Reading’s Department of Classics and our Centre for Hellenic Studies are delighted to sponsor the Interdisciplinary, International Conference on Contemporary Greek Cinema, 5-6 of July 2013, at the Hellenic Centre, London.
Details of the conference programme and further information can be found here:
http://contemporarygreekcinema2013.wordpress.com
Online registration closes on the 4th July.
If you had to miss it, or if you would like to relive Prof. Robin Osborne’s Presidential Address to the 2013 Classical Association Conference, ‘Filling the Gaps’, you can now do so on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vif83nWB9-k
If you had to miss it, or if you would like to relive Prof. Charlotte Roueché’s powerful lecture ‘Back to the Future? Rediscovering Classics in a Digital World’, you can now do so on YouTube. The lecture was delivered on occasion of the 2013 Classical Association conference at the University of Reading:
Invitation to the University of Reading, Classics Doctoral Research Colloquium
Wednesday 19th June 2013, Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology
All welcome
Session 1: Greek Drama
Chair: Alastair Harden
10.30 Elena Chepel: Processions in Old Comedy
11.00 Kate Cook: Heroic identity and the use of praise in Euripides’ Heracles
11.30 Coffee break
Session 2: Greek literature and art
Chair: Kate Cook
12.00 Niki Karapanagioti: Women, Space and Revenge in Herodotus’ Histories
12.30 Alastair Harden: Skins and symbols: some iconographical case-studies
1.00 Lunch (HumSS G40, Department Library)
Session 3: Latin literature and Roman history
Chair: Niki Karapanagioti
2.00 Maria Lloyd: The influence of Julia Domna upon Septimus Severus
2.30 Orazio Camaioni: The first fragment of Varro’s Antiquitates Rerum Humanarum
3.00 Mick Stringer: Flog it! Flog what? Sales recognition in Roman agricultural treatises
3.30 Coffee break
Session 4: Workshop
4.00 Timothy Duff – Peter Kruschwitz: Academic job interviews in Classics
Dr Matthew Nicholls reflects on the use of digital modelling in the Classics Curriculum on the University’s Teaching and Learning blog:
1. Dr Nicholls, you are particularly interested in the digital modelling of ancient buildings and places, especially the city of Rome, and you are currently talking to Cambridge University Press about a book and related digital / app publications as well as showcasing your work at the up-coming Higher Education Academy Storyville Conference. Why did you and the Department of Classics decide to launch the new Part Three module ‘Digital Silchester’ (CL3SIL) this academic year?
There were a number of reasons that we decided to do this. When I first arrived at the University of Reading I began to interest students in the results of my own digital modelling work through undergraduate and postgraduate modules on the city of Rome. It soon became apparent that students really wanted to engage with digital modelling and once they knew about my research interests I was frequently asked if I needed any help with projects. I have found that digital modelling is something that undergraduate students can pick up quickly and I really wanted to get them to participate in seminars, not just as consumers but as producers of their own material. I have also over the years had a number of UROP students working on digital modelling. When I saw that these students were able to pick up the necessary software and research skills well, I decided to run ‘Digital Silchester’. Students are increasingly comfortable with digital technology and virtual worlds, and they enjoy the idea of engaging with something visual, which means the module has attracted a large amount of interest. ‘Digital Silchester’ has been funded by CDoTL as part of my University Teaching and Learning Fellowship, and I am very grateful to them for awarding me a University of Reading Teaching and Learning Development Fund grant.
2. The module ‘Digital Silchester’ is taught using a mixture of fortnightly master-class sessions as well as more academic lectures/ seminars on the history of Roman Silchester and its excavations. Tell me about the academic content of the module. What are the aims of the module and what are students expected to do to fulfil its requirements?
The academic content consists of lectures about Roman Britain and Roman urbanisation in order to locate the archaeological remains at Silchester within a wider historical context. We also look at the history and the excavation of the site itself. To help with this the University of Reading library kindly digitised the entire series of excavation reports from the Society of Antiquaries dating back to the nineteenth century. Since digital reconstruction is such a new area of expertise there is a rapidly expanding bibliography on the subject. Students are asked to think about the reasons for making digital models, why different approaches are possible, and what are the principles, aims and methods of archaeological re-construction. In order to fulfil the requirements of the module students have to complete two assessments. At the end of the Autumn Term the students are asked to make a small digital model of a building from ancient Silchester. I choose the building for this model – this year it was a possible early church – and they produce a written commentary justifying all the choices they have made in constructing their model in terms of structure, use of materials, etc. This task also allows them to get up to speed with using the appropriate software and is worth twenty percent of the module mark. Then in the Spring Term the students can choose any building from Silchester to work on. Again they make a model and write a commentary on it and this part of the course is worth eighty percent of their final mark. When I assess their work I don’t necessarily look for photo-realism but also for understanding of how re-construction can highlight important points about a building’s history and use. Unlike some undergraduate modules, ‘Digital Silchester’ allows students to be creative rather than just learning to synthesise information, while the written component of the module encourages students to be really reflective. I have found that this combination works well and allows students with visual or creative flair to put that to work in an academic context.
3. ‘Digital Silchester’ is current and up-and-running from this academic year. Tell me about student interest in the module, what the uptake has been like and how you aim to ensure student interest in the future.
I have had a full quota of around 25 students for ‘Digital Silchester’ this year and I am expecting a full uptake next year. Students like the module because it is new and different and I have had very good feedback, not just from Student Evaluation Forms but just generally from talking to them about the course. In fact they have now started chatting about it on the Department of Classics’ Facebook page! Students have also identified to me where aspects of the module might be improved in the future. A lot of students who are interested in Archaeology take the module – currently about half of the students are from the Classics department and half are doing a joint Ancient History and Archaeology degree. ‘Digital Silchester’ is also starting to have the knock-on effect of encouraging students to use digital modelling in other contexts, like their third-year dissertations. The Department of Classics is keen to promote it at Open Days, at module briefings and at the annual Module Fair, although it is a module that really sells itself!
4. ‘Digital Silchester’ is studied over two terms (Autumn and Spring) so that students can take full advantage of the (free) technology which ITS services at the University have installed and offer. Can any students in the Department of Classics take this module or is a level of technological know-how required? What sorts of students do you think are best suited to taking it?
There are no formal pre-requisites for taking the module ‘Digital Silchester’. The course is open to all students and although I would try to steer complete Luddites away! I think that any Reading student would be capable of understanding the software. In any case I have found that by the third-year students are self-selecting and know whether they would be suited to the module. I have also found that the creative element of the course really appeals to students while the visual element goes down well with a lot of different types of learners – so it is accessible to other types of students besides the very academic or intellectual ones. Also, the world of digital heritage in an increasingly important component in Museum Studies and something that any student needs to know about if he or she is intending to make a career in the world of museums. Our own Ure Museum already runs all sorts of digital projects including animation, iPad apps, and 3D scanning, so Digital Silchester fits in well with innovations elsewhere in Classics, and I am currently discussing the possibility of further collaboration with the Museum Studies degrees now offered through MERL and in close collaboration with Classics.
5. In this difficult economic climate it is really important that students develop skills in computing and digital technology which they can then transfer to the workplace. What particular set of skills does the module ‘Digital Silchester’ train our students in and help them develop?
There are three particular sets of skills which I think ‘Digital Silchester’ helps students to develop. The first is digital visualisation – i.e. utilising specific bits of 3D modelling software that are relevant to the module. So ‘Digital Silchester’ has application in the real-world and develops directly transferable skills – I even designed my own house extension recently using digital modelling methods! The second is that the module increases fluency in computing more generally because it involves image manipulation and the management of large and complicated files – in other words it encourages computer literacy. Thirdly, although Classics trains students in a whole host of skills, the fact that digital models of ancient buildings are so unusual, means that students who take this module find that their interest in innovative technology goes down very well at interviews – it sets them apart and gives them an extra string to their bow. Employers really like the fact that the module requires students to design their own assignment and set their aims and objectives. So the module is very good for employability.
6. Two students from the Department of Classics have recently been highly successful in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme. How did their studies contribute to the launch of ‘Digital Silchester’?
Yes, I had two UROP students who were employed on summer placements to aid me with my digital modelling of ancient Rome. The idea was to employ raw recruits with aptitude but no previous knowledge of the software within a limited timeframe (six weeks) and to help them during that period to produce a meaningful piece of digital reconstruction. One student produced a digital model of parts of northern Rome. The other worked on Roman Scotland and in particular on a model of a Roman marching camp based around the site of St Leonard’s. This student’s work recently featured on a BBC Scotland TV documentary in which I was also interviewed about digital modelling. The fact that the software proved so successful for this Roman digital modelling encouraged me to transfer its use to my new undergraduate module ‘Digital Silchester’.
7. Having Silchester so close to Reading is a wonderful bonus for our Classics and Archaeology students. How have you been able to use easy access to this dig both to enhance your teaching and to inspire your students?
The fact that I have been able to go to Silchester with my camera and take lots of reference photos has really enhanced my teaching. Silchester’s closeness to the University of Reading is also invaluable to students because, thanks to money from my recent Teaching and Learning Development Fund grant, I was able to take the whole class to the site right during the course of the module. I hired a coach and drove them in the freezing cold to the site, firstly to see the physical remains and secondly to take photographs. I also encourage students to visit the Silchester gallery in the Reading town museum in their own time and I am considering in the future making this a compulsory component of the module.
8. In setting up ‘Digital Silchester’ you have been in consultation with the Department of Archaeology. It is really excellent to see these collaborations across the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Tell me in what ways has Archaeology been particularly helpful in providing advice and material for the module?
The Department of Archaeology has provided lots of advice and I have had a number of meetings with colleagues who are involved in the Silchester excavations. At these meetings I worked out with them what they would find useful in terms of dates – in other words what date to set the models at – as well as discussing what should be included in student bibliographies, what were the likely paedagogic difficulties students might encounter on the module etc. Eventually we hope to construct a model of parts of Silchester for display online, perhaps through the Department of Classics and/or Archaeology website. In terms of material colleagues from Archaeology very helpfully provided me with a series of images from display boards from the Silchester site with reconstructive paintings made by English Heritage – with whom they also put me in touch. They also gave me pointers on how and where to secure excavation reports from the site. And as a number of the students on the module are theirs, I have enjoyed chatting to colleagues from Archaeology as the module has developed.
9. In an increasingly competitive environment ‘Outreach’ has become more important than ever in academia. How, for example, has English Heritage in particular been supportive of your launch of ‘Digital Silchester’?
English Heritage gave me the permission to use high-res reproductions of previous reconstructions. This means that we can discuss with students the complexities of approaching re-construction and how previous professional artists have tackled Silchester in particular as a site. As for ‘Outreach’ more widely – this has the potential to be considerable. I have already been on television several times to discuss digital modelling and I have recently attended a national HEA Conference where I discussed the paedagogy of digital modelling further with colleagues from across the sector. That the Silchester dig attracts huge public interest also gives us a fantastic potential opportunity to showcase ‘Digital Silchester’, while the fact that it is a unique module in UK undergraduate circles means it is also a very useful recruitment tool for encouraging admissions to both Classics and Archaeology. There is also the potential for international collaboration, particularly in the United States. For example, I am currently in conversation with Duke University who are working on developing a student modelling programme for Venice. And there is the possibility of future public engagement for the University of Reading through the new technology of MOOCS.
10. It is great to see the Department of Classics at the forefront of digital technology. Obviously the nature of the module ‘Digital Silchester’ means that it is particularly suited to such expertise. How would you encourage other colleagues in the School of Humanities to think about using digital technology in their seminars and lectures, particularly those who teach perhaps more ‘traditional’, less practically-based modules?
I blog about ‘Digital Silchester’ on the University of Reading T and L blog and I have spoken at and chaired recent CSTD events at the University, including lunchtime T and L seminar colloquiums. Colleagues from the departments of English and Archaeology have also sat in on ‘Digital Silchester’ seminars in order to learn about the software and there has also been a lot of student interest from the departments of Typography and Systems Engineering. The software to construct a digital modelling course is free – so there is no cost barrier. You can easily teach yourself with the aid of free tutorials on the web and I would really encourage colleagues to have a go! I would recommend colleagues to approach digital modelling in stages. So start with just downloading the software (http://www.sketchup.com) and playing with it, make shapes, models of houses etc. Then you can progress to making an actual model yourself to illustrate research and/or show students before moving on to constructing a whole module based around digital modelling. There are lots of free web tutorials and videos available. The beauty of digital modelling is that you can apply it to any module you teach –whether that is a module which requires a model of the papal court at Avignon or the palace of Versailles – the possibilities are endless!
Prof. Phiroze Vasunia talks about his new monograph The Classics and Colonial India (OUP, 2013) on Classics Confidential:
In the sixth interview recorded during this year’s Classical Association meeting, CC’s Anastasia Bakogianni talks to Professor Phiroze Vasunia of the University of Reading about his recently published book The Classics and Colonial India (OUP, May 2013).
He tells us about the impact of the Graeco-Roman classics in the age of empire (1750s-1945) and about the collision of cultures in India during this period. The very concept of the ‘classical’ was problematic in a culture with its own long-standing local traditions which included Sanskrit, Persian and Arab threads. These competed with the imported Graeco-Roman classics privileged by the British educational system which encouraged the colonisers to view themselves as ancient Romans. Neoclassical architecture, now largely destroyed, also radically transformed the landscape of the country. Indians such as the writer Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-31) and Mahatma Gandhi, however, opened up their own dialogue with ancient Greek culture and its literature. Inspired by British Romantic Philhellenism, Derozio’s poetry forged a passionate connection with both ancient and modern Greece, while Gandi’s admiration of Socrates informed his own political thinking. This is not, therefore, a simple story of empire, but one of a dialogue of traditions.
Phiroze also tells us about his work as the general editor of the Ancients and Moderns series which is published in the UK by I.B. Tauris and in the USA by OUP. The series explores how classical antiquity continues to inform modern thinking, and examines the encounter between ancients and moderns on topics such as gender, slavery and politics. Seven books have appeared to date, and more are forthcoming.
Click on the image below or follow this link to watch the interview!
Prof. Peter Kruschwitz is a Latin scholar. One of his current projects covers the Latin inscriptions of Reading.
Reading’s Phoenix College, situated on Christchurch Road, recently put up a new sign at their entrance which drew my attention to their Latin motto:
Motto of Phoenix College, Reading. Photo: Peter Kruschwitz.
Ad astra per aspira.
At first, it seemed to me as though this was a mere mistake, a corruption of the well-known Latin motto Per aspera ad astra, ‘through hardship to the stars’ (or its alternative version per ardua ad astra, as used by the Royal Air Force).
RAF headstone, Reading Old Cemetery. Photo: Peter Kruschwitz.
Some further investigation into this rather curious motto, however, took me to the college’s webpages, where one finds the following statement:
“Ad Astra Per Aspira” in Latin means to aspire for the stars. Our school endeavours to help students reach up to their potential.
In other words, the college has adopted (and created?) the motto on purpose.
Now, there cannot be much dispute over the question as to whether or not the motto is in correct Latin: it is not. It is also rather obvious how this mistake will have occurred: the Latin for ‘hardship’ (lit. ‘hard things’), aspera, in its English pronunciation sounds just about close enough to aspira – so why not go all the way and change the spelling altogether, to produce the aspirational (if ungrammatical) claim?
Why then, one must ask, use a Latin motto, if one is not actually competent in that language? The answer is simple: Latin in a modern setting is a prestige language: ‘to aspire for the stars’ is a perfectly good motto, but stating the same thing in Latin lends the motto a whiff of dated venerability that can only come from a language that the majority of readers do not really understand. Moreover, it puts the school on par with other local schools that have Latin motti, such as the nearby Abbey School:
In aedificationem corporis Christi.
‘For the edifying of the body of Christ.’
Phoenix College, however, is not the only place that displays a faulty Latin inscription in Reading. There are at least two more examples, both rather prominent. First, the statue of Lord Rufus Isaacs at Eldon Square. It displays the honorand’s coat of arms on its pedestal:
The motto scroll reads as follows:
Motto of Sir Rufus Isaacs. Photo: Peter Kruschwitz.
Aut nunquam tentes aut persicei.
This meaningless text is a corruption of the Latin motto aut nunquam tentes aut perfice (‘either do not attempt at all, or complete it to perfection’), and one can be reasonably certain that the sculptor, when the statue was produced some eighty years ago, misread the phrase perfice! in an early 20th century handwriting and replaced the f with an s and the exclamation mark with an –i.
Secondly, equally venerable, there is a beautiful stained glass window in the Lady Chapel of Reading Minster of St Mary the Virgin. The arms on display here are those of the Yates family, who is also otherwise represented in this church. The motto reads:
Arms of the Yates Family, Reading Minster. Photo: Peter Kruschwitz.
Per rege et patria.
This is an obvious corruption of the Latin for ‘For King and Country’, which should of course read pro rege et patria.
It may not be much of a consolation to any of the concerned, but mistakes in Latin inscriptions have a long tradition: the hundreds of thousands inscriptions that survive from Roman antiquity, written at a time when Latin was still in active, everyday use, are in fact full of mistakes, many of which deserving of the famous treatment that Brian receives from the centurion in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. One may smirk at the fact that even the Romans could not get their own language right in writing. But these ‘mistakes’ now help scholars of the Latin language to develop a rather better understanding of variation and change in Latin, trends that eventually led to the emergence of Romance languages.
It is always easy and tempting to mock those who make mistakes. But in actual fact, even the mistakes – such as that in the motto of Phoenix College – may be indicative of something, and in this particular case, of the desire to express something beautiful.
Peter Kruschwitz
New on Classics Confidential:
In the fifth interview recorded at the Classical Association meeting and the second shot on location in the Ure Museum CC’s Anastasia Bakogianni talks to Dr Sonya Nevin about the project to create animations based on the characters and stories depicted on ancient Greek vases. This was also the subject of her presentation at the conference on the Classics and Museums (1) panel.
Sonya helped to create these animations as the Classics consultant working in collaboration with Steve K. Simons, who specialises in the digital restoration and animation of ancient Greek vase images. For more information about their on-going work see: www.panoply.org.uk
The first animation they produced based on Exekias’ vase depicting Achilles and Ajax playing a game of dice was entitled the Clash of the Dicers
It was produced as part of the Ure-View project, an outreach initiative that brought together Classics students and young people from two Reading secondary schools, Kendrick and Maiden Erlegh. The two groups were asked to work collaboratively to produce story boards based on what they saw depicted on ancient vases housed in the Ure Museum.
These animations also featured on the Stories of the World programme presented as part of Arts in Parliament series at Westminster Hall (24 July 2012). The animations help to draw attention to the importance of athletics in the classical world but they can also be used as a teaching resource. An exhibition of a new set of animations from the recent Ure Discovery project, will be launched on 17th June 2013 at the Ure Museum. The animations, with insights into their backstories, will be appearing on the Panoply website from that date.
Another animation The Cheat was created specifically for The Open University’s module The Ancient Olympics: Bridging Past and Present, which also drew attention to the links between the ancient Olympic games and their modern reincarnation.
As Sonya points out what all these animations have in common is that help to focus the viewer’s attention on the ancient artefacts. They utilise the new technologies available to us, but the stars of the show are the ancient vases themselves.
Click on the image below or follow this link to watch the interview!
New on Classics Confidential:
In the fourth interview recorded during this year’s Classical Association conference, CC’s Anastasia Bakogianni talks with Dr Amy Smith, a member of the Classics Department at the University of Reading. This interview and the one with Dr Sonya Nevin that follows were recorded on the premises of the Ure Museum, with Amy’s kind permission in her capacity as the Museum’s curator. CC gratefully acknowledges its debt to Dr Smith and the Classics Department at the University of Reading for allowing us to film on location!
In this interview Amy talks about the Ure Museum’s long history, its early days and the excavation work of Percy Neville Ure, the University’s first Professor of Classics, and the museum’s development over the years. She also speaks about some of the current collaborations that the Ure is involved in with local schools in Reading and the British Museum.
In the second part of the interview Amy talks about her love for the iconography of the classical world and her engagement with digital classics. Lastly Amy tells us about a recent volume she co-edited with Sadie Pickup: Brill’s Companion to Aphrodite. The idea for the book arose when a headless statue of Aphrodite was chosen as the item on loan from the British Museum that would be displayed in the Ure Museum; thus we return full circle back to the museum at the heart of the Classics Department at Reading.
Click on the image below or follow this link to our Youtube channel to watch the interview!
Thirty keen adult learners joined members of the Department of Classics for a Day School, planned in collaboration with the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, for a presentation of their research on the topic of Greeks & Egyptians, on 18 May 2013.
During the day 30+ participants learned about the interactions of ancient Greeks & Egyptians in Egypt, from members of the department and two of the Department’s recent PhD recipients.
Participants were also given the opportunity to view the Ure Museum collections, some relevant artefacts in which were discussed by Dr. Smith (Curator) and Prof. Rutherford (on the topic of mummified cats).
Participants gave enthusiastic feedback and called it ‘… a most enjoyable and stimulating study day…’, commenting that ‘the range of topics and their enthusiastic presentation were excellent’.
