Despite some long standing prejudice against it, Greek tragedy really is fun, at least according to Dr. Mark Damen.

"Modern people usually want to put Greek tragedy in a comfortable box — too bad," he said. "Greek tragedy is fun and funny, it grabs your attention and if you sit and think about it, it's supposed to rock your boat."

Learning early on in life that "older is better" (an only child, Damen said he couldn't wait to be a part of the adult world that surrounded him), Damen said he hopes to pass on "the torch of humanity."

"Every single day we do something no one has done before by remembering more history than any being ever before," he said. "That's magic I just can't turn away from."

Ancient people liked the same things we do, Damen says, and studying what little remains of their literature allows us "to touch the mind of someone who lived 2,000 years ago."

Focusing on some of the lesser and more "counterculture" works of the Classical period, Damen said he hopes to awake an excitement and love for learning within his students.

"How else do you express love except to share it as people shared it with you?" he said. "Teaching is one of the most wonderful ways of human communication."

Passionate about both theatre and history, some of the most wonderful experiences he has had as an educator have been helping students work on original scripts, he said.

And college, Damen said, is a time for students to really learn what they're made of, and his goal is to provide a classroom experience that tests those limits.

"Students should go through one traumatic event: a paper they had to get done or a place where there was only one way out," he said. "Where there were mires of things you feared or detested and you got through. That's important -- to know that you can survive really scary things, that you are able to face challenges."

-- PHOTO BY JOSH J. RUSSELL; TEXT BY BROOKE NELSON