Classics Staff awarded for Teaching, Research, and Outreach

As we come to the end of the 2024-2025 academic year, we would like to take a moment to celebrate the recent successes of UoR Classics staff for their teaching, research, and outreach work.

 

RSU Teaching Excellence Award for the School of Humanities

Dr. Dania Kamini received this award from the Reading Student Union for the second year in a row in May 2025. Student testimonials attest that Dania has gone “above and beyond” for her students, supporting them with extra tutorials and accommodating their needs.

Prof. Emma Aston and Dr. Andrew Fox were also nominated for this award for their teaching work during the 2024-2025 academic year.

Dr Tim Penn, Prof. Eleanor Dickey, and Dr. Dania Kamini were nominated for the RSU Academic Tutor Excellence Award as well.

 

Collaborative Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning

The iGAIAS project team, lead by Jackie Baines and Dr. Edward A. S. Ross, received this award in April 2025 as recognition for their work exploring how generative artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting teaching and learning the ancient world and making AI ethics accessible to the broader public. This outreach work included their recent temporary exhibit at the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, “Distorted History: AI’s Skewed Visions of the Ancient World”.

The full collaborative team includes: Jackie Baines, Dr. Edward A. S. Ross, Prof. Amy Smith, Prof. Enza Siciliano Verruccio, Jayne Holly, Dr. Tim Penn, Victoria Stevens, Shona Carter-Griffiths, Hannah Gage, Jacinta Hunter, Fleur McRitchie Pratt, Nisha Patel, Eve Richards-Fowkes, and Henry Tandy.

 

ECR Output Prize (Heritage and Creativity)

Dr. Sam Agbamu received this award for his recent monograph Restorations of Empire in Africa: Ancient Rome and Modern Italy’s African Colonies in April 2025. This book is the first full-length study to investigate how modern Italian imperialism used the memory of the Roman empire in support of its colonial endeavours in Africa. It is available through Oxford University Press here.

 

Professional Services Award – Engaged University (Nominee)

Naomi Miller was nominated for this award for her work bringing Ancient Rome to school children across the Berkshire region. In just the past year, her work has successfully rolled out fascinating teaching and research innovation from UoR Classics to hundreds of children. Naomi’s work was recently featured in the UoR Community Festival Research highlights here.

Professor Eleanor Dickey and students publish new Latin and Greek texts

Some years back, while studying a fifteenth-century manuscript of a text she was editing, Eleanor discovered that it also contained a new text, one she’d never seen before. This was a set of 37 letters, presented both in Greek and in Latin without any indication of who had written or received them. Intrigued, she started reading.

Book Cover of Lettres Fictives d'un Humaniste: L'Enseignement du Grec A la Renaissance - Sous la direction de Eleanor Dickey

Lettres Fictives d’un Humaniste: L’Enseignement du Grec A la Renaissance – Sous la direction de Eleanor Dickey (2025)

‘I hear that you’re wasting your time and money. That you throw yourself into gambling and music and frequent parties. If you act like that, you’re going to end up hiring prostitutes – and everyone knows what kinds of damage they do to university students. I’m well aware how upset your father will be when he hears this; perhaps you will drive the poor old man to an early grave. That’s why I beg you to change your ways, because carrying on like this will completely discredit you.’

‘You shouldn’t trust every spirit, as the old proverb says. Because to put it simply, everything you’ve heard about me is wrong. I only do what everyone else does. Enjoying music and throwing oneself into it are totally different things. I flee from gambling as a little sparrow flees a hawk – no-one has ever seen me with dice! Just once a year there’s a party here, and all the students go to it together; is it wrong for me to do what everyone else does? If I didn’t go, I’d be called snooty. My father isn’t going to be at all worried about that. He knows me well and appreciates that one has to cut young people some slack. What happens only occasionally is excusable. And if there’s anyone who really studies hard, that’s me. I don’t say that to boast about myself, but because truth demands it and so that you will change your opinion of me, seeing as it’s wrong.’

Who was this student? What university did he attend, and when – antiquity, the middle ages, or the Renaissance? Why were his letters bilingual, and why were they preserved as a collection? These questions were perfect for answering as a class project, and in 2023 the Sorbonne University offered Eleanor a visiting professorship with a class of students eager to undertake that project. Each student took one or more letters to study and gave it an edition, translation and commentary. As they worked through the collection they found more and more clues to its origins, which turned out to be northern Italy in the fifteenth century. They also found more manuscripts of it: two in Paris, one in Karlsruhe, one in Copenhagen, and a sixteenth-century printed version of which a copy was conveniently located in Oxford. They studied letter-writing in the Renaissance and discovered that the student who speaks so eloquently in these letters never existed, nor did his family: the letters are purely fictional creations. And the class learned that fifteenth-century Greek students, lacking the textbooks we take for granted today, often studied bilingual texts: the letters had been copied as easy reading material for Greek learners. Examining the Greek letters, several students observed that this Greek was not really suitable to learn on, having been written by a fifteenth-century Italian who had failed to grasp several important points of Greek grammar. But it was better than nothing for learners who had no other easy Greek texts to hand, so they used it anyway. In 1548 one class of Greek students in Freiburg, Germany, became so fond of these texts that they published an ‘improved’ version of them as a class project; this was the origin of the printed version in Oxford.

Eleanor’s students took inspiration from the Freiburg class and decided that they too should publish their work on the letters as a book. Of course this required considerably more work than they had done in class, but this group were up for that challenge and happily produced not only publishable versions of their editions, translations and commentaries, but also an introduction explaining what they had discovered about the letters’ history. The Sorbonne put Eleanor in touch with Les Belles Lettres, a wonderful publisher who was able to produce the book less than a year after she handed it to them. Working with this publisher meant publishing in French, which made Eleanor a little nervous; although the class had been conducted in French, not only Eleanor but also quite a few of the students are not native speakers of that language. But the Sorbonne professors rallied around and corrected the French, resulting in a finished product that the authors are delighted with.

The book is published from 6th June 2025; for more information, see:

https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/livre/9782251457093/lettres-fictives-d-un-humaniste

Butser Ancient Schoolroom 2024

This post was written by undergraduate student Jacinta Hunter.

The Ancient Schoolroom’s second summer residency at Butser Ancient Farm was no less magical than the first: swallows wheeled and darted around us as we walked from era to era; four-horned sheep still grazed in the adjoining fields; we cooked Roman meals over an open fire each night; and a recently born kid goat called Nutmeg greeted us each morning with enthusiastic bleating.

However our daily routine was a little different this time. As well as the usual schoolroom activities of reading, writing, and counting board maths, we were able (thanks to a host of Reading staff, students, and Schoolroom associates) to also offer spinning, board games, gem-charm making, curse-writing, and geometry!

Gem carving

But perhaps the biggest difference was the addition of two all-day workshops, which involved staging an entire play, with a cast of 6-12-year-olds, over the course of one afternoon. The plays in question were Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus, which I (with the help of my ever supportive fiancé) adapted into short, child-friendly scripts, and made props and costumes for. Many a late night in the lead-up to Butser found us sewing capes, constructing cardboard weapons, and flicking red paint at an old sheet so Agamemnon could have a suitably (but not too gruesomely) bloodied robe.

This was a new endeavour for both me and the Ancient Schoolroom, so I was rather nervous about how well it would all turn out. But I needn’t have worried at all as, thanks in large part to the amazing support and diligence of the rest of the Schoolroom team, each play was triumph!

There was a real sense of anticipation in the air once our young actors were in costume and the audience of parents and guardians was in place, and the children really rose to the occasion. Highlights from Agamemnon included: a particularly spectacular entrance of the chorus with their walking sticks; a spirited characterisation of frustrated Cassandra; a surprise star-turn from Aegisthus; and a comedic entrance of the ‘dead’ Agamemnon in a wheelbarrow, which raised a hearty laugh from the audience.

Miles Gloriosus, with its complex and farcical plot, proved a little more challenging, but our performers still carried it off with aplomb. Credit for this has to go in large part to our very talented Palaestrio, who somehow knew what was going on after only one rehearsal, and to all the rest of our fabulous actors doing an excellent job at remembering which door they should be going through when!

I felt very proud of the performances, actors, and Schoolroom team, and it was lovely to have these feelings validated by positive feedback from the parents and Butser staff.

The Roman villa and performance area

Jacinta taking a short break

What with all these new activities, all day workshops, and productions, it certainly felt like we were doing rather more work than play, so we were very excited to be invited back to Sally Grainger’s house for another expertly cooked, authentic Roman meal. We were even joined by our very own Professor Emma Aston, which made it all the more special.

Sally Grainger preparing us for a garum tasting

Emma, and Roman fruit

The core Schoolroom team enjoying some downtime

Of course, all good things have to come to an end. I felt sad as we packed the car and bid farewell to each other on our final morning, knowing I was leaving the darting swallows, clear night skies, open fires, and Nutmeg the goat behind. But not too sad, as I know it will be just as magical next year.

Semester 2 2025 Reading Classics Research Seminars and Ure Lecture

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Reading Classics Seminar Series for Semester 2 2025, which will boost our Wednesday afternoons with constructive and stimulating lectures and discussions on various aspects of Classics research!

In this series of lectures, starting on 19 February 2025, we welcome a diverse group of speakers in our Departmental seminars. Our Semester 2 seminar series will explore a variety of topics and periods of Classical studies. Most seminars are hybrid and will be livestreamed on MS Teams. No registration is required. Attendance is free and open to all!

We are also pleased to invite you to attend the 2025 Ure Lecture by Dr. Jane Masséglia (University of Leicester) on “The Trojan War Mosaic at Ketton: How Greek Stories Came to Roman Britain”. Join us on Friday, 28 March 2025 at 5 PM for an exciting talk and reception. Entry is free, but booking is required here.

For more information, contact e.m.m.aston@reading.ac.uk.

Below you can find a poster with all titles and times (UK Time):

Full list of titles

19 February – 16:00-17:30 (Edith Morley G25)

Prof. Lene Rubinstein, Royal Holloway, University of London, Displaced civilians in fourth-century Athens: Social repercussions and political challenges.

20 March (Thursday) – 16:00-17:30 (Palmer 102) [This talk will only be in-person]

Dr Elena Chepel, University of Vienna, Festival mobility in Graeco-Roman Egypt.

28 March – 17:00-18:00 (Henley Business School G15)

Dr Jane Masséglia, University of Leicester, The Trojan War Mosaic at Ketton: how Greek stories came to Roman Britain. [Registration Required Here]

30 April – 16:00-17:30 (Edith Morley G25)

visual artists and researchers Aaron Ford (Institute of Classical Studies) and Hardeep Dhindsa (King’s College London), Race, Empire, and Decoloniality Seminar.

14 May – 16:00-17:30 (Edith Morley G25)

Alessandra Rocchetti, University of Oxford, The spatiality of magic across curse tablets, literary, and para-literary sources.

21 May – 16:00-17:30 (Edith Morley G44)

Dr Davide Massimo, University of Nottingham, “Hellenisation” and cultural identity in the Hellenistic world: insights from verse inscriptions.

 

See How the Ancient Mediterranean is Distorted by Generative Image AI

Edward A. S. Ross, Hannah Gage, Jacinta Hunter, and Jackie Baines standing next to the Distorted History: AI's Skewed Visions of the Ancient World exhibit information poster in the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology

The project team posing with one of the exhibit information posters on opening night.

On September 24th, 2024, the Department of Classics celebrated the opening of a new temporary exhibit at the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology: “Distorted History: AI’s Skewed Visions of the Ancient World”. This exhibit was organized by Edward A. S. Ross and Jackie Baines as part of their generative image artificial intelligence (AI) research with undergraduate research assistants Jacinta Hunter, Hannah Gage, and Shona Carter-Griffiths.

This exhibit started as a conversation in the hallway about how AI-generated images were being used to illustrate “history” narratives on most social media platforms. There were several biases present in these images that could skew an uninformed observer’s view of the discussed ancient figure or concept. With a Research Collaboration and Impact Fund (RCIF) Grant and an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP) Grant from the University of Reading and an Ancient Worlds, Modern Communities Grant from the Society for Classical Studies (SCS), the project team was able to critically examine the sources for AI-generated images of the ancient world through a series of tests.


Shona Carter-Griffiths standing in front of the Distorted History exhibit's "Hoplite Wall" with 6 AI-generated images of ancient figures. Shona is gesturing to an AI-generated image of Agamemnon.

Shona Carter-Griffiths with her favourite AI image, Agamemnon.

Jacinta Hunter with her favourite comparison, Arachne.


As a pilot study, Shona Carter-Griffiths generated images using OpenAI’s DALL-E-2 and DALL-E-3. Jacinta Hunter continued this work, generating images using 8 additional programs. Hannah Gage then examined these images and identified ancient sources and modern media representations that might have influenced their features.


Hannah Gage with her favourite comparison, Clytemnestra.

Jackie Baines with her favourite comparison, Nike.


Altogether, the project team generated 3,860 images of ancient figures and concepts using 10 different generative AI tools and identified hundreds of links to ancient sources and modern media.


Edward A. S. Ross with his favourite comparison, Cleopatra.


The exhibit at the Ure Museum illustrates 18 of these comparisons, demonstrating a clear bias towards modern representations of ancient figures. The physical version of the Distorted History exhibit will be open until February 7th, 2025, but an online version of the exhibit is available on the Ure Museum website.

The project team would like to thank the Society for Classical Studies, the University of Reading, and the Department of Classics for their financial support of this exhibit.

Semester 1 2024 Reading Classics Research Seminars

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Reading Classics Seminar Series for Semester 1 2024, which will boost our Wednesday afternoons with constructive and stimulating lectures and discussions on various aspects of Classics research!

In this series of lectures, starting on 30 October 2024, we welcome a diverse group of speakers in our Departmental seminars. Our Semester 1 seminar series will explore a variety of topics and periods of Classical studies. All seminars are hybrid and will be livestreamed on MS Teams. No registration is required. Attendance is free and open to all!

The first session of our series is part of a public talk series on Generative AI and Ancient World Studies over Semester 1. These talks, starting 9 October 2024, are organized as part of the iGAIAS project and the Distorted History: AI’s Skewed Visions of the Ancient World exhibition at the Ure Museum of Archaeology. Registration is required for these talks, and a link for the 16 October 2024 session is available below.

For more information, contact e.m.m.aston@reading.ac.uk.

Below you can find a poster with all titles:

Full list of titles

16 October – 16:00-17:30 (EM G44)

Prof. Genevieve Liveley, University of Bristol, The silence of the LLMs – Speaking silence with generative AI. [Registration Link]

30 October – 16:00-17:30 (EM G25)

Dr. Sally Grainger, independent scholar, Cooking with silphium: experiments with Ferula asafoetida and Ferula drudeana.

20 November – 16:00-17:30 (EM G25)

Dr. Mathura Umachandran, University of Exeter, Race, Empire, and Decoloniality Seminar.

4 December – 16:00-17:30 (EM G25)

Dr. Annelies Casimir, University of Southampton, Networking with gods: Greek religious sites and the rise of Rome.

13 December – 16:00-17:30 (EM G25)

Dr. Ari Bryen, Vanderbilt University, Law among the degraded: two stories from the Roman Empire.

Classics success at the Doctoral Research Conference

On Wednesday 12th June, the University of Reading held the annual Doctoral Research Conference, an event which showcases the diversity of doctoral research undertaken at Reading.

Two of our own researchers, Adél Ternovacz and Daniel Bartle, presented posters on their research at the conference, and we would like to congratulate both of their contributions.

Adél Ternovacz discussing her poster.
Image curtesy of the Univeristy of Reading Doctoral and Researcher College.

Further congratulations go to Adél, whose poster won the prize.

The posters submitted by Adél and Daniel cover two very different, but equally interesting topics, which demonstrate the diversity of research within the Classics department.

Adél’s research poster presents a lunula pendant adorned with a Roman carnelian gem, discovered in a Sarmatian settlement in Tiszaföldvár, Hungary. Lunulae, crescent-shaped pendants worn by women and children, served as protective amulets in both Roman and Sarmatian cultures. In the Carpathian Basin, the Sarmatians—an Iranian people—were the most significant barbarian population during the Roman Imperial Period. This research explores how Sarmatian culture adapted and incorporated the Roman gem, deepening our understanding of the cultural exchange between the two civilizations.

Daniel Bartle discussing his poster.
Image curtesy of the Univeristy of Reading Doctoral and Researcher College.

Daniel’s poster focuses on the Indo-Iranian borderlands during the late fourth to third centuries BC and the diplomatic activity across it. This period would see the establishment of new empires on each side of the frontier, the Seleukids in Iran and the Maurya on the Ganges, representing a time of political transition and upheaval in the region. This research will examine three specific interactions between the two new states and their effects, the treaty of the Indus in 303 BC, the edicts of Ashoka, and the anabasis of Antiochus III, shedding light on the dynamic relationship of warfare, trade and gift exchange that existed across the frontier.

Both Daniel and Adél reflected positively on their experience of the event, commenting on the opportunity to interact with students and their work from across the university.

“The Doctoral Research Conference offers a fantastic opportunity to meet fellow students from various disciplines and learn about their projects. It was truly inspiring to see such a diverse range of innovative work.” – Adél Ternovacz

“The Doctoral Research Conference was an interesting experience involving both varied disciplines and means of presenting. Likewise, offering fresh perspectives from the other disciplines.” – Daniel Bartle

Once again, congratulations to Adél and Daniel, and to all the students who contributed to the event.

Adél Ternovacz

New Survey for Teachers in Ancient World Studies

Figure 1: Generative AI in the Ancient World Studies Classroom Teacher Survey –
https://forms.office.com/e/NdTnesja9i

Do you teach any topic related to the ancient world? Do you have thoughts about generative artificial intelligence? Researchers in the Department of Classics at the University of Reading want to hear from you!

Thanks to a University of Reading Research Collaboration and Impact Fund (RCIF) grant, Jackie Baines and Edward A. S. Ross are carrying out survey research into the impact of generative AI in wider ancient world studies classrooms. If you teach about any aspect of the ancient world (broadly conceived), please take 10 minutes to complete the survey here (Figure 1).

Figure 2: iGAIAS: Investigating Generative Artificial Intelligence in Ancient World Studies.

This research is part of Jackie and Edward’s wider project iGAIAS: Investigating Generative Artificial Intelligence in Ancient World Studies (Figure 2). Their work explores ethical and effective applications for generative AI in ancient world studies to make them more accessible for classicists and the wider public. This includes an upcoming temporary exhibition in the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology on inherent biases about the ancient world in generative image AI. Research for this exhibit is supported by undergraduate students Shona Carter-Griffiths, Hannah Gage, and Jacinta Hunter.

Jackie and Edward have also recently published a new article on the first phase of their generative AI research in the Journal of Classics Teaching. This article discusses the generative AI ethics training sessions for ancient language students and teachers over the Autumn 2023 term.

Summer Term 2024 Reading Classics Research Seminars

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Reading Classics Seminar Series for Summer Term 2024, which will boost our Wednesday afternoons with constructive and stimulating lectures and discussions on various aspects of Classics research!

In this series of lectures, starting on 24 April, we welcome a diverse group of speakers in our Departmental seminars. Our Summer seminar series will explore a variety of topics and periods of Classical studies. All seminars will be livestreamed on MS Teams; tune in every Wednesday at 4pm (unless otherwise stated)! Attendance is free and open to all! To attend please follow this link: https://bit.ly/3UkPo10. Below you can find a poster with all titles.

Full list of titles

24 April

Shaohui Wang, Northeast Normal University, China, and University of Cambridge, ἰὼ, ἰή, ἰέ – a survey of ritual cries and emotions in ancient Greek religion and the parallels in Chinese religious practice

1 May

Chris Pellin, University of Oxford, I want to be Great too – but how? Alexander, Augustus, and Livy

8 May – Postponed

Mathura Umanchandran, Exeter University, Race, Empire, and Decoloniality Seminar

15 May

Jordan Miller, University of Cambridge, Under the Bed and among the Dead: Monsters in Ancient Egypt

29 May

Polly Low, Durham University, Nothing to see here? Inscriptions and the early Athenian Empire

 

All (unless otherwise labelled) starting at 16:00 in Edith Morley 126J

For more information contact e.m.m.aston@reading.ac.uk

Classics and Generative AI: New Resources and Opportunities for Staff and Students

Figure 1: Baines, Jackie, Edward A. S. Ross, Jacinta Hunter, Fleur McRitchie Pratt, and Nisha Patel. Digital Tools for Learning Ancient Greek and Latin and Guiding Phrases for Using Generative AI in Ancient Language Study. V2. March 12, 2024. Archived by figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25391782.v2.

Over the past year, Jackie Baines and Edward A. S. Ross have been researching the ethics of generative AI in teaching Classics and ancient languages as part of their Teaching and Learning Enhancement Project (TLEP) “ChatGPT: A Conversational Language Study Tool.” Their work on this project has initially led to the Classics Department’s AI guidelines and citation guide, and now Jackie and Edward have produced a guiding phrases document and aseries of tutorial videos for staff and students about ethical and effective uses for generative AI.

The guiding phrases document is a compilation of digital learning tools, including generative AI tools, for learning Ancient Greek and Latin. With the help of undergraduate students Jacinta Hunter, Fleur McRitchie Pratt, and Nisha Patel, the Classics AI Testers for the project, Edward and Jackie prepared and tested 10 “copy-paste”-able prompts to streamline generative AI use for supporting ancient language learning. These guiding phrases are tailored for students of elementary, intermediate, and advanced Ancient Greek and Latin at the University of Reading, but they are also couched with tutorials on how to customize them for a more personalized experience.

In order to increase generative AI literacy and make current guidelines more accessible, Jackie and Edward have also prepared a number of tutorial videos about the ethics of using generative AI and proper methods for using these tools. A playlist of these videos is available here.

Figure 2: #STOPandTHINKbeforeyouGENERATE

Alongside these videos, Edward and Jackie will be hosting a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) workshop on methods for using a variety of generative AI tools to support ancient language teaching and for introducing generative AI ethics to students (Figure 3). This event is funded by a Council of University Classics Department (CUCD) Education Grant and is completely free to attend. There are also some travel grants available for local teachers intending to participate in-person. Please email Jackie Baines (j.baines@reading.ac.uk) if you are interested in a grant. If you are interested in attending, please sign up for in-person or online attendance here.

Figure 3: Using Generative AI to Support Ancient Language Teaching CPD Workshop.

Jackie and Edward have also surveyed staff and students in the Classics Department over the past year about the impact of generative AI on their studies. The results of the initial surveys will be published in the Journal of Classics Teaching shortly. The results of the second set of surveys will be presented at the Digital Humanities and AI conference.

The next stage of their research, now funded with an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP) grant, will focus on the biases present in generative image AI, specifically those related to the ancient world. The pilot study for this part of the project was completed by undergraduate student Shona Carter-Griffiths, and we are currently hiring a second-year undergraduate student to continue this work over Summer 2024 (Figure 4). If you are interested in applying for this role, please find the full details and application requirements here.

Figure 4: Gerard Butler with a Spear: Locating Modern Stereotypes for the Classical World in Generative Image AI