Members of the B-Greek forum have been posting tributes in memory of Carl Conrad, the forum's long-time co-moderator, who passed away on February 20th at the age of 90:
AKMA: "Carl was a mighty man of old of the B-Greek mailing list, back when it was strictly a mailing list, and we all learned much from him — many of us about Greek, but all of us about how to conduct ourselves with grace and patience in a mixed group of international scholars, intermediate and beginning students, autodidact experts, axe-grinding non-experts, and wayfaring strangers. ... I know my colleagues all well enough; I can estimate what they might say, how they’re likely to respond to an argument. I never dared assume I could anticipate what Carl would make of my ideas, not because he was arbitrary or capricious, but because his judgement was so much more richly funded with knowledge of the texts and with the experience of worked through them and taught them so fully and carefully. I'm surrounded by great classicists here [at Oxford], all of them erudite and judicious. And I still think of Carl as my Greek-analytical conscience."
Steve Runge: "His insights regularly filled in gaps, highlighted broader patterns, or shattered ill-formed ideas (including mine), always in the name of deepening our understanding of and appreciation for ancient Greek. I came to rely on his instincts as an early sanity check or corrective for the discourse features I sought to describe. He was one of the loudest voices in my head when I wrote. ... His persistence, curiosity, attention to detail, patience, respect for those with whom he disagreed, incredible memory, and an insatiable thirst to learn indelibly shaped my understanding of what it means to be a scholar."
Randy Leedy: "The unflagging persistence with which he responded to nearly every imaginable question on B-Greek is a tribute to his dedication as a teacher. Those who did not know the forum during its heydey probably can't imagine the workload that his fully engaged participation entailed. And if you knew Carl, you know that his replies were not terse: he regularly expanded the discussion into realms that the questioner had not even been aware of but that were important for adequate perspective to understand the fullest possible answer that Carl wanted to provide. The hours required for such thoughtful interaction with such a large number of discussions must have mounted well beyond 10,000--likely double that--over the years. All free of charge, as a public service, out of his love for the language and its students."
Jonathan Robie: "Carl welcomed me graciously, answered my questions, suggested better ways to go about studying the language, and even putting me in contact with other people who could help. I never felt like he was talking down to me. He was always the consummate teacher, taking the time to understand how I was thinking about something before suggesting other ways that might be more helpful. For me, that was at least as important as his vast knowledge and deep intuitive grasp of the Greek language."
I first encountered Carl when I joined the B-Greek email list (as it was then) as a young seminary student. (I am still embarrassed by my claim to be a "Greek scholar" on a survey Carl conducted in 1997.) A short while later I came across a reference to Carl's unpublished Harvard PhD dissertation from 1964, which seemed like a long time ago, though it is now almost as long since I joined the list!
Carl's "Observations on Ancient Greek Voice" (originally posted to the list in 1997) anticipated a spate of publications on the subject by others in the early 2000's and shaped my own thinking on the topic. His enthusiasm for a living approach to learning ancient Greek served as strong validation for those of us "Little Greeks" moving in that direction.
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