Classics students shine at UROP showcase

Posted on November 17, 2023 by amycsmith

At the UROP Showcase this Wednesday, people from across the University and the wider community had the opportunity to learn about the work that 100+ students did as part of University of Reading’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme, aka UROP. Each of the selected students was paid for a 6-week experience conducting real research for academics from across the University’s four themes. The three Classics projects noted below, working within the Heritage & Creativity theme, received funding and recruited select first- and second-year students to work with them. At the showcase each UROP student presented a poster explaining their research projects and discussed the results with interested persons.

In the Company of Monsters: New Visions, Ancient Myths. Shona Carter-Griffiths (shown above) and Megan Davies worked with Profs. Emma Aston and Andrew Mangham (English) in preparation of the labels and text for their exhibition currently on display at the Reading Museum, which project uses contemporary visual art to investigate the power of ancient mythology to engage modern audiences and to explore contemporary themes of identity and diversity.

Athenian Festival ware in the Ure Museum Lorena Rodriguez-Tunon (shown right) collected and analyses examples in Reading’s Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology of black-figure ceramics created and used as festival ware in ancient Athens. This was a testbed for a larger project for which Prof. Amy Smith and her collaborator Dr Katerina Volioti (Roehampton) are currently seeking funding.

Public interactions with Lowbury Hill. Working with Summer Courts and Prof. Amy Smith on the Mymerian Project (https://research.reading.ac.uk/mymerian/), Georgia Spriggs (left) gathered, analysed, and interpreted trends in modern and contemporary public perceptions of the archaeology and history of Lowbury Hill, Oxfordshire, through research in archives and print media, in preparation of a journal article on the subject. Stay tuned for this and other outputs!

When we popped by the showcase we caught we caught Dr Sally Fletcher from the British Museum interrogating Shona and Megan, while Georgia was discussing her project with Janice Galvin from the Alumni Office: she was particularly interested in Georgia’s work on Lowbury Hill because this year the University Alumni funded Georgia’s work! We are very proud of grateful to our students and delighted that they all found their research work so fulfilling. The UROP calendar has just begun again and staff are encouraged to dream up exciting projects on which students might research in Summer 2024.

Véronique Dasen delivers the James E. Gordon Lecture

Posted on October 27, 2023 by amycsmith

Profs. Véronique Dasen (Gordon lecturer) and Amy Smith (Ure Curator)

On 16 October 2023, the Ure Museum was delighted to welcome Prof. Véronique Dasen from University of Fribourg to deliver the James E. Gordon Lecture. Professor Véronique Dasen is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Fribourg, Honorary Professor at the University of Lille, and Vice-President of the Conseil Scientifique Institut National d‘Histoire de l’Art, Paris. Her multidisciplinary research, which takes an anthropological perspective, concerns ancient iconography and material culture as it relates to the history of the body, medicine and of magical practices, gender studies, history of childhood and play as metaphor.

In her lecture, Play or cheat? Games in Greek and Roman antiquity, Prof. Dasen introduced and explained fascinating discoveries from her Locus Ludi project, funded by the European Research Council, 2017-22. Her lecture culminated with the launch of an exciting new video on ‘loaded’ Roman dice currently undergoing scientific analyses.

The annual Gordon lecture honours the memory of Professor James Edward Gordon (1913–1998), his interdisciplinary spirit and enthusiasm for the relevance of science to our understanding of the ancient world. Prof Gordon was a pioneering materials scientist and biomechanical engineer who served as Professor of Materials Engineering at University of Reading, where he collaborated, especially with the late Dr John Landels, on engineering in antiquity. Together with Landels he established a joint degree in Classics and Engineering.

Visitors play a reconstruction of the Doctor’s Grave in the Ure Museum.

This year’s Gordon Lecture coincided with a special viewing of the Ure Museum’s temporary exhibit, Locus Ludi. Anyone can play! — with loans from the British Museum, Colchester Museum, Museum of Reading, and University of Reading collections — on display until the end of November. In the Ure Museum, visitors also had a chance to play a full-size reconstruction of The Doctor’s Game made by Giles Cattermole, a local engineer and craftsman.

Members of the public are also encouraged to join us for another games-related lecture — More than just fun and games: Why study board games in Roman society? — to be delivered by Dr Tim Penn (currently at University of Oxford), on 22 November at 18:00 in Edith Morley G44. Please cntact ure@reading.ac.uk to RSVP.

Prof. Ian Rutherford elected Fellow of the British Academy

Posted on July 21, 2023 by amycsmith

The British Academy, the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences, today announces the election of Ian Rutherford, our Professor of Classics at Reading, as a Fellow of the British Academy. He is one of 52 new UK Fellows who together exemplify a breadth of SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) disciplines. This prestigious accolade is due recognition of Ian’s prolific research in ancient Greek poetry, ancient religion, especially pilgrimage, and contact between early Greece and other cultures, particularly ancient Anatolia (Türkiye) and Egypt. He has published four monographs, nine (co-)edited volumes, and over 100 articles. A strong believer in the benefits of research-led teaching, Ian regularly teaches these subjects to our Department’s UG and PG cohorts.

Professor Ian Rutherford’s election gives Reading Classics two Fellows of the British Academy (FBA), the other being Professor Eleanor Dickey, making it the only Classics department outside Oxford and Cambridge to have more than one Fellow in post. While Reading’s Classics Department is relatively small—e.g. the smallest Classics unit submitted to the most recent REF—the presence of two FBAs in post is a strong indication of its research excellence and international recognition. The British Academy elects only one or two scholars per subject per year, after a rigorous evaluation from internationally recognised scholars in each discipline.

Congratulations to Ian for this well deserved recognition of his outstanding contributions to scholarship.

In the shadow of Hippolytos: Classical studies in honour of Professor Barbara E. Goff

Posted on June 30, 2023 by amycsmith

To celebrate the work of our esteemed friend, colleague and Co-head of Department, Prof. Barbara Goff, we have planned a one-day conference in her honour, on the cusp of her retirement, Friday 22nd September 2023. We have assembled an international cadre of her colleagues, collaborators, (former) students and other associates to discuss the diverse range of inclusive and innovative Classical studies on which she herself has contributed so greatly to scholarship in our and related academic fields. The conference’s four themes, which engage with aspects of her teaching and scholarship are the following:

Drama, Theory, History
A Sporting Life
Broad(er) Classics
Re-roo/uting Classics

We are delighted to announce that we will be joined also by Dr Stella Keramida from University of Reading’s Department of Film, Theatre, and Television, who with her students is preparing a performance of (some of) Trojan Women.

Everyone is invited to join us — whether in person or online — to celebrate Prof. Goff on this august occasion, but please sign up here. Please do not hesitate to contact doukissa.kamini@reading.ac.uk for further details or if you have any questions.

Amy Smith, Dania Kamini and Oliver Baldwin

The full programme is linked here.