Tag Archives: Conference

Reading Classics at the AIA-SCS 2023 Annual Meeting in New Orleans

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I returned from the AIA-SCS 2023 Annual Meeting in New Orleans (a.k.a. NOLA), just in time for the new term, glad to have seen old friends, learned new things, and enthused about the future of our academic field. This is the Joint Meeting of North America’s big professional organisations for (old world) archaeology—Archaeological Institute of America—and Classics—Society for Classical Studies.

 

Jessie Feito and Prof. Amy Smith

This annual meeting traditionally hosts up to 3000 scholars, teachers & others, from across the world. The numbers were hard to judge this year because it was a blended meeting, with all papers accessed online whether or not they were delivered ‘in the flesh’. Reading’s Classics department chose both options, with Prof. Aston & me each delivering papers, Aston’s online, in Insiders and Outsiders in Ancient Thessaly’ (no surprises there!) and mine in person, in a double-session, Phenomenology and the Painted Vase. One of our recently minted PhDs, Jessie Feito, spoke on the results her postdoctoral project, with Koç University—’Fields of Gold: Lydian Diet at Sardis’—in a session on the Social Life of Landscapes. They also caught up with Signe Barfoed, who has just finished her Norwegian Research Council postdoctoral fellowship with Classics@Reading but is now in Oslo.

 

‘Joan of Arc’ at the parade

In between academic meetings participants had to dodge contestants in the Miss Universe contest, with which we shared the hotel, and of course their photographers! NOLA treated us to four days of perfect sunny weather and amazing food (once we escaped the hotel). Our former colleague and friend Katherine Harloe (now Director of the Institute of Classical Studies) beckoned us to an award-winning Trinidadian restaurant and I even escaped long enough to attend NOLA’s first parade of the year, the ‘Maid of Orleans’ Parade celebrating Joan of Arc’s 611th birthday, on 12th Night! It is clear in any case that NOLA is a great place to meet and think about lessons from the past!

Written by Professor Amy Smith.

International Women’s Day 2022 in Reading Classics

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Reading Classics celebrate the International Women’s Day 2022 with an exploration of the variety of female presence in ancient texts and their receptions as well as in authorship around mythical stories. Professor Barbara Goff, whose research has thoroughly examined the role of women in ancient Drama and beyond, in different contexts, historical circumstances, and societies, has recently delivered a public lecture at the Belfast Hellenic Society on three contemporary women writers engaging with ancient tradition. Keep reading for her account of the ways in which women rediscover their place in the long and ever-changing course of literature.

In early March I went on a plane for the first time since 2019 and flew to Belfast, where I was hosted by the Belfast Hellenic Society.  I am indebted to the Society, and especially Maureen Alden, for their wonderful hospitality.  It was fitting that I gave my public lecture in the Canada Room and Council Chamber, in the imposing Lanyon Building, because it is adorned with a big mural of women from the University, titled ‘Out of the Shadows’. My talk was on three of the recent novels by women writers that channel, and challenge, the Homeric tradition: Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018), Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls (2018) and Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships (2019).  Although these are very different from one another, they all experiment with the idea of a ‘new song’, a version of the well-known epic story that is made different because told by a woman or women, and from a female perspective.

The Council Chamber at Queen’s University Belfast, Lanyon Building

 

Classicists will know that the idea of a new song sung by women is not straightforward.  The chorus of Euripides’ Medea claims that for women to sing, the whole world has to be turned upside down:

Upwards flow the streams of holy rivers

and justice and everything is turned backwards.

The plans of men are tricky, and oaths

to gods no longer hold firm.

Speech will change to hold my life in good repute.

Honour will come to the female race;

The muses of old singers will cease to hymn

my faithlessness.

For not to our mind

did he grant the divine music of the lyre

Apollo, the leader of songs; then I would have sung a song

in answer to the race of men.

Now women can sing, say the chorus; but as we know, they are men, in costume.  And we don’t really know what the new content of a women’s song would be; just before this song, Medea says, in perhaps somewhat misogynistic vein:

In addition we were born

women, most helpless for noble things

but of all sufferings the most clever artificers.

 

The new novels, I suggested in my talk, do not make things very much simpler.

The first-person narrator of Circe makes it very easy for readers to question her telling of her own story; she regularly tells us that she leaves things out and changes the story as she goes.  The ending of the novel – spoiler alert! – throws into doubt the precise identity of the narrator.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In A Thousand Ships, the Muse Calliope engages in a long-running battle with ‘the poet’ (he’s unnamed, but he is blind…) over exactly what song he will sing.  So, when the novel relays all the stories of the women caught up in the Trojan War, is that the song of the poet, or of Calliope, or is it something else entirely?  Calliope herself seems a bit confused, because although she wants to memorialise all the women of the war, she gets fed up when the poet wants to sing about Helen.

 

 

 

 

 

In Silence of the Girls, Briseis is the first-person narrator, but the novel sets up a long-running contest between her ‘song’ and the epic songs that celebrate men’s victories and sufferings.  Thus she remembers a song that Achilles sang before his death:

The words seemed to have got trapped inside my brain, an infestation rather than a song, and I resented it. Yes, the death of young men in battle is a tragedy…worthy of any number of laments – but theirs is not the worst fate.  I looked at Andromache, who’d have to live the rest of her amputated life as a slave, and I thought: We need a new song.

 

But even having sung that new song, Briseis is unsure that it will work.  At the very end of the novel, she concludes that future audiences will not want to hear her side of the story; they won’t want to hear ‘about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls’ and instead will want to listen to something much less challenging.  When the novel concludes ‘now my own story can begin’ it is ironic at least, because these are the last words of the novel.

So rewriting the Homeric tradition from the female viewpoint is not necessarily a straightforward enterprise, but the critical and popular reception of these novels shows that it is a highly resonant undertaking that has won over huge audiences.  My audience in the Canada Room was inspired to do more reading, which is always encouraging  – the poet Michael Longley, whom I met at the event,  said he would rush back to reread the Medea.  As classicists we can relish new works, as well as celebrating the ways in which the ancient texts provoke responses – among men as well as women!

‘Out of the Shadows’, Michelle Rogers, b. 1966.  This work over three panels hangs in the Council Chamber at Queen’s. The 25 women depicted represent female staff, students and alumni of Queen’s, and was commissioned by the Queen’s Gender Initiative which works to improve the profile and position of women within the University.

Black History Month in Reading Classics

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Author: Prof. Barbara Goff 

Date: 18 October 2021 

Reading Classics celebrate Black History Month with a visit from Shivaike Shah, co-creator and producer of the first global majority Medea produced by students at the University of Oxford, in 2018. This interactive event will be delivered online via MS Teams on 27th October at 2pm. Do join us in this talk to discuss the aims, challenges and successes of such an adaptation of one of the most famous Classical Greek tragedies. To register your interest to attend, please write to us at hod-classics@reading.ac.uk or visit our Facebook event page: https://fb.me/e/27eXLAIL2.

Please keep an eye on our social media and the event page as we shall circulate a joining link there closer to the date. You can also find more information about the event on our Facebook event page and social media. 

All welcome! 

In the run-up to this exciting event, here are some resources to get you thinking about some related issues.

  • Listen to our former colleague Professor Katherine Harloe on Detoxifying the Classics. Why are white nationalists and the far right so fond of Ancient Greece and Rome? Katherine looks at the ways in which the classical world is both used to lend respectability to the politics of hate, and distorted to give the false impression that it was an all-white space. Katherine was Professor of Classics at the University of Reading until the 1st October 2021, when she left to become Director of the Institute of Classical Studies in London. Go Katherine!
     
  • Listen to the many fascinating lockdown talks on the Everyday Orientalism site. This site, cofounded by our colleague Professor Rachel Mairs, seeks to offer a platform through which students, academics, and citizens can reflect on how history and power shape the way in which human societies define themselves through the “Other”.  Talks and other posts often focus on classical antiquity, ancient Egypt, and the ancient Near East, as well as looking at how those societies have been interpreted and reinterpreted by modern Western culture.
     
  • Check into the podcasts by Khameleon Classics, the team who will be talking about the all-BAME Medea later on this month. Podcast no.4 is by our colleague Professor Barbara Goff, talking about classics in the British colonies of West Africa.

In addition, on 25th October, Prof. Goff will be part of an interview with Femi Osofisan about his new production of Medaye, an adaptation of Medea.  The interview will also include Prof. Olakunbi Olasope of the Department of Classics at the University of Ibadan, who has visited Reading Classics a few times and given seminars on the reception of Greek and Roman theatre in West African drama. The interview will be available via the Archive for Performances of Greek and Roman Drama in November. Stay tuned for a link to listen to this exciting interview! 

Shivake Shah’s presentation, which will be delivered online on Wednesday 27th October at 2pm, comes as a culmination in the long devotion of Reading Classics in contributing to research approaches revolving around decolonisation, inclusivity, and diversity in Classics. To find out more about Medaye, its preparation, production, performance, and social engagement, you can read the following blog on Femi Osofisan’s Medaye in Ibadan by Olakunbi Olasope: https://classicalreception.org/african-blog-takeover-9/ .

A recent testament for our contribution to research and public engagement in plurality and diversity in Classics is the Inclusive Classics Initiative, led by Professor Barbara Goff (University of Reading) and Dr Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis (University of St Andrews). Over two days the workshop covered a range of subjects: barriers to inclusivity, current projects and approaches aimed at making Classics more inclusive, and priorities for future work. Bringing together multiple perspectives within the discipline, including Classics in higher education and secondary schools, the workshop provided space for discussion about marginalised groups, both during antiquity and as experienced in the subject today. Among other topics, the final panel of the workshop was a conversation among Professor Kunbi Olasope, Dr Idowu Alade, and Dr Monica Aneni from the University of Ibadan, whose discussion focussed on recent increase in Classics admissions in the university in Nigeria as well as on the significance of Classical education in pursuing a variety of careers. Read more about their latest online, international workshop ‘Towards a More Inclusive Classics II’ in our blog post about it at t.ly/8YLj.  

To find out more on the long-standing commitment of Reading Classics in promoting inclusivity, diversity, and decolonisation in Classics, visit https://www.reading.ac.uk/classics/. 

We look forward to seeing you all in this exciting BHM event on 27th October 2021.  

Follow Reading Classics on social media for the latest news on Reading Classics and our events: 

Twitter: @UniRdg_Classics

Facebook: @UoRClassics 

Instagram: @classicsuor

YouTube: UnivRdgClassics 

 

Reading Classics Autumn Term Research Seminars 2021

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We are pleased to announce the launch of our regular Reading Classics Seminar Series for Autumn Term 2021, which will boost our Wednesday afternoons with constructive and stimulating lectures and discussions on various aspects of Classics research!

This series of lectures, starting on 29th September, run alongside the Ure Museum seminars ‘Troy in 21st Century’ in alternate weeks. In this accessible and inclusive environment—with some talks online and others in person—we welcome a diverse group of speakers from both the UK and abroad in our Departmental seminars, which will explore a variety of topics and periods of Classical studies.  

For our first Reading Classics Seminar, we are delighted to welcome Professor Sheila Murnaghan from University of Pennsylvania, who will speak on ‘Her own troubles: women writers and the Iliad’. Tune in on Wednesday 29th 2021 at 4pm. The lecture will be delivered online in MS Teams. To register your interest in attending please email Professor Amy C Smith, at HoD-Classics@reading.ac.uk.

You can find a full list of titles below.  

29 September

Sheila Murnaghan (University of Pennsylvania) Her own troubles: Women writers and the Iliad 

13 October (in person)

Emma Aston (University of Reading) The Aggressive Thessaly Reconsidered 

17 November

Judith Mossman (Coventry University) Tragedy in Plutarch 

1 December

Çigdem Maner (Koç University) Adaptation, subsistence, and political geography in South-Easter Konya from 3rd to 1st millennium BC

We look forward to welcoming you at Reading Classics Research Seminars once again! 

 

Report on ‘Towards a More Inclusive Classics II’ International workshop, organised by Professor Barbara Goff and Dr Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis

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Authors: Jenny Messenger, Arlene Holmes-Henderson, Barbara Goff and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis

Date: September2021

At the start of July 2021, the Inclusive Classics Initiative, led by Professor Barbara Goff (University of Reading) and Dr Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis (University of St Andrews), held its second online, international workshop ‘Towards a More Inclusive Classics II’. This event was co-chaired by Professor Barbara Goff (University of Reading) and Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson (King’s College London/University of Oxford), and over two days the workshop covered a range of subjects: barriers to inclusivity, current projects and approaches aimed at making Classics more inclusive, and priorities for future work.

Bringing together multiple perspectives within the discipline, including Classics in higher education and secondary schools, the workshop provided space for discussion about marginalised groups, both during antiquity and as experienced in the subject today.

Themed around ‘Embedding Inclusive Practices’, the first panel, chaired by University of Nottingham doctoral candidate Ashley Chhibber, started with Professor Jennifer Ingleheart (University of Durham) speaking from a Head of Department’s perspective about creating a welcoming space for incoming students. Jennifer mentioned using individual expressions of identity (such as displaying the rainbow flag), the success of a staff race reading group, and the problems faced by departments trying to develop EDI initiatives on a small budget. Dr Naoko Yamagata discussed the Open University’s success of attracting a relatively large proportion of students with a declared disability, along with the challenge of having very low levels of ethnic diversity among the student population, and strategies used to make the curriculum more inclusive, from checklists that challenge assumptions to changing commonly used terms. Dr Marchella Ward (University of Oxford) offered thoughts on the need to take critiques from marginalised students seriously, and to carry out EDI work before publicising it, to avoid appearing to capitalise on the marketing appeal of diversity.

Panel Two featured a series of updates on current projects dealing with diversity and inclusivity, which had first been introduced in last year’s ‘Towards a more Inclusive Classics’ workshop. Dr Fiona Hobden and Serafina Nicolosi shared the results of a student survey carried out at the University of Liverpool, which suggested that while the teaching and learning environment was inclusive, improvements could be made to further diversify the curriculum by, for example, featuring more women outside the domestic sphere. Giving an update on the MAPPOLA project, Professor Peter Kruschwitz (University of Vienna) showed how two stories from the margins of the Roman empire were able to destabilise received narratives, and Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson (King’s College London and University of Oxford) illustrated the sheer range of diversely positioned stakeholders in the UK Classics community, some of the success stories of knowledge exchange projects among these groups to date, and, crucially, identified future strategic actions required to improve collaboration.

Day Two began with a panel on ‘Decentring the Canon’, with talks from teachers in schools and colleges around the UK and Germany, as well as an update on the Christian Cole Society for Classicists of Colour. Anna McOmish (Aldridge School, Walsall) discussed the value of introducing an Ancient Middle East module into the Key Stage 3 History curriculum, while Peter Wright (Blackpool Sixth Form College) spoke about the Blackpool Classics for All hub and the benefits of using Classics as a tool to boost vocabulary, literacy, and oracy. Ray Cheung, an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, talked about the need to build a community of classicists of colour, to re-envision Classics, and to change institutional mindsets. Vijaya-Sharita Baba (Petroc College, Devon) discussed a personal journey from thinking of Classics as an inherently diverse subject to becoming aware of the ways certain curricula can be exclusive, and called for more resources that would be accessible to students with no linguistic background. Sanjay Sharma (Heinz-Brandt-Schule, Berlin) drew attention to the importance of re-framing and contextualising Classics in modern geographies, and of encouraging students to engage with a wide variety of artistic representations of antiquity.

Following this panel, attendees were able to chat in smaller, themed groups (small technical issues aside). Discussion in the PhD and early career researchers group touched on challenges in terms of lack of funding and support structures, and precarious employment, as well as the effect these factors might have on participating in inclusivity work, such as the inability to commit to longer-term initiatives within a department. Suggestions for future plans included sharing resources to help start reading groups and the need to continue online access to events even after in-person events begin again.

The mid-career and professoriate group praised the opportunity to be able to talk to colleagues from other institutions and discussed the networking role Twitter has assumed. Other topics included the need to find time, headspace, and buy-in to implement staff training at a time of increasing overload; embedding diversity in career paths through hiring practices and promotional processes; and which professional bodies had the ability to act and create change.

Colleagues in the teachers in schools and colleges group raised the question of what universities could do to encourage students into Classics, suggesting that talks tailored to the syllabus and virtual visits can be powerful tools. Finally, discussion about future events included plans surrounding a project focused on raising the profile of neurodiversity within Classics.

Our final panel of the workshop was a conversation among Professor Kunbi Olasope, Dr Idowu Alade, and Dr Monica Aneni from the University of Ibadan, whose discussion about lecturers and students in partnership showed how Classics admissions in the university in Nigeria had increased over the last ten years, especially at postgraduate level. Collaboration in various ways, including teaching, publication, and active mentoring, had led to a sense of student belonging. Classics remained a subject of study that could lead to all kinds of careers, ensuring good support from alumni, and a comparative focus on classical reception meant it was clear that Classics remained highly relevant.

From the point of view of the organisers, the workshop was hugely inspiring and provided lots of ideas for action and further thought. The idea of focusing on themes which had emerged as priorities from last year’s workshop proved very fruitful. Social media users followed updates on Twitter from the @inclusiclassics account and using #InclusiveClassicsII. The programme and presentation materials are available on the Institute of Classical Studies website. Professor Barbara Goff and Dr Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, would like to thank all attendees and all the speakers for their enthusiasm and collegiality, Dr Jenny Messenger for her fantastic administrative support, and particularly Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson for kindly stepping in to co-chair when Alexia was unwell.

To be added to the Inclusive Classics Initiative mailing list for information about future events, please email lks01beg@reading.ac.uk.

By Jenny Messenger, Arlene Holmes-Henderson, Barbara Goff and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis

In the screenshot, can you see a Reading professor, and a couple of alumni?

MA Colloquim 2021: Current Research Including Identity, Irrigation and Infliction!

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Author: Katherine Harloe. Edits: Bunny Waring
Date: 16th June 2021.

 

The Department of Classics welcomes all to the 2021 MA Colloquim, where current researching students give papers on their work in progress.

Join us for some fascinating seminars and discussions online via Microsoft Teams on

Tuesday 29 June 2021 between 10:00am – 5pm

 

ALL ARE WELCOME TO THIS FREE EVENT.

 

Please register by midday, 25 June at https://forms.office.com/r/a3vHf1wPTr
or by emailing execsupporthumanities@reading.ac.uk

 

PROGRAMME

10:00 am: Welcome (Katherine Harloe)
10:15 – 11:15: Session 1

Chairs: Rebecca Lightfoot, Aidan Richardson and Elliot Zadurian

Massimo Rossetti: To what extent did the Romans develop a state centralised water
policy in the late Republic and early Imperial eras?

Curtis Hill: The wealth of the Roman senatorial elite: a source of control or a catalyst for
conflict?
Klara Hegedus: The Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BCE. The act of a degenerate individual,
or an almost inevitable by-product of the changing political order?

11:15 – 11:30: Break
11:30 – 12:30 pm: Session 2

Chairs: Sue Vincent, Dulcimer Thompson and Jess Wragg

Louis Hope: To what extent did a Panhellenic identity exist during the period from the
beginning of the Persian Wars to the invasion of Persia by Alexander the Great?

Aaron Cox: All roads lead to Rhodes? A brief look into the politics of the Hellenistic
Mediterranean.

Charles Stewart: Demos, aristocracy, and empire: power relations and political
institutions in the Greek cities of Asia Minor under Roman rule.

12:30 – 1:30pm: Lunch
1:30 – 2:30pm: Session 3

Chairs: Aaron Cox, Charles Stewart and Louis Hope

Dulcimer Thompson: Examining the presence and effect of internalised misogyny in the
female characters of Classical literature.

Jess Wragg: Breaking the boundaries: gender nonconformity in Ancient Greece.

Sue Vincent: Hecabe – from magnificent matriarch to murderous mother?

3:30 – 3:45pm: Break
3:45 – 4:45pm: Session 4

Chairs:tbc.

Elliot Zadurian: Unjust deliveries of justice: the implications of the agon and law-court
scenes in ancient Greek Drama.

Rebecca Lightfoot: ‘The Bad Place.’ an exploration of punishment and the afterlife in
Egypt, Greece and the Near East.

Aidan Richardson: Is Plutarch’s claim to be writing “not Histories but Lives” true?
4:45pm: Wrap up/closing remarks

AMPAL 2020-2021 is COMING! Registration is still open! Don’t miss our Keynote speech!

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Author: Dania Kamini. Edits: Bunny Waring.
Date: 4th June 2021.

Only two weeks until AMPAL 2020-2021! The event will be held online on MS TEAMS from 17th -19th June 2021. This year’s theme is ‘Fear in Ancient Culture’. We are excited to invite you to this year’s keynote speech, which will be delivered by Professor Fiona McHardy of the University of Roehampton on 18th June at 5pm. 

Please note: Everyone is welcome to this free, online event, but you must register to receive access codes. To do so head to the AMPAL site here: https://ampal2020.wordpress.com/registration/

BEFORE 11th June 2021. 

Fear of Revenge in Euripidean Tragedy (abstract)

Young children in Greek literature are frequently shown as fearful, cowering in the arms of their mothers or nurses. Yet tiny infants such as these can strike fear into the hearts of even the most battle-weary and experienced warriors, and as yet unborn babies can make even mighty kings fearful. Within both political conflicts and wartime disputes, young children are perceived to pose a threat as the heirs of their fathers’ and grandfathers’ enmities. Though small and weak, young boys are the cause of such fear in grown men because of the expectation they will grow up to exact lethal revenge on the enemies of their families in the future. This expectation leaves the children vulnerable to murderous attacks in tragic plotlines. Consideration of extant and fragmentary plays reveals that this unsettling theme was one that Euripides returned to often suggesting that this concept of fear resonated with the fifth-century audience. Through exploration of contemporary ideas about young children and babies as avengers, underpinned by comparative anthropology and psychology, this lecture unravels the dynamics of fear associated with children within the plays of Euripides set within their literary and social context.

All welcome!  We look forward to welcoming you to AMPAL 2020-2021!

Registration for the AMPAL Conference is now open! (Until 10th June 2021)

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Author: Doukissa Kamini. Edits: Bunny Waring.
Date: 2nd June 2021.

 

You are warmly invited to register to attend the Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in Ancient Literature (AMPAL) 2020-2021 to be held online at MS Teams from 17th to 19th June 2021! Registration will remain open until 10th June 2021.

The theme of AMPAL 2020-2021 is ‘Fear in Ancient Culture’, about which, Postgraduates from both the UK and abroad will provide a series of presentations on literary, interdisciplinary, and historical approaches. The event will be accompanied by a virtual tour of the Ure Museum, a presentation of a student-curated online exhibition entitled ‘Fear Beyond Words’, and a Keynote Speech by Professor Fiona McHardy (University of Roehampton) on fear of revenge in Euripidean tragedies. You can find a list of titles as well as more details on the Keynote Speech and other aspects of AMPAL on the official website, where a list of abstracts and a programme are available.

To register for this free, online event please click here.

Please contact us at lks19a@reading.ac.uk for any questions and/or special requirements.

Best wishes,

Dania Kamini

Follow AMPAL on Twitter and Facebook

Visit AMPAL website: https://ampal2020.wordpress.com/

Inclusive Classics

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Authors: Dr. Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis & Prof. Barbara Goff. Edits: Bunny Waring.
Date: 7th May 2021.

 

 

In April 2021, the Classical Association opened its annual conference – held online this year due to the pandemic – with a panel on Inclusive Classics. Inspired in part by the ‘Towards a more inclusive Classics’ workshop held in June 2020, the panel was convened and run by the Inclusive Classics Initiative, headed by Professor Barbara Goff (University of Reading) and Dr Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis (University of St Andrews). The aim of this Initiative is to open discussions within the discipline about marginalised groups, both in terms of their experiences during antiquity and their interactions with the subject today. The Initiative also works to bridge the gap between Classics in higher education and Classics at secondary schools, thus bringing together more perspectives within the discipline.

The panel, entitled ‘Inclusive Classics and pedagogy: teachers, academics and students in conversation’, opened with a series of spotlight talks. These covered a wide range of topics, including disability in the Classics curriculum, examining the influence of race on Classical art, applying queer theory to Classics, equality of access to classical languages and highlighting the launch of Classics Caring Network. A binding theme shared by the various speakers was the idea that inequalities in the wider world are reflected within the discipline. These spotlight talks, by early-career classicists, will be available on the Classical Association website.

Following on from the spotlight talks, the panel moved onto considering the teaching and learning experience of Classics in relation to inclusivity, both at undergraduate level and in the context of secondary education. Participants were wowed by the eloquence of two school students (from Runshaw College in Lancashire and Pimlico Academy in London), who spoke about the perception of Classics as the subject of the privileged elite, with limited real-world application. Equally interesting was the insight from teachers from the same schools, who explained how they are reforming traditional approaches to Classics, such as by deemphasising the importance of masters and slaves and examining issues of gender in the ancient world.

Break-out rooms gave participants the opportunity to ‘meet’ and exchange responses about what they had heard. The final ‘closing remarks’ of the panel saw many other intriguing presentations – on topics like the initiative to find new unseen Latin passages representing a wider variety of perspectives and backgrounds, how institutions can make Classics more inclusive in terms of race and social class, the new EDI officers at the Classical Association, the weaponization of debates surrounding Classics in an increasingly polarised public forum, the ways in which academia could do more to support those with disabilities (particularly visual impairments), the contemporary social and political context within which the Inclusive Classics Initiative is operating and the need for a free and pluralistic discourse for academic inquiry to flourish.

The Inclusive Classics Initiative has organised a second workshop for the 1st and 2nd of July 2021, hosted online by the Institute of Classical Studies and supported by the CUCD teaching committee. Issues discussed will include ‘Planting the seeds of Inclusive Classics in school contexts’, ‘Embedding inclusive practices in institutions’, ‘Decentring Athens, Rome and the canon’ and ‘Lecturers and students in collaboration’. Until then, the Initiative’s heads would like to thank all those who (virtually) attended the panel and, above all, the speakers: Lauren Canham, Amy Coker, Tristan Craig, Hardeep Dhindsa, Katherine Harloe, Arlene Holmes-Henderson, Victoria Leonard, Claude MacNaughton, Justine McConnell, Neville Morley, Isabel Ruffell, Rosie Tootell, Joe Watson, Tim Whitmarsh, Bobby Xinyue and the two school students.

Call For Posters: Narrating Relationships in Holy Lives.

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Author: Alice van den Bosch & Becca Grose. Edits: Bunny Waring.
Date: 2nd April 2021.

Call for Posters

Narrating Relationships in Holy Lives from the first millennium AD Department of Classics & Ancient History

Hosted by: University of Exeter via Zoom, 12th July 2021.

We are excited to announce an afternoon workshop on ‘Narrating Relationships in Holy Lives’. Communities wrote about holy figures for many reasons. Our speakers consider the characterisation of various holy figures or ‘the very special dead’ in texts from multiple religious (Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Manichaean) and linguistic (Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew) communities. The workshop will explore the construction of holy and unholy characters, their relationships, and the role of narrative order in texts about holy figures. We are especially interested in how these features change as texts and figures are translated, transmitted, epitomised or received in different contexts across the late-ancient and early-medieval Mediterranean.

Keynotes

Christian Sahner (Oxford) “How to construct a holy life in the early Islamic period”

Christa Gray (Reading) TBC

Speakers

Nic Baker-Brian (Cardiff) “Is there a Narrator Here? The Role of Narrative and Narration in Manichaean Kephalaia” Stavroula Constantinou (Cyprus) “Narrating Friendship in Byzantine Hagiography”
Edmund Hayes (Leiden) TBC
Jillian Stinchcomb (Brandeis) “Narrating the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon’s Court in Late Antique Sources” Chontel Syfox (Wisconsin-Madison) “Rewriting Leah: The Feminine Ideal in the Book of Jubilees”

The workshop will be held in English and will comprise a short opening and closing keynote, brief panels, and discussion. This will culminate in a roundtable discussion. General registration will be opened in late May.

Applications are now open for pre-circulated posters. We invite contributions that consider:

  • Order in which characters and relationships are introduced or developed
  • Choice of narrator(s) and narrative perspectives
  • Types of relationship (e.g. confrontational, supportive, ambiguous) as narrative devices
  • Relationship formation, breakdown and misunderstanding as narrative progression
  • Relationships as constructors of inclusion, exclusion & difference (e.g. status, gender etc.)
  • Reconfiguration of relationships in transmission, translation, paraphrase and epitome
  • Receptions and reinterpretations of characters from other narratives
  • Relationships beyond the human (e.g. supernatural, environmental, non-human)
  • Characters in context: narratives and audience, performance, relics

Posters will be shared with registered attendees, who will be invited to pose questions to individual poster presenters via email. General themes and questions arising from the posters will also be raised at the roundtable discussion.

We will accept posters in English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Modern Standard Arabic. To facilitate wide comprehension, presenters are asked to provide an English synopsis if the poster is not in English; if this is a barrier then please contact us. We are especially keen to encourage submissions from postgraduates, ECRs and independent scholars who may not have a departmental profile.

Please send one-page poster submissions in PowerPoint or PDF format to narratingholylives@gmail.com by 1st July 2021, along with affiliation, year of study and synopsis if applicable. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Enquiries about poster topics and format are also welcomed (we recommend A1 format, 26pt font minimum) and we can provide a poster guidance sheet.

Alice van den Bosch (Exeter) & Becca Grose (Reading/Exeter)