Carl Rubino, the Winslow Professor of Classics, gave talks at the Rome and Utica campuses of Mohawk Valley Community College on Feb. 27 and 28. The talks, titled “Getting in Touch with the Force: Star Wars and the Ancient World,” were featured in MVCC's Spring Cultural Series as part of the college's Diversity and Global View Initiative, which is aimed at increasing student awareness of different cultures and the interconnectedness of technology, ecology, the economy, sociopolitical issues and health.
Rubino, who has published and lectured on the connections between classics and the Star Wars films, appeared on the History Channel in the 2007 LucasFilm documentary Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed.
On Feb. 21 Rubino was scheduled to chair a panel and give a paper at the annual meeting of the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but he cancelled his trip in order to attend the memorial service for Patsy Couper. In his absence, his paper, titled “Rome Outside the Beltway: Gladiator, Spartacus and The History Of ‘Roman Films’ In America,” was read by one of his colleagues.
