On 7 November Dr Katherine Harloe will be taking part in a public panel discussion in Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre with James Ivory (of Merchant Ivory Pictures), Professor Richard Parkinson (Oxford/British Museum), and Professor Jennifer Ingleheart (Durham) on the topic of ‘Tales of Love and History’. The event is organised by The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities as part of a week of showings of Merchant Ivory films in Oxford, in the context of the ‘No Offence’ LGBT history exhibition, which has just arrived in the Ashmolean on tour from the British Museum. A link to the page to reserve free tickets is here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tales-of-love-and-history-james-ivory-in-conversation-tickets-50785170813.

Dr Harloe’s participation in this event relates to her current, British Academy-funded research project on ‘Winckelmann’s love letters’, as well as to two UROP projects she has recently supervised: the digital exhibition on Winckelmann and gay history (available at www.curiosi.org) completed by student Connell Greene, and the more recent ‘Offences against the person: tracing hidden LGB histories through the Berkshire County Archives’, which she worked on with students George Stokes and Amy Hitchings.

In the early 20th century suffragettes and suffragists—many of whom were Classicists or had received a Classical education—adapted Classical themes, especially imagery, in their campaigning magazines Votes for Women and Common Cause. In response to the the suffrage movement magazines also used classical parodies—for example Antigone saving her sister rather than her brother. Now you can learn all about the important role Classics played in women’s suffrage through a display just launched in the Classics hallway, opposite the entrance to Edith Morley room 40 (appropriately enough because Edith Morley herself was a suffragette!). Professor Barbara Goff has created this exhibit, in celebration of the centenary of the women’s vote, based on the research of Rebeca Bird-Lima and Anna Godsell (who have just completed their BA’s at Reading). Ure staff Jayne Holly-Wait and Claudina Romero Mayorga have added some artefacts to the display while Ure volunteer Matthew Knight has designed it.

All seminars start at 4 p.m., except for the one on the 10th October, which is this term’s Reading Classical Association talk; this starts at 5 p.m.
All seminars will take place in Edith Morley G25 (except for that on 10th October, which will be in EM 127), and all will be followed by light refreshments in Edith Morley G40.
The Percy Ure Lecture is at 5 pm on 23rd November, and is held in the Van Emden Lecture Theatre, Edith Morley Building.

Everyone welcome!

10th October (5 p.m., EM 127) – Llewellyn Morgan (Oxford): ‘Death and Redemption in Aeneid 10.’ Reading Classical Association talk.
17th October – Daniela Colomo (Oxford): ‘Two recent discoveries in literary papyrology: Homer and Euripides.’
24th October – Jen Grove (Exeter): ‘From EP Warren to Alfred Kinsey: Collecting Classical Erotica and Theorising Sexuality in the first half of the 20th century.’
31st October – Amanda Wrigley (Reading): ‘Oral Poetry and the Aural Imagination: Homer, Modern Poets and Radio.’
7th November: no seminar
14th November – Peter Wilson (Sydney): ‘A Potted Political History of the Sicilian Theatre (to ca. 300)’
21st November – Thomas Kiely (British Museum), ‘The Iron Age sanctuary of Salamis-Toumba in Cyprus. Re-excavating the excavations of 1890.’
23rd November (5 pm, EM Van Emden Lecture Theatre) – Eighth Annual Percy Ure Lecture. Greg Woolf (ICS, London): ‘The Empire of Things and the Empire of People.’
28th November – Naoise Mac Sweeney (Leicester): ‘Classics in contemporary political discourse – a global vision?’
5th December – Phoebe Garrett (Australia National University): ‘Running in the family: Ancestry narratives in Suetonius’ Caesars.’