I hope you've enjoyed another week of lectures and seminars, despite the disruption caused (at least for some colleagues and students) by the Rail strike.
Arguably, the single positive legacy that the dark years of the pandemic left us with is Teams/Zoom and our ability to offer hybrid teaching in similar circumstances. All colleagues put on special Teams sessions for any students who couldn’t attend classes due to the strike this week. The special events organised by Dr Liz Gloyn and Dr Nick Lowe for Dissertation students and for 2nd and 3rd years (on revised marking criteria) last Wednesday were well attended (in hybrid format) and the slides for both will be made available on the UG Academic Support Moodle page.
In this week’s newsletter, we have four items: two from our staff and two from our students:
- Our own Mia Ince, producer of “The Classics Hour” on Insanity Radio
- Dr Efi Spentzou and her Myth and Voice Project (new video)
- The Classics Society- Painting session last week.
- Professor Richard Alston’ review of a useful sourcebook on Greek and Roman slavery.
Mia Ince and “The Classics Hour” on Insanity Radio
Mia, one of our postgraduate students (and alumna!) on the MRes in Rhetoric programme, is also a seasoned radio producer. Last year, she produced and presented the “Pandora’s Box” a Classics-theme show. This year she is relaunching it as “The Classics Hour”. Mia writes:
“I'll be relaunching my show on the university's radio station, Insanity Radio, this year under the new banner of 'The Classics Hour' and a slightly new format.
I'll be inviting a new classicist on the show each week to talk about one of their subjects of interest. The shows can be recorded anytime and anyplace because I have a new remote microphone, and both students and staff are welcome. If anyone is interested in coming on the show, they are welcome to email me. The show will play on https://insanityradio.com/listen/ every Friday from 1-2pm starting (hopefully) next week.” You can’t miss it!
You will all be familiar with Dr Efi Spentzou’s “Myth and Voice: Storytelling for Communities” Project. The project has grown organically out of Efi’s teaching and is now making its way into schools, youth environments, and community groups. I am sure she will find an opportunity to tell us all more about it in a plenary session at some point, but I can’t wait to share with you a new video in which Efi talks about the project. I have to add that the video was recorded and made YouTube ready by our own Ellis Cuffe, a PhD student of the Department. Watch the video here.
Our Classics Society organised a painting session on Wednesday and they sent me a few photos (below). I am told that they have exciting plans for this academic year. Follow them on Instagram to find out more about their events. Have you joined the Society yet?
Professor Alston published a book review last week:
Last week Richard Alston published a review in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review on a new source collection, Greek and Roman Slaveries.
Richard writes: 'I don't often write reviews. I don't want to impose my view on other readers. But sometimes it seems worthwhile. The editors, Kostas Vlassopoulos and Eutychia Bathrellou have made a serious contribution to our understanding of slavery in this and other works. It seemed useful to publicise this collection and think about how free people treated those they enslaved. You sometimes read modern authors claiming that ancient slavery, particularly Roman slavery was not so bad, particularly in comparison with the horrors of the Atlantic slave system. The ethics of engaging in a competition of horror (one very, very bad thing does not make a very bad thing any better). are questionable to say the least. Anyone reading the collection of sources would be hard put to deny the horrors of Greek and Roman slaveries. Texts range from the inscriptions on a slave collar found round the neck of the skeleton of a slave woman, to Horace's treatment of slaves as sexual objects, to Biblical texts on slavery in ancient Israel. For me, the texts raise a fundamental historical issue and one that has resonances through the ages: how can one person look another person in the eyes and do such terrible things?
Most reviews get published and you never know whether anybody ever reads them. But this one, people have started writing to me about. See the link above if you want to have a further look.”
At the end of another long and quite stressful week, the sun is still up (I was told I shouldn’t be burning the midnight oil while writing this newsletter 😊) and the temperatures are still unseasonably high! I hope you all enjoy a warm and relaxing weekend!
Christos
'The Classics Hour’ - Insanity Radio
