Avitus collegis optimis suís S·P·D
Dear friends, I have from a very early age strongly identified with classical civilisation. As one of the inescapable consequences of this personal disposition, I long ago adopted the Latin language as my own. This is, in a nutshell, the best description of who I am.
I have hardly any experience of the SVR at present, other than the most cursory inspection of the web site; but I very much like all I have seen so far, my interests being purely intellectual and civil, rather than political and military, which seem to be much more prominent at other modern Roman groups. I hope therefore that this will be the beginning of a very productive presence among you all.
Now, I have been teaching Latin for two full academic years at the Facultas Litterarum of the Academia Thules, of which I am now the Dean. At our faculty, we put together Language and Literature, and one of the things that strikes me most about the organisation of the SVR colleges is that here literature has been aligned with arts as varied as music or architecture, whereas languages have been relegated to a separate college branded with the hardly flattering adjective of "ancient".
I would like most seriously to ask you carefully to consider and feed me back on whether in your experience this makes enough sense, and whether this could not be at least one of the reasons for the college of languages, deprived of its natural soul and breeding ground, literature, to languish as it seems to have been recently doing according at least to the information I've received from some of the magistrates of the SVR.
I am aware that I am only a newcomer, but I think it would make much more sense to put languages and literatures together and allow them to flourish and develop together, and interact in their natural way.
Thank you ever so much for your attention.
Curate ut valeatis optime!