Tag Archives: Jayne Holly

Classics Staff awarded for Teaching, Research, and Outreach

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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.

Launch of a new Ure Museum exhibition

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We are delighted to announce a new exhibition— Locus Ludi: Anyone can play!—on display at the Ure Museum from 6 September until 30 November, 2023. Image of ancient game pieces from the Ure Museum
This new exhibition, inspired by the European Research Council funded project Locus Ludi: The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, led by Professor Véronique Dasen, is an opportunity to explore the rich collections relating to games and play in antiquity that are available not only at the Ure Museum but at other UK museums. The exhibition is co-curated by Jayne Holly (Ure Assistant Curator) and Summer Courts (one of our PhD candidates) and benefits particularly from Summer’s expertise in ancient games. We are most grateful to Colchester and Ipswich Museums, Reading Museum, The British Museum and the University of Reading’s Special Collections for the loan of important artefacts from their collections. Han

Another highlight is the game pieces and other contents of the Stanway Doctor’s Grave, a first-century AD tomb discovered by archaeologists in Stanway, Essex, in 1996. (NB you may have heard that ‘Doctor’ referred also as  ‘The Druid of Colchester’, for indeed it is unclear whether he was Celtic, Roman, or other, Druid or even doctor. Nontheless he was buried with a unique gameboard that still baffles experts. You can learn more about it with this video made by the Panoply Vase Animation Project (created with support from the University of Reading’s Friends and Arts Committee) and of course by visiting the exhibition in the Ure Museum!

We have planned several exciting activities and outreach events to coincide with this exhibition. All are welcome but please note that bookings are required for the first two events:

 

Seminar Series – Heroic Beauty: Beautiful Heroism.

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Author: Prof. Amy Smith.
Date: 15th January 2021.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image: Pottery black-figured neck-amphora depicting Achilles and Hector with gods 520BC-500BC (c) Trustees of the British Museum.

Heroic Beauty: Beautiful Heroism

The Department of Classics at Reading is delighted to present an online seminar series to accompany the forthcoming exhibition Troy: Beauty and Heroism, a British Museum spotlight loan at the Ure Museum. While the launch of the exhibition has been postponed, with this series of presentations we will begin to explore the themes of heroism and beauty and their interconnectedness throughout antiquity, particularly in relation to the epic tradition and its reception. Interested individuals are welcome to join us online for this series of presentations from Reading Classics’ own scholars, as well as some special guests, via Teams on Wednesdays from 27 January to 25 March at 4pm (link below).

27th January 2021 – Prof. Ian Rutherford (University of Reading) Beauty, Proportion and the Canon: What Did the Greeks Borrow From Egypt?

3rd February 2021 – Prof. Amy Smith (University of Reading) Beauty & Heroism in the Amazonomachy.

10th February 2021 – Dr. Claudina Romero Mayorga (University of Reading) Who’s the Fairest of Them All? The Judgement of Paris in Etruscan Mirrors.

17th February 2021 – Prof. Barbara Goff (University of Reading) Helens: Speeches and Silences.

24th February 2021 – Dr. Signe Barfoed (University of Oslo/Reading) The White Teeth of a Boar of Gleaming Tusks: Boar-hunt and Warrior Ethos in Homer’s world.

3rd March 2021 – Dr. Oliver Baldwin (University of Reading) Penelope: Inward and Outward Beauty.

10th March 2021 – Dr. James Lloyd-Jones (University of Reading) Alexander the Great and the Music of Paris and Achilles.

17th March 2021 – Dr. Sonya Nevin (Panoply/University of Roehampton) Beauty and Heroism in Panoply’s Our Mythical Childhood Animations.

25the March 2021 – Prof. Sophia Papaioannou (University of Athens) The Charming Artistry of Competitive Performance in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca 19.

For more information or to book for this online seminar series please contact Professor Amy C. Smith, Curator of the Ure Museum, at a.c.smith@reading.ac.uk.

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