BRIEF PROGRAM BIOS, NOV 14BRIEF PROGRAM BIOS Shadi Bartsch is the Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor of Classics and Director of the Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge at the University of Chicago. She has authored and edited some 12 books on antiquity, and is currently writing on the Chinese reception of the Greco-Roman classics. Her translation of Vergil’s Aeneid is forthcoming from Random House in 2020. Bartsch has been a Guggenheim fellow, edits the journal KNOW, and has held visiting scholar positions in St. Andrews, Taipei, and Rome. Vasileia Vaxevani has been a professional storyteller since 2008. She has done Classical Studies in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. After her studies she came across the art of storytelling and has studied in the Storytelling School of the Center for the Study of Dissemination of Myths and Folktales. She is one third of the storytelling group Talemaidens. Since 2010 she is working with Comicdom Press. She co-ordinates and facilitates educational comics workshops at the Athens Comics Library. She is a facilitator for Baytna Hub, a program of early learning and psychosocial support for young refugee children and their parents created by Refugee Trauma Initiative. Rebecca Futo Kennedy is an Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, and Environmental Studies at Denison University and is Director of the Denison Museum. Her research and publications focus on issues of identity in antiquity, primarily focusing on race, ethnicity, gender, and class. She has also published on Athenian tragedy, specifically Aeschylus, and on the reception of ancient theories of identity in modern scientific racism and its popularizations. Warrior Bards is funded by a University of Southern California Arts in Action grant, and in collaboration with the Los Angeles Veterans Collaborative, the Warrior Bards project gives approximately twenty veterans the opportunity to study selected Greek dramas, discuss them in light of their own experiences, and respond to their discoveries by creating their own public theatre and/or film performances. https://soundcloud.com/ampersandla/warrior-bards-military-vets-rework-ancient-greek-dramas Also see the Warrior Bards site: https://www.warriorbards.org/about-us William G. Thalmann Chair | Professor of Classics & Comparative Literature :University of Southern California Department of Classics. Professor Thalmann's special interests are Greek epic and drama. In particular, using anthropological and other theories, he studies the ways in which performances of ancient texts were the occasion for the convergence of class and gender discourses and the role of these texts within contemporary social and political processes, especially at times of great social change. Olga Faccani is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her current research focuses on Greek drama, storytelling, and affective bonds on stage. At UC Santa Barbara, she was Teaching Fellow for a correspondence course for incarcerated students at North Kern State Prison, and she is co-author of “Teaching Ovid in Prison: An Experiential Analysis” for the forthcoming Routledge volume Teaching Classics in Prison. For the past two years, she has collaborated with The Odyssey Project, a theater process between youth from a juvenile detention facility in Ventura county and UC undergraduate students. Michael Morgan is a Studio Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and head of Voice & Speech and Theater & Community. He has over two decades of experience in teaching, performance making, writing, acting, and directing. Dr. Morgan has performed at a variety of theaters and he taught for various Universities, including Penn State University, Yale University, Theatre Conservatorium in Brussels, and Shanghai Theatre Academy. He is the creator of The Odyssey Project, a theater program that brings together University students and incarcerated youth. Recently, he has also originated and facilitated The Going Home Project with youth experiencing homelessness. His publications include “A Poetics of Performance Liberation: A Conversation with Michael Morgan about The Odyssey Project” for the forthcoming Routledge volume Teaching Classics in Prison.