Last night, in San Francisco's ATampersandT park, Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's all-time home run record. Thank God that this media circus can now dissipate. The Chronicle devoted its entire front page to a huge photo of the triumphant slugger, going so far as to replace its banner with a "756!!!" logo. Classy. Lost in all the hubbub was a tiny detail that, for me, sums up the entire Bonds home run saga, and also the Giants' season this year: Giants lose to Nationals, 8-6. Is this not the epitome of the current "There's no team in me!" ethic that permeates almost all of pro-sports? I mean, yeah, great job, Barry, but it's not like y'all are going to the playoffs this year, is it now?
I mentioned below that Prof. Diane Lipsett delivered a wonderful lecture on the conversation currently taking place between New Testament scholars, family historians, social archaeologists and the like. The title of this post is actually the title of en entire semester-long course taught by Prof. Lipsett, so for our, geez, ninety minute session she condensed her focus to Men, Women, and Children in Ancient Rome. With her permission, I am posting my notes from this lecture below, tweaked a little for readability. Prof. Lipsett is interested in studies of gender formation among non-elites as well as elites, those people about whom we know much less because they did not have the resources or clout to commemorate and study themselves, generally speaking. Roman households were much broader than we conceive of in modern terms, with a wide spectrum of people connected by family and employment living under one roof (the terms domus/eikos/ikea capture this idea of an indiscriminate household
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