Robert Gurval

 

 

Robert Gurval is Associate Professor Emeritus in the UCLA Department of Classics. His area of research and teaching concerns ancient Rome and the legacy of its empire in popular culture and cinema. Gurval's publications focus on politics, literature and architecture in the age of Rome's first emperor, Caesar Augustus. Cleopatra and her reception in western culture is a special interest. He earned his degrees in Classics at Brown University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of California, Berkeley. Gurval has taught at UCLA since 1990 where he has served as Chair of the Department of Classics and Chair of the faculty committees on the Honors College, General Education Governance, and Undergraduate Honors, Awards and Prizes. He received the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award known as the Eby Award for the Art of Teaching and the Excellence in Teaching Award for university professors by the Society for Classical Studies. Among his academic honors, he was a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome and a Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong for General Education. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEATH BECOMES HER: THE SUICIDE OF CLEOPATRA IN LITERATURE AND ART

The suicide of Cleopatra has bequeathed to western culture one of the most famous and memorable death scenes in literature, drama and the visual arts of painting, sculpture and film. The traditional story derives chiefly from the rich narrative of Plutarch’s biography of Mark Antony. Its action is driven by multiple themes of deception, deliberation, and death. The climactic moment, of course, is the bite of the asp. Surveying the literary and visual representations of Cleopatra’s dramatic death, from Horace’s celebrated Cleopatra Ode to the HBO cable network series Rome, this lecture will explore the potent symbolism of the suicide in classical antiquity and subsequent eras. It will try to answer the question whether her final act of dying by the serpent’s bite redeems Cleopatra and death becomes her.

 

 

UCLA - DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS

 

Robert Gurval is Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Classics. He was Chair of the Department for six years (2000-05; 2013-14). He is most proud of his university service as Director of the Mellon Program in Post-Classical Latin (2014-17); Chair of the GE Governance Committee (2007-10); Chair of College Honors Faculty Advisory Committee (2009-10; 2011-13); and Chair of Undergraduate Student Support, Honors, & Prizes (1999-2002).

His major publication is Actium and Augustus: The Politics and Emotions of Civil War (University of Michigan, 1996). His interests include Latin literature, ancient biography, Roman numismatics, Cleopatra, and especially the reception of Classics in American popular culture. Most recently, he has become very interested in the early history and architecture of UCLA. Since 2018, he has taught a Fiat Lux seminar that offers a walking tour of the first 40 years of the Westwood campus.

His favorite courses have been Discovering the Romans (Classics 20), Ancient Lives: The Art of Biography (Classics 137), The Female in Roman Thought and Culture (Classics 150B), and Representing Cleopatra (Honors Collegium 5). Since 2008, he led the UCLA Summer Travel Study Abroad Program in Rome. And he is hoping to teach it again in July 2021, if conditions allow. In Fall 2020, he is teaching the Fiat Lux seminar, Ancient Rome and the Monuments of Washington, D.C.

His two best cities in the world are Rome and Hong Kong. He was a Rome Prize Fellow in 1996-97, and he tries to return to the Eternal City as often as he can, whether to teach or be a tourist. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Chinese University Hong Kong in 2010-11. As a Fulbright, he was a participant in a four-year, 20-person team effort to assist in building a program of General Education as the eight public universities of Hong Kong prepared to shift from a three to four-year system of undergraduate education in Fall 2012. At Chinese University of Hong Kong he taught a pilot of the foundation course, In Dialogue with Humanity. Since his Fulbright year, he has been actively engaged in promoting the teaching Classics in China and has given public lectures on General Education and Classics, especially on Cleopatra and Hollywood films on Ancient Rome, in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau. He has also taught seminars on Roman history topics at Fudan University, Shanghai Normal University, Beijing Normal University, and most recently Sun Yat-Sen University, Boya College, Guangzhou.

He was also co-Principal Investigator of a series of workshops held at UCLA and Hong Kong on comparative approaches to the study of religion in 2014-16. In May 2015, he co-organized at UCLA the workshop, Empire and the Media of Religion: A Workshop on Comparative Approaches to the Study of Religion in the Greco-Roman Imperial Era and Early China.

He welcomes questions from Chinese mainland students interested in studying Classics in the U.S.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Gurval, is an associate professor of classics in the UCLA College in Los Angeles, California. His interests include Latin literature, ancient biography, Roman numismatics, and the reception of Classics in popular culture. His current project examines the construction of Cleopatra as a myth and image from antiquity to the 21st century.

 

 

 

EDUCATION

- University of California, Berkeley | Ph.D. Classics (1988)
- University of California, Santa Barbara | M.A. Classics (1982)
- Brown University | A.B. Classics (1980) magna cum laude
- Washington & Lee University (1976-78)


HONORS, AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS

- University of California, Los Angeles | Eugen Weber Honors Collegium Faculty Award, 2019
- Fulbright Scholarship | Hong Kong General Education, 2010-11
- American Philological Association | Excellence in Teaching Award, 2006
- University of California, Los Angeles | Distinguished Teaching Award, 2006 | Eby Award for the Art of Teaching
- University of California, San Diego | Distinguished Undergraduate Mentor, 2005
- University of California, Los Angeles | Distinguished Advisor | Regents Scholars Society, 1999-02
- University of California, Los Angeles | Teaching Award, Honors Program, 2000
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor | Outstanding Reader’s Report Award, 2000
- American Academy in Rome | Rome Prize, School of Classical Studies, 1996-97
- Golden Key National Honor Society| Honorary Member, 1993
- University of California, Berkeley | Chancellor’s Fellowship, 1987-88
- University of California, Berkeley | Regents Scholarship, 1982-83
- University of California, Santa Barbara | Regents Scholarship, 1980-81
- American Numismatic Society | Graduate Seminar Fellowship, 1986


COURSES

UCLA - Undergraduate Courses | Classical Civilization

- Discovering the Romans, Classics 20 General Education Lecture course
- Reading Latin Literature, Classics 41 General Education Lecture course
- Cinema and the Ancient World, Classics 42 General Education Lecture course
- The Hollywood Myth of the Gladiator, Classics 42 (six-week summer course)
- HBO Rome, Classics 89 Honors Seminar
- Ancient Empires: Rome and China, Classics 89 Honors seminar
- Ancient Epic, Classics 142 Lecture course
- Ancient Lives: The Art of Biography, Classics 137 (formerly 144) Lecture course
- The Female in Roman Thought and Culture, Classics 150B Lecture course
- America and Rome: Politics / Culture / Art, Classics 191 Capstone Seminar
- Hadrian: The Enigmatic Emperor, Classics 191 Capstone Seminar
- The Age of Nero: Politics, Literature, and Society, Classics 197 Departmental Seminar
- Re-Discovering Pompeii, Classics 19, Classics 87GE, Classics 197 Fiat Lux (freshman), Honors Departmental Seminar
- Representing Cleopatra: History, Literature, and Film, Classics 19, Honors 5 Fiat Lux (freshman) Seminar, Honors Seminar
- UCLA Centennial: The Architecture of Westwood, Classics 19 Fiat Lux (freshman) Seminar
- UCLA 1919: The First Professors, Classics 19 Fiat Lux (freshman) Seminar
- Ancient Rome and the Monuments of Washington, D.C., Classics 19 Fiat Lux (freshman) Seminar
- The Affairs of Caesar: Sex and Politics in Ancient Rome, Classics 19 Fiat Lux (freshman) Seminar
- Exploring Ancient Rome, Classics 19 Fiat Lux (freshman) Seminar
- Film and Society: Hollywood Myth, Honors 34 Male Identity & Sexuality in Ancient Rome, Honors 43 Honors Seminar

 

 

CONTACT ROBERT

 

E-mail: gurval@humnet.ucla.edu 

 

Office: Dodd Hall 247K

The Department of Classics is part of the Humanities Division within UCLA College. 

Dodd 100 | Los Angeles, CA 90095-1417 | P: (310) 825-4171 | F: (310) 206-1903 

 

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/dept/faculty/classics-professor-receives-teaching-award
https://classics.ucla.edu/person/robert-gurval/

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/dept/faculty/classics-professor-receives-teaching-award
https://classics.ucla.edu/person/robert-gurval/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cleopatra's suicide was a final act of defiance against Rome and Octavian, a symbolic gesture that has survived the sands of time, made all the more potent by the bite from a poison asp, as the means of departure. A major blow to the PR intended by the Emperor's conquest of Egypt and vanquishing of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium.

 

Cleopatra VII (69–30 bce), “Thea Philopator” (“father-loving goddess”), “Thea Neotera” (“the younger goddess”), and Philopatris (“loving her country”), ruler of Egypt (52–30 bce), as well as of Cyprus (47–30 bce), Libya, and Coele-Syria (37–30 bce), the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of the Ptolemies and the best known of all the Cleopatras, was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos (“the new Dionysos”), nicknamed Auletes (“flute-player”), and of his sister Cleopatra VI Tryphaina, or possibly of an Egyptian noblewoman. She ruled first as co-regent with her father (52–51 bce), then jointly with her younger brother Ptolemy XIII, with the Roman people as guardian as requested in Ptolemy XII’s will. She ruled alone in 51/50 bce until she was exiled by her brother (50/49–48 bce) and re-established by Julius Caesar as joint ruler with Ptolemy XIII, then with her younger brother Ptolemy XIV (48–44 bce). After his death, she ruled jointly with Ptolemy XV Caesar, her son by Caesar.

Cleopatra expanded the Ptolemaic empire through her political alliance and relationship with the triumvir Mark Antony, with whom she had twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene (born 40 bce), and Ptolemy Philadelphus (born 36 bce). The territories Mark Antony bestowed upon her led the triumvir Octavian to declare war against Cleopatra. He defeated the army Mark Antony and the queen had mobilized at Actium in 31 bce and annexed Egypt after they committed suicide in 30 bce. The life and legacy of Cleopatra have inspired authors and artists across time, from Egyptian representations to Roman authors, the latter generally constructing a negative image of the queen, and from Boccaccio and Shakespeare to paintings, sculptures, and 20th- and 21st-century movies.