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Posts Tagged ‘classical studies’

My Name Is…

Posted in Musings, tagged , , on April 2, 2020| 12 Comments »

There’s nothing like an enforced lockdown in the middle of a global pandemic to force someone like me – not antisocial, exactly, but inclined to assume that others are happy to get on with their lives without me imposing on their precious time – to start making contact and reinforcing connections. Longer emails for family and close friends, regular social media contact for everyone else – with a powerful sense of how far I’m already a member of a couple of really important online communities, consisting mainly of people I’ve never met in person, that are now even more important.

One of the things this has brought home is how downright weird some of the algorithms have become. (more…)

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Flat Earth Studies

Posted in Musings, tagged , , , on February 27, 2019| 7 Comments »

It’s the annual meeting of the International Society for Dinosaur Research. Concerned by a fall-off in student recruitment, as young people increasingly look to more relevant, future-orientated degree programmes that offer a better chance of a job at the end, and shaken by its image as a hotbed of sexism and dodgy relationships with students (as seen on Friends), the Society has organised an open discussion of the future of the discipline. One delegate takes the microphone. “Our discipline was founded on the exploration of God’s miraculous creation, but we’ve increasingly abandoned those sacred values, and put off many students, through an emphasis on autonomous natural processes and time-spans of millions of years in a way that directly contradicts Scripture!” As members of the panel interject, and someone tries to take the microphone away: “You are betraying our heritage! We are the dinosaurs!” (more…)

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Tainted Love

Posted in Musings, tagged , , on August 14, 2018| 2 Comments »

I think it would be fair to say that the idea of Boris Johnson as a national figurehead for classics was problematic long before he started deploying far-right dog whistles in his newspaper column. I actually don’t intend this as a criticism of the charity Classics For All for having invited him to be one of their patrons; I can entirely understand the logic of seeking the support of a prominent public figure who not only studied classics but who continues to make classical references at every opportunity. But the benefits of such an association inevitably come with a potential cost, especially in today’s febrile culture where every controversy is immediately magnified and accentuated, and especially with a political figure who actively courts controversy, in the form of throwaway remarks that can always be excused as a joke if the consequences look like becoming too serious – the current burka fuss is by no means Johnson’s first foray into vulgar racism.

But this goes beyond the sort of embarrassment produced by, say, having a patron convicted of financial irregularities (more…)

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The Five Stages of Good Grief

Posted in Musings, Publications, tagged , , , on May 20, 2018| 7 Comments »

Bemusement So, my new book Classics: why it matters has been reviewed on the Classics For All webpage by Richard Jenkyns – I’d asked for a copy to be sent to them (I don’t know if they’re on the regular distribution list for review copies) as they’re a worthy organisation seeking to promote the study of classics in state schools rather than keeping it as preserve of the elite, and that’s one of the points of the book. Jenkyns is one of their patrons, so it’s entirely reasonable that they asked him to write the review – and he didn’t like it much… Okay, I wouldn’t have expected my comments on the place of ancient languages to win much favour with an eminent Oxford classicist, but is it really true, as is implied, that the book only shows any liveliness when it’s attacking classics? How must I have failed to express myself clearly, if someone thinks that I’m recommending David Engels’ prophecies of doom as a model for classical studies, rather than offering them as an example and symptom of alarming politicised appropriation of the ancient world? And as for the idea that Thucydides is straightforward to read in translation whereas such an approach in the case of Tacitus would inevitably lead to misinterpretation and misunderstanding… (more…)

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Holiday Reading: Best of 2017

Posted in Musings, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Once again, I’ve remembered to keep track of the blogs I’ve especially enjoyed over the last year (with the curious exception of April – I don’t know, at this remove, whether I was too busy to read anything, or not much was published, or I was feeling hyper-sniffy at the time so didn’t think there was anything worth recommending. Very happy to get suggestions in the comments of great things that I’ve missed). This doesn’t claim to be a definitive list, just the stuff I came across – often via the Twitter, which continues to be a great way of keeping up with what’s going on in different regions and fields, despite all the management’s efforts to ruin it and drive everyone away – that deserves a more than ephemeral readership… (more…)

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‘Proper Classics’

Posted in Musings, tagged , , , , , on July 7, 2017| 13 Comments »

One of the (probably innumerable) ways in which I irritate my wife is by going round claiming to have a classics degree, despite having studied no Greek or Latin at university. Actually I feel this characterisation is slightly unfair, as I do have a bona fide classics degree, 100% legitimate according to the rules of the university at the time, despite the lack of any language, and it’s not as if I have ever actually attempted to pass myself off as a ‘proper classicist’ with a permanent fear that someone might ask me to translate Vergil, revealing my deception and leading to summary dismissal in disgrace. On the contrary, I’m more likely to go to the other extreme of describing myself as not a classicist but a historian who happens to do ancient stuff; some of my best friends are classicists etc., but that’s not generally what I do. Still, I occasionally wonder how many of the colleagues who wearily tolerate this ideological pose do so in the belief that I actually have the grounding in ancient languages that would entitle me to the status of ‘proper classicist’ if I only chose to claim it, and might therefore look at me differently (or break out the pitchforks) if they knew the truth. (more…)

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