Honors Convocation: Jackson Bryce

The Honors Convocation is held each year on the last Friday of spring term to recognize faculty and students for their accomplishments and their service to the community. This year’s address will be delivered by Jackson Bryce, the Marjorie Crabb Garbisch Professor of Classical Languages and the Liberal Arts, and Senior Lecturer in Bassoon and Chamber Music. Bryce received his A.B. from the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., and his A.M. and Ph.D. in Classics from Harvard University. He studied with Kenneth Pasmanick, principal bassoonist of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. He was a founding member of the Washington Camerata, a chamber orchestra devoted to the performance of new music, a member of the National Capital Woodwind Quintet, in residence at American University, and performed in Washington and on tour in the mid-Atlantic states. As a recitalist, soloist, and chamber and orchestral player, he has performed in Washington, Boston, the Twin Cities, and southern Minnesota. As a professor of Classics, his particular interests are in Roman literature and history, especially of the Christian era. His research specialty is the Roman rhetorician Lactantius, who wrote works about Christianity in a splendid classical style based on Cicero, and a fascinating poem about the Phoenix myth which combines classical with Christian references. He has assembled a complete bibliography of Lactantius, conceived and designed as a web resource, the first such on the web in the field of classics.