In Memoriam
Ann Bergren
Professor Emerita of Classics
UC Los Angeles
1942-2018
The Department of Classics sadly announces the passing of Professor Emerita Ann L.T. Bergren. Ann died suddenly at her home in Venice on May 10, 2018. She is survived by her son and his wife, Taylor Bergren-Chrisman and Erin O’Connor, and grandchildren Foxberg and Otto Chrisman.
Ann was a member of the UCLA Classics Department since 1979, and the first woman tenured in the department. Her groundbreaking scholarship in Classics is well known, best represented by the collection of her essays spanning two decades, published by Harvard University Press in 2008, Weaving Truth. Essays on Language and the Female in Greek Thought. She earned a Master of Architecture I at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University in 1999. She was a frequent teacher in the summer program at B.A.S.E. (Beijing Architectural Studio Enterprise) in the Caochangdi District, Beijing. At the invitation of the Pritzker Award-winning architect Wang Shu, Ann recently gave a series of lectures on her project on the Liu Garden in Suzhou at the prestigious China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China.
At UCLA Ann’s remarkable Classics work in the classroom won her in 1988 the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as the Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Classics of the American Philological Association. She also taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and, eventually, began to teach a wholly original course on contemporary architecture in L.A. to eager students in the UCLA Honors Collegium.
Ann was, in teaching, scholarship and friendship, extraordinary. She will be missed by all who knew her.
Robert Gurval and David Blank
Ann was a member of the UCLA Classics Department since 1979, and the first woman tenured in the department. Her groundbreaking scholarship in Classics is well known, best represented by the collection of her essays spanning two decades, published by Harvard University Press in 2008, Weaving Truth. Essays on Language and the Female in Greek Thought. She earned a Master of Architecture I at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University in 1999. She was a frequent teacher in the summer program at B.A.S.E. (Beijing Architectural Studio Enterprise) in the Caochangdi District, Beijing. At the invitation of the Pritzker Award-winning architect Wang Shu, Ann recently gave a series of lectures on her project on the Liu Garden in Suzhou at the prestigious China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China.
At UCLA Ann’s remarkable Classics work in the classroom won her in 1988 the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as the Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Classics of the American Philological Association. She also taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and, eventually, began to teach a wholly original course on contemporary architecture in L.A. to eager students in the UCLA Honors Collegium.
Ann was, in teaching, scholarship and friendship, extraordinary. She will be missed by all who knew her.
Robert Gurval and David Blank
