Press

Lee-Chin hopes readers of “Et Cetera” come away appreciating that three millennia ago isn’t all that much separation when it comes to shared human experience.

Latin is dead. So is Ancient Greek. It is simply a fact that the typical applications of most languages just don’t extend to the classics. But despite that, there are still people who avidly study them and many of our own Boston students have some level of Latin and Greek education. Why? Well, Maia Lee-Chin can give us some excellent insight into that.

For the very first installment of this monthly BIPOC Feature series, I am deeply grateful to Maia Lee-Chin for being willing to share her journey and insights into the field.

Lee-Chin’s preliminary findings suggest that “children in low-income areas don’t have access to books, or they have access to books that are not appropriate for their reading level.” Lee-Chin also found that marginalized communities did not have teachers with experience or knowledge of those communities, many of which come from programs such as “Teach for America,” leaving educators unprepared to teach underserved communities. 

First, to open up the conference on Tuesday, April 27th, Fenwick Scholar Maia Lee-Chin shared her year-long research project, “Classics in the Classroom: Retelling the Iliad in Worcester.” This project involved Maia partnering with Recreation Worcester to implement a 6-week curriculum introducing Classics and the Iliad to Worcester youth. Previously, Maia completed a Latin-related CBL placement through her Fall 2019 CBL course, “Community Engagement and Social Responsibility.”

The Fenwick Scholar Program at Holy Cross is described as “the highest academic honor the College bestows on a student. The scholar designs and participates in a rigorous academic project over the course of the senior year.” This year’s Fenwick Scholar’s project took her out of the confines of Holy Cross and into elementary school classrooms in Worcester. On Tuesday, April 27th, Maia Lee-Chin ‘21 presented her Fenwick Scholar project, “Classics in the Classroom: Retelling the Iliad in Worcester,” and gave attendees a glimpse at how elementary school students can manage a Classics-based curriculum. 

Maia’s appreciation for classics goes back to her childhood, starting as an interest in Egyptian mythology in elementary school. After accidentally being placed in Introductory Latin her freshman year of high school, Maia grew to fall in love with the language and its intricacies. 

Prof. Ebbott said of Maia’s engagement with Homer, “No one I know reads the Iliad like Maia. She finds deep personal connection to the story of Achilles’ anger and the war at Troy while also casting an intensely critical eye on the poetry and the ways in which it has been received and taught. Through that combination, she asks questions that are startling and creative in the dual sense of being both imaginative and productive.”

If you were to think of books that students in the six-to-eight-year-old range should be reading in school, the Iliad would likely not be on your list. But Homer’s Greek epic poem is exactly what the College’s newly appointed Fenwick Scholar, Maia Lee-Chin ’21, is aiming to bring to the classrooms of Worcester this upcoming year. What’s more, the rising senior, who is also one of the College’s Bean Scholars, theorizes that there’s more to the lesson than teaching students about the Classics—she aims to understand the influence of exposure to the Classics at this formative time and its potential to catalyze students to begin reading and understanding more informational texts from a young age.

Like most people, you might consider the “Iliad” a serious and intimidating piece of classic literature—a cornerstone meant to be read in high school and studied at the university level. But Maia Lee-Chin ’21, the 2020-2021 Fenwick Scholar, would say that a high school introduction to the “Iliad” is a decade too late—and that you’re underestimating elementary school students’ ability to understand and even personally relate to the text.

“Holy Cross offers many opportunities to students that other colleges can’t — the chance to study closely with their professors as undergraduates and gain experience important to establishing themselves as scholars,” noted Maia Lee-Chin ’21 in the fall as she reflected on her upcoming year as the College’s 2020-21 Fenwick Scholar. Lee-Chin, a classics major and education minor, kicked off the conference by sharing findings from her intensive, year-long project on how young, marginalized students in Worcester engaged and interacted with ancient Greek culture, specifically Homer’s “Iliad.”

USA TODAY collects sales data from booksellers representing a variety of outlets: bookstore chains, independent bookstores, mass merchandisers, and online retailers. Using that data, we determine the 150 top-selling titles of the week. 

Nonfiction-wise, Et Cetera: An Illustrated Guide to Latin Phrases by Maia Lee-Chin, illustrated by Marta Bertello is one for the word nerds.

Et Cetera is an illustrated guide to Latin phrases like E pluribus unum and that old standby carpe diem. It’s fun, clever and the illustrations really do lodge the phrases in your brain.

Porter Square Books, which just announced it will move its store around the corner to a space in Lesley University’s University Hall, hosts a grown-up book fair at Aeronaut Brewing on Saturday, one of several it has hosted over the past few years. This iteration features a pop-up signing with author Maia Lee-Chin for the release of her book “Et Cetera: An Illustrated Guide to Latin Phrases.”

To those claiming Latin is dead, I say res ipsa loquitur — the thing speaks for itself — in children’s cartoons, Hollywood cartoons and enduring epics. As a fan of both Mr. Peabody and the Muses, the idea of combining Maia Lee-Chin’s thoughtful scholarship and Marta Bertello’s dynamic artistry is captivating. Their new book reimagines the world of Latin’s invention and tops my summer reading list. (Aug. 27) — Marcela Davison Avilés

Thanks to Shannon Whiteley, our special guest host this week!

Books and Bingos is hosted by

@RachaelFryman⁠ and @thenextgenlibrarian ⁠

Maia Lee-Chin, whose book, Et Cetera: An Illustrated Guide to Latin Phrases (Andrews McMeel), was published last year, got more out of Latin class than I did.

But she admits it didn’t just happen. “I was forced to enroll in Latin. I considered dropping the course several times, especially while translating Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico. I couldn’t understand his long-winded explanations of wartime strategies, and I had no love for Roman history,” wrote Lee-Chin.

“Something changed when I first translated the Aeneid from Latin to English. I was struck by the kinship I felt for Aeneas,” she said.

Lee-Chin, a 2021 graduate of Holy Cross College, outside Boston, was the first Black woman to be named a Fenwick Scholar, the school’s highest academic honor.

I wish I had known a girl like Maia when I was taking Latin classes all those years ago. But then I was introduced to the subject at Boston Latin School (where I spent the seventh grade), at a time when only male students attended.

Lee-Chin’s book, beautifully illustrated by Italian artist Marta Bertello, takes 50 Latin phrases, translates them, and then provides a brief backstory (usually just a few paragraphs) to give a taste of Roman history and a glimpse at the life that flourished behind those turgid phrases.

Take omnia vincit amor, for example.  “Love conquers all” isn’t a line from a 60s song but from one of Vergil’s poems “that paints an idyllic portrait of rural life in the Roman countryside,” noted Lee-Chin.

“It is not the rallying cry modern readers imagine, she stated. It’s a warning from a poet (Gallus) on his deathbed: “We cannot defeat love, and so nos cedamus–let us yield to it.” 

“Pining over the mistress while she pursues another, (Gallus) embodies the servitium amoris–‘the enslavement of love’ and his dying words admit his defeat,” Lee-Chin said.

We never got stories like that when I was in Latin class.

Another thing, Vergil is supposed to have written just one line of poetry a day. He compiled 10 poems but that output was dwarfed by the 24 books that Homer produced, said Lee-Chin, stating her love for Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey.  

“Holy Cross offers many opportunities to students that other colleges can’t — the chance to study closely with their professors as undergraduates and gain experience important to establishing themselves as scholars,” noted Maia Lee-Chin ’21 in the fall as she reflected on her upcoming year as the College’s 2020-21 Fenwick Scholar. Lee-Chin, a classics major and education minor, kicked off the conference by sharing findings from her intensive, year-long project on how young, marginalized students in Worcester engaged and interacted with ancient Greek culture, specifically Homer’s “Iliad.”

Maia Lee-Chin ’21 felt Gay’s presence on campus was important.

“I can feel really discouraged, as a woman of color, and hearing Roxane talk about navigating spaces where she didn’t feel welcome but she made a place for herself was really inspiring for me and important for me to hear.”

Meeting on Friday afternoons, the club is comprised of students of all class years and disciplines, the only requirement being having a passion for ancient texts and manuscripts. First-year student and classics major Maia Lee-Chin ’21 knew very little Greek when she began helping transcribe “The Iliad.”

“Once you figure it out, you get so excited and you want to be there every Friday. When we started Book Two of ‘The Iliad,’ I could read the title of the chapter. It helped me realize and appreciate all of the hard work we had spent hours doing.”