Amelia Dewberry-

This week’s Gustie of the Week is Professor and Chair in Classical Studies and Professor in Peace Studies and Comparative Literature, Seán Easton.

Easton first became interested in classical studies when he was growing up in remote Ireland. His father read to him from a book called Heroes of Greece and Troy. “Those stories really had free reign in my imagination. There wasn’t really other media to compete with it,” Easton explained. 

Later in school, Easton was studying Rome in a history class and the teacher would have them chant key sentences to commit to memory. “For Rome, she had us chant, ‘The Romans were a cruel and bloodthirsty people. The Romans were a cruel and bloodthirsty people. The Romans were a cruel and bloodthirsty people.’ As we chanted, I would wonder, ‘Who WERE these people?!” Easton said. From then on, he was interested in Greek and Roman history and stories. 

Easton was hired at Gustavus on a joint contract with his partner Professor in Classical Studies and Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, Yurie Hong. He stated, “It was a very good deal for us because it is so hard for two academics to get tenure track professor positions in the same area, much less the same institution.” The couple appreciated Gustavus’ focus on teaching and students, rather than intense publication expectations. He also has come to appreciate Gustavus’ shared governance structure that “allows faculty to have a role in types of decision-making that faculty often just don’t have at other types of college and university,” Easton said.

During Easton’s first year at Gustavus, he taught a course titled Reenacting Ancient Greek and Roman Rituals. Much of the ancient rituals involved animal sacrifice but since that could not be incorporated into the course, he decided to have one of the class rituals be ‘haruspicy.’ Haruspicy involves “examining animal livers to learn how good or bad the immediate future is going to be,” Easton explained. He acquired 15 pig livers from independent slaughterhouses around the state. “They took up nearly all our available freezer space for about two and half months since pig livers are quite large and, although the class was in January, I could only get them in late October,” Easton remarked.

“When I started here, the greater level of contact with [students and faculty colleagues] is what struck me most. There are more opportunities here for connection across the College generally than I ever experienced elsewhere,” Easton said. One of Easton’s colleagues Professor in Political Science, African Studies, and LALACS, and Co-director in Peace Studies, Mimi Gerstbauer, attested to this, saying “He is a committed supporter of inclusivity for all, in purposeful relations with faculty and students.  As one manifestation of this, he has often spent a lot of his working hours (and his formal office hours) at the location of the Center for Inclusive Excellence.”

Gerstbauer and Professor in Religion Casey Elledge both remarked that Easton is a deep thinker who cares heavily about seeing issues from many angles and perspectives. “Sean has helped me understand certain issues or ways I do things better and has helped me to improve.  He does so with humility and by asking good questions and testing ideas,” Gerstbauer commented. 

Junior Jaden Knutson has taken a class with Easton almost every semester, starting with his FTS Nero: Emperor, Artist, Antichrist. Knutson describes Easton as “a wealth of knowledge spanning many, many areas of study. He will bend over backward to help you understand complex grammar and to find literature for your research paper. He also has a true passion for teaching and the field of classics, which is only infectious as one of his students.”