's School
for Witchcraft and Wizardry have been translated into more than
40 languages (translations into Latin and Greek are planned) and
sold more than 30 million copies. Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (1938 - ), media-mogul
and billionaire Ted Turner about himself and Alexander
the Great: "They laughed at me when I
started CNN. They laughed at me when I bought the Braves. They laughed
at me when I bought M-G-M. I spent a lot of time thinking, and I
did not fear, because of my classical background. When Alexander
the Great took control when his dad died, he was twenty years old.
He took the Macedonian Army, which was the best army in the world
at the time, and conquered Greece, got the Greeks to all join with
him, and then marched across the Hellespont and invaded Asia. They
didn't even know where the world ended at that time. And he was
dead at thirty-three, thirteen years later. He kept marching. He
hardly ever stopped. And he never lost a battle." (Source: Ken Auletta, "The
Lost Tycoon," The New Yorker, April 23&30, 2001,
p. 151) Toni Morrison (1931 - ), author and winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature (1993) Toni Morrison graduated in 1953 with a Major in English and a Minor
in Classics from Howard University; in 1955, she received
an M.F.A. in English from Cornell University. She has published
six novels (among them Beloved, for which she won the 1988
Pulitzer Prize in Fiction), a play, and a critical study on the
role of race in the reader/writer relationship. She has taught at
several colleges and universities and worked for 15 years as senior
editor at Random House in New York City. Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), British author (Lord Peter
Wimsey mysteries) and translator (Dante's Divine Comedy),
Christian humanist. Sayers studied Latin from age six (Greek somewhat later) and maintained
a life-long love especially for medieval Latin. Her criticism
of the old-fashioned grammar translation method, as well as her
suggestions on how to reform the teaching of Latin, should be compulsory
reading for everyone who still uses Wheelock's Latin Grammar and
similar books. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), philosopher Nietzsche studied Greek and Latin at a famous college prep-school,
Landesschule Pforta, in his native Saxony (Germany). From 1864-1869,
he studied Classics in Bonn and Leipzig. In February 1869,
before he had even finished his Ph.D., he was appointed Professor
of Classics at the University of Basel in Switzerland. His first
book, "Birth of Tragedy" (1872), influenced by the philosophy
of Schopenhauer, speculates about the origins and the nature of
ancient Greek tragedy as a combination of the "Dionysian"
and "Apollonian" in the Greek soul. This book, famously
ridiculed in a review by his highschool classmate Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf,
later one of the greatest classicists of all time, destroyed Nietzsche's
career as a classicist. It started him, however, as an original
philosopher whose ideas inspired artists and writers like Rainer
Maria Rilke, Robert Musil, Gottfried Benn, Thomas Mann, and Ernst
Jünger. In addition, his philosophical ideas have had an impact
on disciplines like psychology and anthropology. Karl Marx (1818-1883), philosopher, political thinker, journalist,
and author of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
and The Capital (1867-83) Marx took several years of Greek and Latin in high school.
Photocopies of essays he wrote in these languages for his exit exams
[Abitur] in 1835 are available in the Museum
Karl-Marx-Haus in Trier (Germany), where he was born. He studied
Law, History, and Philosophy in Bonn and Berlin. In 1841, he received
his Ph.D. "in absentia" from the University of Jena for
a dissertation on ancient Greek philosophy, entitled The
Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature.
As political editor of the liberal Rheinische Zeitung in
Cologne, he fled to Paris and Brussels when this paper was banned
in 1843. During the German revolution of 1848/49, Marx returned
to Cologne, but when the democratic movement failed, he had to emigrate
permanently. He spent the rest of his life in London, where he wrote
his main work, The Capital. James A. Baker III, White House Chief of Staff and Treasure
Secretary under Pres. Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State under
Pres. George H. Bush. James Baker graduated in 1952 with a B.A. in Classics from
Princeton University. He also holds a J.D. with honors from the
University of Texas at Austin School of Law (1957). At present,
he is a senior partner in the law firm of Baker & Botts and
serves on the boards of Rice University, the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, and a number of other non-profit organizations. William S. Cohen (1940 - ), former Secretary of Defense William Cohen majored in Latin at Bowdoin College in Brunswick,
Maine and graduated cum laude in 1962. Three years later,
he earned his law degree, also cum laude, at Boston University.
One of his first jobs was as assistant editor of a magazine produced
by the American Trial Lawyers Association in Watertown. With 25,
he started his own law practice in his home town, Bangor, Maine.
First elected at age 32, he was a Republican member of the House
of Representatives between 1973 and 1979. From 1979-1997, he sat
in the Senate until he was appointed Secretary of Defense by Pres.
Clinton in 1997. He has published two books of poetry, three mystery
novels, and four other books (more
information). Jerry Brown [a.k.a. Edmund G. Brown]
(1938 - ) Jerry Brown received his B.A in Classics from the University
of California at Berkeley in 1961. He graduated from Yale Law School
in 1964. In 1974, at the age of 34, he was elected governor of California.
In 1978, he easily won a second term as governor. Since 1994, he
hosts his own radio program, "We the People." In 1999,
he became mayor of Oakland, CA. William F. "Bill" Weld William Weld graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Classics,
summa cum laude. More recently, he tried his luck as a mystery
writer (Mackerel by Moonlight, 1998), according to Mother
Jones with limited success. Carl Schurz (1829-1906) Dr. Charles M. "Chuck" Geschke, former CEO and
Co-founder of Adobe Systems After receiving an A.B. in Classics and a M.S. in Mathematics
from Xavier University, Geschke earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science
from Carnegie-Mellon University. From 1963-68, he taught Mathematics
at John Carroll University. In 1982, Dr. Geschke co-founded Adobe
Systems, Inc. together with John Warnock. He retired as Adobe's
President in 2000, but still serves as Chairman of the Board. Jim Manzi, former CEO of Lotus Development Corp. Jim Manzi received a B.A. in Classics from Colgate University.
After graduating from the Fletcher School David Karp, Fruit Detective David Karp was already fluent in Latin when he graduated from High
School. At the age of 20, while majoring in Medieval Studies
at Wesleyan University, he published a translation of the 6th-century
Latin author Venantius Fortunatus. After graduation, he started
a successful career in risk arbitrage and option trading on Wall
Street. Recovering from a serious drug addiction, however, he changed
course and started his new career as a free-lance fruit writer and
photographer for the L.A. Times. He researches exotic fruit
and uncommon varieties of common fruit both on California farmers
markets and abroad for high-end specialty stores like Dean &
DeLuca in New York, and he publishes his discoveries in regular
columns in the Los Angeles Times and Gourmet, sometimes
also in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Now one of the best known experts in his self-chosen field, he was
recently featured in a six-page article in The New Yorker
(Aug. 19&26, 2002, pp. 70-79).
q
• rich and famous
• maybe not rich, but at least famous
• a star on the political stage
• an innovative business leader
• a fruit detective
No, seriously, there are a lot of practical reasons why you should
study Classics.
Click here.
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One of Ted Turner's greatest heroes has always been Alexander
the Great, so at Brown University, he decided to major in
Classics. His choice of major made his father, who ran a billboard
advertising company, "almost puke," as he wrote in a now
famous letter to his son (reprinted in Arion 1.1 (1990) 237-39;
click on "Autolycus").
Ted Turner subsequently left college and turned his father's billboard
business into a huge media-conglomerate. In the process, he launched
CNN, the first 24-hour all-news network, founded Turner Network
Television (TNT), the Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies
(TCM), and acquired sports franchises like the Atlanta Braves. Currently,
Mr. Turner heads the Turner
Foundation, which is devoted to the protection of the environment,
the United
Nations Foundation, which in 1999 donated $28 million to help
eradicate Polio world-wide, and, together with former Senator Sam
Nunn, the Nuclear Threat
Initiative (NTI), a charitable organization working to reduce
the risk of use and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
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Lian Dolan (1966 - ) public radio talk show host
Lian Dolan is the youngest of the "Satellite Sisters", five
now grown-up sisters who decided to create a weekly radio show as
a way to reconnect and to talk about issues that they feel are important
to women. Their program, first aired in April 2000, is the fasted-growing
new program on NPR and can be heard all around the nation (in Salem
at 91.5 FM, Saturdays at 11am). Lian Dolan received her B.A. in Classics
from Pomona College (1987) and has worked as writer/producer for various
sporting goods manufacturers. The head writer for the "Satellite
Sisters" program, she also is a freelance writer whose material
has appeared in national magazines like O, The Oprah Magazine and
Good Housekeeping. She is married, has two young boys, and lives in
Portland, OR.
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"The best grounding
for education is the Latin grammar. I say this, not because Latin
is traditional and mediaeval, but simply because even a rudimentary
knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost
any other subject by at least fifty percent. It is the key to the
vocabulary and structure of all the Teutonic languages, as well as
to the technical vocabulary of all the sciences and to the literature
of the entire Mediterranean civilization, together with all its historical
documents."
(From: Dorothy Sayers, The
Lost Tools of Learning, lecture given at Oxford University in
1947)
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• a
star on the political stage:
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William Cohen about
the value of Classics:
As far as my passion for writing, I have had the benefit of a classics
education. What was called a liberal arts education which allowed
me to have a sense of history and to study the classics, so that I
might gain as much wisdom from studying the past that I might be a
better person to deal with the future. That is what I have tried to
do. To use words to help persuade one in an argument or on an issue
is not inconsistent with being Secretary of Defense. It is a great
asset to have.
(From a press
conference in Marrakech (Morocco), February 11, 2000)
former governor of California
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former governor of Massachusetts
Revolutionary Hero, Journalist, and German-American Statesman
Carl Schurz studied Latin and Greek in high school in Germany. During
his university entrance exams in 1847, he impressed his examiners
because he knew the entire 6th book of Homer's Iliad by heart. As
a student of history at Bonn University, Carl Schurz fought in the
democratic German revolution of 1848. Imprisoned in Fort Rastatt,
he escaped through a sewer and later helped his jailed mentor, Prof.
Gottfried Kinkel, escape from a Berlin prison. In 1852, he emigrated
to the United States where he became a lawyer, newspaper editor,
and influential supporter of Abraham Lincoln. A Union general in
the Civil war, Schurz became the first German-American U.S. Senator
(R, Missouri, 1869-1875) and served as Secretary of the Interior
under Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881). As interior secretary, Schurz
implemented legislation to protect forests, reformed the civil service,
and promoted better treatment for African Americans and Native Americans.
The small reservation town of Schurz, Nevada honors his name.
"I
did indeed – and unfortunately – forget a lot of the Latin
and Greek that I learned as a highschool student. But I never lost
the esthetic and moral impulses which these studies gave me, the idealistic
values, which they helped me form, the intellectual horizons which
they opened up. ... If I could choose again between classical studies
and the so-called "useful" disciplines, I would, without
a doubt, choose for myself more or less the same kind of curriculum
that I went through."
(Carl Schurz, Lebenserinnerungen I, Berlin 1906, p. 91)
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• an innovative
business leader:
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of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University with a masters in International
Economics, he became a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
In 1983, he joined Lotus to lead the start-up company's marketing
efforts. In 1984, he became its President, another year later its
Chairman and CEO. He led the company during the development of Lotus
Notes, a revolutionary software program that enabled the then-new
concept of "workgroup" computing. Since 1995, when Lotus
was sold to IBM for $3.5 billion, he has been involved in the creation
and development of numerous technology start-up ventures with his
investment company, Stonegate Capital.
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• a
fruit detective:
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For corrections or additions, please contact oknorr@willamette.edu.
