Melissa Marturano, known by many as Doctrix Marturano, is one of the two Latin teachers at BHSECQ. Her interest in Latin started when she was required to learn Latin in catholic school, which she attended from the age of three all through high school. She excelled in it and especially enjoyed it when they read Latin literature in class. Though she said she “originally intended to become a lawyer”, her interest in the language of Latin and Latin classics grew at Boston University where she attended for her undergrad, as well as her interest in ancient Greek which she started to learn in her sophomore year of college.. For Graduate school, she attended CUNY graduate center where she went on to do archeological programs abroad in places like Italy and Greece, and graduated with a PhD in Ancient Greek and Latin Philology.
While she says, “I’d rather not work at all”, if she had to work she says, “I would rather do something that feels intellectually stimulating… to me, the study of Latin is” She sees Latin not only as a language but, “as a way to communicate with history”. In the college program, her class explores this means of communication with readings of Ovid, the bible, and other texts from the past. Lately, she has been moving away from exploring Roman Latin to medieval and renaissance Latin, which brings more texts in Latin written by women, which offers a unique perspective on this time period. “We often don’t have a lot of artifacts of Latin by women, particularly from the Roman period. But in the medieval and renaissance I’m able to communicate with scholarly women in the past”.
One of the most common perceptions of the language of Latin is that it’s a dead language, making it something not worth learning. To this, Dr. Marturano says “There are elements that make Latin a dead language. For example, it’s no longer anyone’s native tongue. But people in the Latin-speaking community, of which I consider myself a part, see Latin as an avenue to communicate with the past, and if I can read Latin and speak it really well I can read historical texts before they are translated”. Through Latin we are able to examine ourselves through the lens of the past, and according to Dr. Marturano, the Roman Empire influenced more of our present history than you might think. “The Romans became a way to justify inequality. The American founding fathers turned to the Romans to say ‘Oh look we can have a democratically leaning republic and still have slavery’’’. She’s also done research lately on how Roman authors such as Ovid are being used as a way for men’s rights activist communities to justify misogyny. She explains that “we can’t really rectify contemporary social, political and economic injustices without going back to that particular strain of history…it’s often hard for us to analyze ourselves so when we see it through the Romans it’s very clarifying”.
Outside of her job and the world of classics, Dr. Marturano is an avid bird watcher, cinema viewer, reader, activist, and guitar and piano player. Every year she also chooses a song to translate in Latin and plays it for her students. While she has never played a video game, she enjoys playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and other board games. Dr. Marturano is incredibly dedicated to learning and reading as much as she can in her life, whether it’s in her job teaching Latin at BHSECQ, or in her hobbies outside of her job that are just as intellectually stimulating.