By Mara Miller

This spring, a few hundred Haverford seniors will set out on the most daunting assignment of their college careers—the senior thesis. Some will spend days (and nights) in labs in the Integrated Natural Science Center, while others might be found buried under an avalanche of texts in Magill. Classics major Cassie Gafford HC’09 falls into the second group but is so excited about her topic that even such an avalanche would probably prove enjoyable.

Gafford’s thesis, in fact, deals with natural disasters, though not the library-book variety. She is studying earthquakes during the Second Sophistic period, which lasted from 75 C.E. until 225 C.E. According to Gafford, this was a time when Greece was under Roman rule, but Greek thought was still highly regarded in Rome. “I’m investigating how authors of this period responded to the natural world,” she says, “specifically in the form of earthquakes.”

The questions Gafford must ask in her research relate not only to literature but to religion, science, and culture as a whole. “Were natural catastrophes seen as punishment from the gods, random natural occurrences, or omens?” she wonders. “I want to know what Greeks and Romans wrote about the destructive, unforeseen shaking of the ground.”

The independent research afforded by the thesis experience has been a culmination of undergraduate work in classics for Gafford. “I have taken many classes on Greek and Roman culture and art, as well as two years of Ancient Greek,” she says. Now, she gets to use her background in the pursuit of a topic she finds fascinating.

Gafford, who came to Haverford knowing she would eventually become a dentist, knows that ancient earthquakes do not exactly correlate with her future plans. “I decided to major in a non-science field to take advantage of my liberal arts education,” she explains. She was drawn to classics by a childhood fascination with mythology and had the chance to spend a semester in Athens last year. Gafford will complete her major and thesis in addition to all the core science requirements before heading to dental school next fall. “My thesis has no connection to my future career, but it’s still interesting to me and I’m happy to be studying it,” she says.

As for her research, Gafford has been relishing the opportunity to use the Thesaurus Linguae Graeciae, an online compendium of extant Greek literature. “I entered the Greek word for earthquake, seismos, and within ten seconds all the occurrences of the word in ancient Greek texts popped up on the screen,” she explains. From there, Gafford pinpointed the most prolific and important writers and honed in on their work for careful reading. She adds, “Let’s just say it’s nice to have my own carrel in the library.”

Gafford’s thesis advisor, Professor Bret Mulligan, also emphasizes the independent nature of classics projects. “This is standard in our department,” he says. Since the advisors are rarely experts in the specific topic of a student’s thesis, their role is “not to provide the answer, but to subject the evolving thesis to rigorous criticism,” as Mulligan puts it. “Working on theses outside my area of expertise [like Cassie’s] does present certain challenges, but the opportunity to learn about topics about which I had only a general acquaintance is a nice side-benefit of being an advisor.”

In addition to Mulligan’s constructive criticism, Gafford credits her Senior Seminar experience with helping to develop her writing skills in preparation for the thesis. The seminar, comprised of all senior majors at both Haverford and Bryn Mawr, explores the history of literary criticism in the field of Classics. Students read primary and secondary texts with the aim of “evaluating the subjectivity and accuracy of an author’s work,” as Gafford explains. In addition to enhancing her writing skills, this experience has also helped Gafford to identify useful sources. When all is said and done, these writing skills and sources will result in Gafford holding a 40-page masterpiece in her hands.

Though Gafford sometimes envies the structured setup of science thesis projects, she enjoys the chance to work more independently. “All of my chem and bio friends are spending 10 to 20 hours in lab each week and often producing results they can write about for their thesis,” she says, “But then again, it’s all about the way you like to work.”

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