TWO IN MEMORIAM NOTICES

From: Alison Barclay and Alison Keith

IN MEMORIAM FREDERICK ELLIOT WINTER

Professor Frederick E. Winter died Saturday evening, September 17, from complications following successful heart surgery. He was just a few weeks short of his eighty-ninth birthday.

Professor Winter wrote his doctoral dissertation on Greek Fortifications (1957) in the Department of Art and Archaeology at the University of Toronto under the direction of Professor J.W. Graham, but his committee was composed largely of members of the Classics department (and included Professors Gilbert Bagnani, W.P. Wallace, and Mary H. White). For many years he held a tenured position in the Department of Art and Archaeology (latterly Art History) at the University of Toronto, and early in his career he also taught in the Departments of Classics at University and Trinity Colleges. Although retired for many years, he continued to be actively involved in service on the Board of the Canadian Institute in Greece.

The funeral will take place on Saturday, September 24, and a memorial service will be organized at the University of Toronto sometime in the future, date to be determined. The Toronto Star obituary is available by following this link.





From: John Porter

IN MEMORIAM NIALL McCLOSKEY

Dr. Niall McCloskey was born in Dublin, Ireland on May 19th, 1939.

He graduated with a B.A. in Classics from University College, National University of Ireland in 1959 and received his M.A. from the same institution in 1961, specializing in Plotinus.

Niall began his teaching career in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he taught as a lecturer in Classics from 1965 to 1967. In the Fall of 1967 he moved to Canada to join the then Department of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, where he was to teach for the next forty years, until his retirement in June 2006, and, for 12 of those years (1982-1994), served as chair of the Department of Classics. While chair, he was responsible for helping Classics make the transition from the more narrowly philological model of instruction that had reigned in the 1960s and earlier, to the more broad-based pedagogical approach that informs the teaching of Classics today.

Niall’s area of specialization was later Greek philosophy, particularly the Neo-Platonists, and the Greek intellectual tradition. While his record of publication was slender, he had a profound impact on generations of students at the U of S. Those who have taken his popular course in Paganism and Christianity, or his equally popular courses in Greek and Roman Civilization, repeatedly cite both his passion and eloquence, but also his learning and humanity. In his language courses he trained a number of now established Classicists, and others who have proceeded to careers in Religious Studies and the ministry. And no one who knew Niall could be unaware of his passionate interest in the language and literature of his homeland.

Niall passed away in Wadena, Saskatchewan on July 6th, 2011.