UCL DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND LATIN
Classics newsletter
November 2015 | Issue 13
INTRODUCTION BY HEAD OF DEPARTMENT
Gesine Manuwald
Welcome to the next issue of the Newsletter
from UCL Greek and Latin, for an update on
what has been happening in the Department
over the past year and what is planned
for the year to come. It is a pleasure to
see how the study of the ancient world
is flourishing at UCL with a large number
of excellent staff and students, who are
also able to inspire the world outside.
The beginning of the past academic year saw a major change
among staff, when Chris Carey retired as Professor of Greek after
ten years at UCL and the Department welcomed Phiroze Vasunia
as his successor. Phiroze has already become an active member
of the Department and organized several conferences and events.
While both Phiroze and Chris have an impressive knowledge of
Greek literature, their specific research interests differ; therefore,
we (or rather: the students) now have the best of both worlds, since
Chris continues to teach for us part-time. The number of professors
has also increased by other means since Stephen Colvin and Nick
Gonis have been promoted to Professor with effect from this autumn
(congratulations to both of them for this deserved recognition of
their hard work). Since a number of colleagues were on leave for
various reasons, we are grateful to the full-time Teaching Fellows
Dr Philippa Bather, Dr Dimitra Kokkini and Dr Antony Makrinos, who
did a lot of wonderful teaching for us last year. Dimitra and Antony
will continue to do so in the coming year, while we are very sorry to
lose Philippa after two years; we wish her well for her future career.
In addition to colleagues returning from leave, we are welcoming
Dr Clare Foster as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow this
autumn: Clare did an MA in the Reception of the Classical World
with us a few years ago and continues to work on exciting reception
projects, particularly in the field of film and performance. Last, but
not least, our team of three full-time administrators is now complete,
after Ana Higginson joined us from Kingston University last autumn:
as Administrative Officer she particularly looks after student
administration and supports programme tutors on BA and MA level;
her presence has already made a huge difference. With the input of
all members of staff we have further improved our processes as well
as the information and support we provide to students. Moreover, in
the past year the Department was one of the few to participate in the
Gender Equality Charter Mark trial and received a Bronze Award
last autumn, which is a testament to our fair and equal procedures.
All academic colleagues have again been very active in teaching,
researching and other projects (see their individual staff pages on
the departmental website). Some of their recent publications are
featured on the following pages. Both staff and research students
organized numerous conferences on Greek, Latin and reception
topics (some in collaboration with the ‘Centre for Research on the
Dynamics of Civilisation’), ranging from the fragments of Varro, the
neglected Augustan poet Grattius over family law in the ancient
world to the poetics of war as well as Hellenism and Judaism in
modernity (on some of these events see further details later on).
The annual Housman lecture was delivered by Professor Leslie
Kurke (Berkeley), who also gave a masterclass on a recently
discovered poem by the Greek poetess Sappho. The Department
invited alumni and the general public to two special events, panel
discussions with actress Fiona Shaw and translator Jo Balmer
respectively (we now also have an alumni mentoring forum, with
alumni giving career advice to current students, and regularly
feature an ‘Alumnus / Alumna of the Month’ on our website). The
annual Greek Play, Euripides’ Bacchae, was a particular success
this year: it was not only shown in the Bloomsbury Theatre, but cast
and crew were also invited to perform in Greece and in the British
Museum (see notes from the producer). The academic advisor,
Dr Rosa Andújar, complemented the performances at UCL with a
symposium on ‘Staging Greek Tragedy Today’. The Department
will again be putting on a full range of events next academic year,
including another Greek Play (in a different format because of the
temporary closure of the Bloomsbury Theatre), a Housman Lecture
on a Latin topic and a range of conferences, which are open to
everyone with an interest in the ancient world (check the website for
programmes and registration details). We continue to enjoy funding
from the A. G. Leventis Foundation for some of these initiatives.
Apart from staging the Greek Play, our students have been busy
studying (and enjoying the upgraded common rooms and other
facilities in the Department). Our undergraduate finalists again
finished with excellent results; several were put on the Dean’s list in
recognition of their excellent results or received departmental prizes.
We have also had a large intake of eager MA students, who have
just handed in their dissertations on exciting topics from archaic
Greece to different forms of reception in the modern world. Each
year some BA students go on to do an MA, and some MA students
go on to do a PhD, and it is encouraging to see the passion for
the subject that drives students to carry on despite the sometimes
considerable economic difficulties. PhD students have made
important contributions to the Department’s undergraduate teaching,
for instance, by allowing us to run intensive language courses, and
Continued overleaf....
have organized conferences and run their own research seminar
(see separate report); a few have taken the opportunity to spend a
term working with an expert at another institution. Several research
students completed their PhDs, and a considerable number of those
managed to get a post in another university immediately, which is a
remarkable achievement in the current competitive climate. Some
MA students too obtained teaching positions in secondary schools.
The Department continues to be involved in trying to bring Classics
not only to adults by lectures and public events, but also to school
children, who otherwise may not have the chance to learn about the
ancient world and might be motivated to study it at university later
on. As Dr Peter Agócs, the Department’s Widening Participation and
Schools Liaison Officer, explains elsewhere in this Newsletter, we
again ran our now well-established summer schools (Ancient World,
Classics, Homer), including a number of special events (described in
detail later), as well as Taster Days and Open Days. In addition, we
trialled the new format of a ‘Summer Challenge Course’, a series of
sessions for the same group of students spread over several weeks;
this gives students a more sustained experience, which seems to
have worked very well (see separate report).
It has been a busy, but fantastic year, in which all members of the
Department, each in their own way, have made progress and can
celebrate their achievements, which altogether turns the Department
into the pleasant and successful place that it is. We hope that
things will continue to thrive in the coming academic year, in which
we do not expect too many changes, but rather intend to carry on
and enhance what we have been doing. We are always open for
enquiries and welcome everyone at our events. So we hope to hear
from you or see you over the coming year!
Gesine Manuwald
Head of Department
Outreach activities in the Department of Greek and Latin
For several years, the Department, like
UCL more generally, has been engaged in
a sustained and partly successful attempt
to meet the targets of its OFFA Access
Agreement, which (in exchange for the
freedom to charge £9,000 fees) requires
that the university increase applications from
students in lower socioeconomic classes
and ‘low-participation neighbourhoods’
by 25% (+ 5%/year) from 2012-17 and increase the number of
state school-educated students actually studying at UCL by 10%
(2%/year), with lower-class student intake rising by 5% (1%/year)
over the same period. The college has created an Outreach and
Widening Participation Office, which organises a variety of events
for secondary school students, and funds a variety of departmental
initiatives. This work is especially important to us, conscious as we
are of the role Classical culture and education have played in the
past as a barrier to the social emancipation of the poor in Britain,
and of the way in which access to Classical teaching is still deeply
skewed towards the privately educated élites.
This is my last year in the role of Departmental Outreach Officer,
a job I have enjoyed greatly, most of all because it gave me the
opportunity to meet young people whose interest in the subject and
determination to overcome the considerable obstacles in their path
was profoundly inspiring. In June and early July, with the help of
the UCL Outreach Office, we organised a four-day Summer School
and a Taster Day for year-12 students, who came and studied in
the Department, attending classes given by our teaching staff and
postgraduate students on aspects of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome
and the Near East. We also visited the collections of UCL’s Petrie
Museum and the British Museum. The students, most of them
Londoners with some of them coming from places as far away as
Liverpool and Bristol, were a delightful group and a joy to teach. As
well, my colleague Antony Makrinos and MA student Keely Jones
organised a Summer Challenge Course over six weeks for students
Newsletter 2015
in year 12, studying the impact of Classical culture on European
art, music, drama, literature and film. Antony’s week-long Homer
Summer School, held for the second time in the first week of July,
was a brilliant success, with eighty-four participants, including
many secondary school students, working on Homer’s poems
in translation and the original Greek. The closing performance
in spoken words, music and dance of Cavafy’s Homeric poems
was a deeply moving experience. A larger-scale Taster Day held in
February in the big lecture theatre of the Institute of Archaeology
was open to any potential applicants, attracting more than 120
secondary school students interested in discovering more about
life at UCL.
Apart from these big events, our lecturers also make frequent visits
to schools and take part in a variety of activities organised by UCL
and in the wider community. The Department is also continuing its
enduring collaboration with the Iris Project’s Literacy Through Latin
program, and with Capital Classics and the East End Classics
Centre at BSix Brooke House Sixth Form College in Hackney.
Our volunteer teachers (BA, MA and PhD students) taught Latin
in primary and secondary schools in the London area, introducing
students to the language and to classical culture. Interest in the
ancient world seems to be flourishing at present, and we aim
to continue our work to broaden access to Classics and to the
university in the coming year. I wish my successor Prof. Miriam
Leonard (m.leonard@ucl.ac.uk) much luck and success in this
important work.
Dr Peter Agócs
Widening Participation and Schools Liaison Officer
“We are all Trojans…”: Dr Antony Makrinos interviews composer Belinda É.S.
1. So, Belinda, you composed the music for the “Winged
Words” event and the reading and performance of the Iliad
back in 2014. How has the whole experience engaged your
passion of the classical world and, specifically, Homeric epics?
It has certainly given me a new appreciation of just how important
and impactful Homeric epics have been for so many people. I
found it quite special to engage with the emotion in the Iliad for
the ‘Winged Words’ event and it helped the epics come to life a
little more for me.
2. Last summer you composed the music for Cavafy’s
‘Homeric’ poems, an event which was part of the Summer
School in Homer 2015. What were your expectations for the
project? How difficult has it been to compose music for an
event that combines reading, acting
and physical performance?
Well I always enjoy a challenge so was
immediately drawn to it from that angle;
the sheer creativity of the project was very
alluring. The emotion in the text had to
be palpable in the music and it also had
to work hand in hand with the physical
performance. So Deb Pugh (the physical
performer) and Antony Makrinos would
come back and say something felt right, or
not, and then I would have to go back and
work on it and sync it with what everyone
was feeling about the essence of these
particular poems. It is always fascinating
how each of us has our interpretation of a
particular thing, yet despite the individual
variability, we always managed to come to
a consensus of what we felt was the best
representation of that particular poem or
emotion. I had never done anything like it
before so it was a pleasure to be involved
in such a great project that combined
academia and the arts so skilfully!
5. Which poem was the most interesting for your music and why?
That’s a tough one. I guess my favourite Cavafy poem is ‘Ithaca’.
I first crossed paths with it many years ago and even then it stuck
a chord with me, there was something serene and profound
about it, a certain wisdom emanating from a life weathered by
storms and adventures, but a heart that is full and content. As I
sat at the piano to compose, I stared at the text and there was
a certain reverence for it as it was. I was partly afraid to mar it
by trying to encapsulate it in a one-minute piece of music. Alas
these are always going to be the two sides of the coin for artists:
expressing oneself yet realising that that expression is incomplete
and imperfect, at best.
6. What is the role of emotions in your music and what was
their role in this particular project?
An artist is always inextricably bound
to the work he or she creates, and so
when I compose music, it necessarily
involves my current frame of mind,
mood, emotions, how my life is at the
moment, etc. As a psychologist and art
therapist it’s been particularly helpful to
practise being aware of what goes within.
Though I generally don’t compose with
a conscious intention of conveying an
emotion, in retrospect when I listen to my
compositions, I can feel all the nuances
and layers of life experience in them. In
this project it was a matter of trying to
crawl into the text and soak it in through
my pores, experience what it was like
to be in it, experience, for example, the
futility and resignation in ‘We are all
Trojans…’. Overall it was a wonderful
experience composing in this way.
3. Cavafy’s engagement with Homer is complex. How were
you inspired to compose music for this event?
Composing for the Cavafy event was different from ‘Winged
Words’, even though on the surface they both deal with Homeric
epics. While ‘Winged Words’ was more immediate in emotion
and much more narrative-based, Cavafy’s take on the Homeric
epics was more conceptual and abstract in nature. This made the
whole process of composing very different and I would say, while
still enjoyable, more challenging than the previous year.
7. Could you tell us a bit about your future plans and the
after-life of this project?
I’m not sure what the after-life of this project will be, but I would like
to think that we would have the opportunity to repeat it elsewhere
or make it available in some sort of format to more people. For
now we’ve started with a few YouTube videos of the music from
‘Winged Words’ and the Cavafy event. Who knows, perhaps
there is another creative project in the Department just around
the corner! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XtQhvwljfQ)
4. Cavafy’s Homer was an interaction between four entirely
different personas: the Greek actress, the English readertranslator, the physical performer and you, the composer. What
did you think were the most important challenges of the project?
Working with creatives is always interesting, as everyone had
very clear and articulated views of what the poem is all about,
how it should look, sound and feel. The most important challenge
was fusing the music with the other aspects of the performance,
making the music a sort of undertone for all the nuances of
narration, acting and physical performing.
Other than that, at the moment I am in the throes of recording
my new album and rehearsing for the upcoming concert (31 Oct,
https://hope-for-a-tree.eventbrite.com).
And if anyone asks, I am always busy ploughing away on my PhD!
www.belindaes.com
Belinda Stojanovic
PhD Student
Newsletter 2015
Summer School in Homer 2015
Summer School in Homer 2015 was held from Monday 29 June
to Friday 3 July 2015 at the Department of Greek and Latin,
UCL, and it brought together 84 students from more than 10
different countries all around the world. Ages varied from 15 to
72 and the students were divided into 5 groups: Homer from
translation-Homer’s Legacy, Beginners Greek, Intermediate
Greek, Advanced Greek 1 and Advanced Greek 2. The tutors
for the classes on Homer were: Antonio Cartolano (Homer from
translation), Antony Makrinos (Homer’s Legacy), Giulia Biffis
(Beginners), Ifigeneia Giannadaki (Intermediate), Dimitra Kokkini
(Advanced 1) and Luke Houghton (Advanced 2).
The first day of the talks opened with a roundtable on the
Reception of Homer chaired by Dr Anastasia Bakogianni
(Institute of Classical Studies) and brought together a number
of distinguished contributors from various institutions: Luke
Houghton (Reading), Antony Makrinos (UCL), Joanna Paul (OU),
Fiona Hobden (Liverpool). The contributors discussed various
receptions of the Homeric epics in paintings and modern Greek
poetry, film and documentaries. Lectures this year were given by
Dr Amanda Wrigley (‘Homer on the radio in the mid-20th century:
oral poetry and the aural imagination’) and Dr Fiachra McGóráin
(‘Homer and Virgil on authority’).
The participants were also invited to follow two special readings
this year. The first one was a staged reading of Aquilla Theatre’s
innovative A Female Philoctetes, an exploration of Sophocles’
Philoctetes reimagined with the title role played as a female
combat soldier. This groundbreaking production featured a cast
of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. A post reading discussion
followed, led by Dr Rosa Andújar (UCL) in conversation with
Aquila actors, translator Dr Peter Meineck (NYU) and director
Desiree Sanchez.
Summer School in Homer 2015
The evaluation forms from both students and tutors were very
positive. The students offered positive thoughts about the Summer
School and they pointed out the high teaching standards and their
appreciation of the variety of the evening lectures. They have
also reported that they enjoyed the evening performances and
they have mentioned that they are looking forward to following
the next artistic project of the Summer School in Homer. With the
exception of some problems with the rooms, the tutors also found
the Summer School a very enjoyable and rewarding experience.
In future we are planning to reach more than 100 participants
and to try to attract some more participation from schoolchildren.
We are also planning to hold a third Summer School in Homer
(27 June – 1 July 2016) at UCL and we have already started
organizing the events and enriching the agenda with more
researchers, teachers and artists.
The second special event was entitled ‘We are all Trojans…’ and
it included an evening of performing and reading C. P. Cavafy’s
‘Homeric’ poems in Greek and in English with physical performer
Deborah Pugh, actress Augoustina Likourina and Dr Antony
Makrinos and with the accompaniment of music by Belinda É. S.
The event was open to the public and it attracted an audience of
more than 100 people.
The Homer from translation – Homer’s Legacy class was jointly
taught by Dr Antonio Cartolano and Dr Antony Makrinos. Students
were introduced to Homeric studies and were lectured on modern
topics. At the same time they had the opportunity to appreciate the
reception of the Homeric epics in other modes of representation
such as cinema, documentaries, painting, novelisations, and
modern Greek poetry.
Overall the students have reported that they have enjoyed
the experience a lot and they have praised both the Summer
School and their teachers. They have been very enthusiastic
about the performance ‘We are all Trojans…’ and many of them
have communicated their admiration for Cavafy’s work and their
eagerness to read more of his poems. They have noted that they
have enjoyed the evening immensely and that the reading has
communicated emotions and ideas coming from the poetry of both
poets. They have also asked for similar events to be repeated in
the future as part of the concluding day of the Summer School.
Newsletter 2015
Summer School in Homer - The Party 2015
For more details about the Summer School in Homer 2016,
please visit our website:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/classics/events/summerschoolinhomer
or contact Dr Antony Makrinos a.makrinos@ucl.ac.uk
+44 (0)20 7679 4576.
Dr Antony Makrinos
Director of the Summer School in Homer
PhD students and the
academic job market
The academic job market is notoriously
difficult to enter. UCL graduates,
however, have a good track record of
obtaining appointments. In the past
twelve months former PhD students
have commenced postdoctoral and teaching fellowships
at, for example, Trinity College Dublin, Warwick University,
Exeter University, and Durham University, and I myself have
begun a two-year Teaching Fellowship in the Programme
of Liberal Arts (Classics and Ancient History) at Bristol
University. These appointments testify to the quality of the
teaching that Post-Graduate Teaching Assistants (PGTAs)
provide to undergraduates at UCL, and the number of support
mechanisms in place through both the Department and the
Careers Service to help graduates enter the job market.
During my time at UCL I worked as a PGTA on Beginners’
Greek, Classics and Literary Theory, and Politics: Ancient
and Modern. My experience teaching on these courses, and
particularly the language and BASc modules, was instrumental
to my successful appointment. The teacher training that
UCL Arena provides to PhD candidates additionally helps
graduate students gain an advantage over other applicants
in the job market. The Department encourages all PGTAs
to complete UCL Arena’s Associate Fellowship programme,
which results in the awarding of Associate Fellowship of the
Higher Education Academy. Obtaining a teaching qualification
in addition to the doctorate is currently uncommon; it not only
gives UCL graduates an edge, but also saves time down the
track as such qualifications are now increasingly required for
more senior positions.
In addition to helping ready students for the job market,
the Doctoral Skills Development Programme at UCL also
prepares PhD candidates to search, apply, and interview for
academic positions. Workshops are offered to all students
on the three steps of this process from their first year, and
the Careers Service also provides one-on-one appointments
to students about writing personal statements and CVs, and
even mock interviews to those shortlisted for positions.
My fellowship at Bristol carries a range of fresh challenges,
including personal tutoring, exam writing, and dissertation
supervision. It will be a steep leaning curve, but I am looking
forward to the next stage of my career and am enormously
grateful to UCL for the degree to which I have been prepared
for the role. The post-PhD job market may not be getting
any easier, but if my experience is anything to go by, then
current and future PhD students in the Department should be
confident that they are being given the best possible chance
at succeeding.
Emma Cole
Teaching Fellow in the Programme of Liberal Arts
University of Bristol
Overview of the Bacchae
UCL Greek & Latin Department presented a production of
Euripides’ Bacchae at the Bloomsbury Theatre on the 10th-12th
February 2015. In a modern translation by James Morwood, UCL’s
annual Greek play impressed both students and academics.
Selling more than 2,500 tickets in three days and receiving four
and five star reviews the Bacchae was named one of the most
successful UCL productions of the past few years.
More than 50 students from the department and
from across UCL worked hard from October
to February in order to realize this large-scale
production. With original music composition,
costumes and set design, the performance was a
feast of creativity, a ritual in itself about the clash
between human logic and human instincts. Our
production chose to focus on the chorus; Dionysus’ maenads
who depict a descent into darkness, into something ominous and
vile. This focus on the human relationships and choices within
the play gave our audience something to relate to, as one of our
primary aims was to find a way for the ancient text to resonate
with a twenty-first-century audience.
Following the successful run at the
Bloomsbury Theatre, the Bacchae was then
selected by the National Student Drama
Festival as one of the best 10 shows of
the year, and was consequently invited to
perform again in Scarborough as part of the
annual festival in March 2015. This was an exciting opportunity
to share the play with a host of different people, from fellow
companies to industry professionals and students, many of
whom admitted they had never seen a classical play on stage
before and expressed their amazement at being able to identify
with the show and characters.
In April, the cast and production team
travelled to Greece to give a sold-out
performance in the Michael Cacoyannis
Foundation and the ACS School in
Athens, as well as to take part in the
International Student Festival of Ancient
Drama in Ancient Messene, Greece.
Taking this modern English translation back to Athens was
incredibly exciting and also allowed time for our team to explore
the original context of the show. This helped us to develop the
show further, culminating in our performance in Messene, in a
reconstructed Odeon. The beautiful location had a certain feeling
of nostalgia, with ruins all around and incredible views across the
Greek countryside. The restrictions of the ancient site allowed us
to strip the (initially very technical-heavy) performance down and
this show was done without set or lighting, and with exclusively
live music. Along with the unique location this enthused this show
with incredible raw energy, a truly unforgettable experience.
Finally, the production was invited
to give a promenade version of
the show in the British Museum on
the 23rd of July. In another sold-out
event, more than 600 members of
the museum followed Dionysus and
his maenads around the Great Court
in what was described as a unique experience! The location
challenged us and helped to develop the show further; using the
architectural grandeur of the Great Court to our advantage lent
Newsletter 2015
incredible atmosphere to the production.
Overall the last year of working on
Bacchae as a company has allowed
us to combine our interests in theatre
and academics, explore how a modern
English and Greek location affects
the show and most excitingly how the
show can be adapted for ancient and
monumental/neoclassical spaces.
For more information about our journey
with Bacchae please feel free to check
out the following pages, our Twitter and
Facebook (links below) or please feel free to contact Hayley Russell
(Producer).
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/classics/classical-play/archive/2015Bacchae
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bacchae2015
Twitter: @bacchae2015
Blog: http://uclgreekplay.blogspot.co.uk/
International Student Festival of Ancient Drama in Ancient Messene, Greece.
Emily Loizou
Director of the Bacchae
Hayley Russell
Producer of the Bacchae
Aspects of Family Law in the Ancient World – A Comparative Perspective
Organisers: Professor Chris Carey, Dr Ifigeneia Giannadaki, Dr Brenda Griffith-Williams
After the organisation of the successful international conference
on the Use and Abuse of Law in the Athenian Courts in 2013, Chris
Carey, Brenda Griffith-Williams and Ifigeneia Giannadaki teamed
up to organize a sequel conference on Aspects of Family Law
in the Ancient World – A Comparative Perspective in April 2015
at UCL. We gathered together leading experts on a wide range
of Ancient legislations, embracing a number of Mediterranean
and Near and Middle Eastern cultures from the earliest times to
late antiquity, including Egyptian, Old and Neo-Assyrian, New
Babylonian, Persian, Ugarit, Alalakh, Greek and Roman.
The conference attracted the attention of 27 international speakers
from the UK, continental Europe, South America and Japan who
gave excellent presentations on aspects of Ancient family law,
including (but not confined to) marriage, divorce and adultery,
property and inheritance, rights and obligations of kinship, and the
relations between family and the state. The conference was well
attended by both senior scholars and graduate students, who were
benefited by a number of bursaries we were able to offer thanks
to the generosity of our sponsors. More specifically, there were 53
participants travelling to London from all over the world and we
were able to assist graduate students to attend the event, coming
from Poland, Italy, France, Germany and Greece.
Apart from the remarkable diversity of the conference programme
covering a number of periods, Mediterranean cultures and a range
of legal systems, which were beautifully laid out and thoroughly
discussed, a distinctive feature of the conference was the
concluding Public Event. In an attempt to highlight the relevance,
the shared features and differences and thus the comparative
element between ancient family laws and modern family laws,
we invited a modern Judge, The Rt. Hon. Lord Wilson of Culworth
(Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom), to chair a
panel of 4 distinguished speakers, Sophie Démare-Lafont (Paris),
Paul du Plessis (Edinburgh), Yifat Monickendam (Jerusalem),
Newsletter 2015
Chris Carey (UCL), who gave presentations tailored to the needs
of both experts and non-experts and fostered discussion with
the participation of the audience of about 150 members. It was
a very lively and intellectually stimulating event which enabled
members of the general public to attend a high-quality event
for free and contribute to what was an excellent evening full of
law. The event was sponsored generously by The Department
of Greek and Latin (UCL) and the Leventis Fund. The Head of
Department, Professor Gesine Manuwald, honoured us with her
presence, representing our department at this important publicengagement event. We had also the pleasure to welcome a
number of notable UCL alumni, who were cordially invited to the
event, from UCL’s Departments of Greek and Latin (including Dr
Margaret Mountford), Laws and the Institute of Archaelogy. The
event was followed by a wine reception in the UCL Quad, which
was well-attended.
We are currently working on the publication of the proceedings
online before the book version is published in the near future. All
the presentations and the Public Event will be available online
soon on the UCL Greek and Latin website for the dissemination
of the proceedings to the general public.
Finally, we would like to thank warmly our sponsors who made
it possible for us to hold a high-quality event both in terms of
organisation and academic/ intellectual qualities and outcomes:
we would like to thank the Leventis Foundation, the Classical
Association, the Institute of Classical Studies, and the Hellenic
Society for their generous contributions to the event.
On behalf of the organising committee,
Dr Ifigeneia Giannadaki
The Poetics of War – Remembering Conflict from Ancient Greece to
the Great War
Organisers: Professor Richard Alston (RHUL), Professor Chris Carey (UCL), Professor John North
(ICS), Professor Hans van Wees (UCL). Chief Administrative Officer to the committee: Dr Ifigeneia
Giannadaki (UCL)
2015 was undoubtedly a year of remembrance of the events
relating to the beginning of World War I after the completion
of a century from its start, and a wide range of events took
place in London, also, with reference to the commemoration of
the 100th Anniversary of the start of the campaign of Gallipoli.
UCL Greek and Latin and Professor Chris Carey fruitfully cooperated with ancient historians, Professor Hans van Wees (UCL
History), Professor John North (Institute of Classical Studies) and
Professor Richard Alston (RHUL Classics) to organise an event
on Remembering Conflict from Ancient Greece to the Great War
in June 2015 at UCL.
The event attracted a wide range of ancient and modern historians
and classicists, leading experts in their fields, and the programme
included a wide diversity of themes relating to remembering conflict.
We lined up an impressive cluster of stellar scholars from all over
the world (the USA, Russia, Continental Europe, Australia, the UK
and Ireland), including Tim Armstrong (RHUL), Silvia Barbantani
(Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano), Felicitas Becker
(Cambridge), Holly Furneaux (University of Leicester), Lara Kriegel
(Indiana), Margaret Miller (University of Sydney), David Scourfield
(Maynooth), Randall Stevenson (Edinburgh), Elizabeth Vandiver
(Whitman College), Kathryn Welch (University of Sydney) and
others. The participants included senior international academics
as well as a number of postgraduates who were assisted to attend
by means of bursaries thanks to the generous contribution of our
sponsors. The number of attendees exceeded 50 and the event
was filmed with the aim of disseminating the outcomes to a wider
audience through publication of the proceedings through our UCL
website. The feedback received by the participants was excellent
both about organisation and the rich programme and the lively
discussion following every session.
Bright Beginnings
Ana Higginson has joined the Department as Administrative
Officer from Kingston University in October 2014. She has
worked in higher education for fourteen and a half years in
total, and she has experience of working in the private and
public sectors, including the Civil Service, Insurance sector,
for a regulatory body and in retail.
The three-day event was generously supported by a number of
sponsors whom we would like to thank warmly for their support:
The Department of Greek and Latin Leventis Fund (UCL), the
Institute of Classical Studies, Royal Holloway, University of
London, through the Humanities and Arts Research Centre, the
Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome, and the Society,
Representation and Cultural Memory Research Theme.
On behalf of the organising committee,
Dr Ifigeneia Giannadaki
Professor Chris Carey’s talk.
Fond Farewells
Philippa Bather has taught in the department for
the last 2 years. She completed a Latin degree
at the University of Manchester in 2005, and a
Masters in Ancient World Studies at Manchester
in 2007. Her doctorate (Manchester 2011),
entitled ‘Intertextuality in Horace’s Hexameters
and Ovid’s Erotic Elegies’, examined the largely
unexplored connectivity between the ‘lower’ generic works
of Horace and Ovid establishing a dynamic and competitive
relationship between these poets. She is currently converting the
thesis into a book, as well as editing a forthcoming collection on
Horace’s Epodes, for which she is also contributing a Chapter
that focuses on the ancient reception of Horace’s Epodes, and
its relationship to Horace’s other works, through the prism of
Petronius’ Satyricon. Most recently, she has started to turn her
attention to Persius’ Satires. We are very sorry to lose Philippa
and we wish her all the best for her future career.
Newsletter 2015
Dionysus in Rome
The wood-panelled seminar room in Gordon House hosted a
conference about Dionysus in Rome and Italy on 3-4 September
2015. An international team of scholars based in the UK and
Ireland, the US, and continental Europe gathered to offer
fascinating contributions and to exchange views on one of the
most richly diverse gods of the Classical pantheon.
A distinguishing feature of the conference was the coming
together of ancient historians, art historians, and literary scholars,
particularly since at UCL specialists in these disciplines work
in separate departments. The result was a fruitful blending of
archaeology, anthropology, and philology, with each contributor
both challenging and borrowing from the toolkit of adjacent subdisciplines. A clear appreciation emerged of the many inter-related
dimensions of Dionysus/Bacchus as received in Italy across
myth, cult, visual art, politics, poetry, and even philosophical and
theological discourse.
There was a strong emphasis on questions of reception and
cultural relations across different periods both in Italy and further
afield. In many cases the papers generated more questions
than answers, owing to the state of our evidence. Did the Italian
cults of Liber and Fufluns pre-date the introduction of the Greek
Dionysus, or were they originally local deities who only later
became subsumed into the Dionysian koine? What are the
implications of the early adoption into the Roman state religion
of the three gods of the Eleusinian triad? How can we explain the
persistence of Dionysian associations and apparent private ritual
worship against the context of the Senate’s suppression of the
Bacchanalia in 186BCE? How did the Greek Dionysus appear to
Lucian, a Hellenized easterner under Roman rule writing about
Dionysus’ conquest of India? And how was the Roman Dionysus
received by Renaissance painters, whether in Italy or further
north?
The conference opened with a panel on Augustan Bacchus,
chaired by Jim O’Hara (Chapel Hill, NC). Stéphanie Wyler (Paris
- Diderot) reached back to our earliest images of Liber on Italian
soil before examining how paintings and stucco representations
of Bacchus from the Augustan period fit into their cultural and
political context. Two papers followed on Ovid’s Bacchus in the
Fasti (Steve Heyworth, Oxford) and in the Tristia (John Miller,
Virginia), both of which considered the wider mythological and
cultural context.
The second day began with a panel chaired by Greg Woolf (ICS)
on the history of Bacchus in Rome and Italy. Julietta Steinhauer
(UCL) investigated the organization of Dionysian religious
associations on Italian soil from the earliest evidence to the
second century CE. Daniele Miano (UCD) focussed on Latium
and Etruria and on the epigraphic evidence for Fufluns and
Liber. Valentina Arena (UCL) examined the social and political
significance of the temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera on the
Aventine.
Gesine Manuwald chaired the penultimate session, which was on
Bacchus in Silver Latin literature. Elena Giusti (Cambridge) gave
a reading of the Bacchic references in Seneca’s De Tranquillitate
Animi against their poetic and philosophical backgrounds.
Alessandro Schiesaro expounded on the poetic functions of
Bacchus in Statius’ Thebaid.
The final session turned once again to art history, chaired by Fiachra
Mac Góráin. Caroline Campbell (National Gallery) discussed
paintings of the myth of Bacchus and Ariadne in Renaissance
Italy from Titian to cassone panels. Finally Annemarie Catania
(Marburg) presented on late-antique triumphal sarcophagi.
The papers were of an exceptionally high standard, and a
conference volume is planned.
Generous funding was given by the Institute of Classical Studies,
the Jowett Copyright Trust, and the A. G. Leventis Foundation.
The Classical Association provided bursaries to four graduate
students from the UK and abroad. We are grateful to these bodies
for their assistance, without which the conference could not have
taken place. Thanks are also due to PhD student Liz McKnight for
assistance with practical matters.
Dr Fiachra Mac Góráin
Lecturer in Classics
The second panel entitled ‘Dionysian Discourses’ was chaired
by Bobby Xinyue (Warwick). Phiroze Vasunia (UCL) looked at a
selection of triumph reliefs and jewellery from Gandhara depicting
Dionysus, and juxtaposed these with Lucian’s ludic account of
Dionysus’ conquest of India. Gesine Manuwald (UCL) examined
the many different uses, which Cicero made of Bacchus in his
speeches, letters, and philosophical works. Francesco Massa
(Aix-Marseille) analyzed some Latin Christian Fathers’ responses
to Bacchic myth and ritual in their critique of pagan religion.
To conclude the first day, Sophie Schoess (Oxford) chaired a
paper by François Quiviger (Warburg) on Renaissance images
of drinking and feasting. This ushered us nicely into a convivial
wine reception followed by a sparagmos-free feast at an Indian
vegetarian restaurant.
Newsletter 2015
Benet Salway, Fiachra Mac Góráin, Valentina Arena,
Alessandro Schiesaro, John Miller
‘Ancient Lines Modern Minds’ – Summer Challenges Course
This summer, Dr Antony Makrinos and I were asked to lead a
‘Summer Challenge Course’ on behalf of the Department of
Greek and Latin. The ‘Summer Challenge’ project is a programme
of specially crafted summer courses, led by UCL Postgraduate
students and departmental lecturers, exhibiting the range of degree
courses available at UCL. The project is open to Year 12 students
attending state schools in (or near) London, aimed at those who
were interested in applying to continue their studies at UCL. After its
success in 2014, this was the second year of the project, organised
by UCL’s Widening Participation team. At the end of the six weeks,
the students were required to deliver a presentation, and submit an
Independent Research Project.
The course Dr Makrinos and I presented was ‘Ancient Lines,
Modern Minds: The Reception of Classics in the Arts’, an exploration
of the arts, both ancient and modern. We delivered six two-hour
sessions running from 16th June to 28th July. Our course was taken
by a small group of 8 students, which proved advantageous. Our
students came from a range of educational backgrounds and only
one of the students had studied Classics previously. Antony and I
were faced with the challenge of providing the students with the key
skills and essential knowledge required to deliver presentations and
produce Independent Research projects six weeks later…
Our first session was an introduction to reception theory in
which we looked at Virgil’s Aeneid in English translation. After an
icebreaker and a crash course in reception theory, methodology and
terminology, we compared Anglic translations of the Aeneid, starting
with Gavin Douglas’ Middle Scots translation (Eneados, 1513) to
David West’s modern prose translation (2003), by way of Dryden,
Morris and Fitzgerald. The students were encouraged to debate
the issues of translation, the difficulties of translating into verse, the
value of creative versioning, the role of translators, and the way in
which a translation can reflect the concerns of the receiving society.
In the second session, we considered the reception of Homer in
Cinema, in which Dr Makrinos discussed the Homeric legacy on the
silver screen. The discussion-led session included screenings of early
films on the Homeric epics together with a presentation on the most
important visual reception of Homer in the 20th and 21st centuries.
In the third week, we looked at the reception of antiquity in
Renaissance art and in opera, my personal area of research. We
assessed the uses of Classics in Renaissance visual arts, including
illustrations in early editions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, ancient
influences upon Renaissance sculpture and architecture, the
paintings of Botticelli, Titian, Michelangelo and Poussin, famously
inspired by mythology. We then watched and listened to excerpts
from operas including Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Handel’s Giulio Cesare
in Egitto, and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, comparing these varied
approaches to reception and discussing issues of performance.
The course included a reading week for which the students were
given access to the UCL library and online library services. This
allowed them to research for their essays and presentations,
and they have since been encouraged to continue making use of
these services after the course finishes. After the reading week,
the students were introduced to Greek Tragedy. The first part
of this session included an introduction to Greek Tragedy by Dr
Makrinos and discussion of its reception in modern performances.
The second part of the session included a presentation of the
UCL Bacchae by the Associate Director of the Greek Play Kyriaki
Ioannidou who presented interesting aspects of the production
and encouraged the students to ask questions about the play. The
highlight of the session was a discussion of theatre masks. Both
Antony and Kyriaki have encouraged the students to wear replica
theatre masks devised for the class in order to get the feeling of an
ancient Greek actor.
The final taught session was an interactive exploration of Roman
comedy. After a talk on Roman theatre, laughter and humour
in antiquity, and the plays of Terence and Plautus, the students
rehearsed and performed scenes from Amphitruo using replica
masks. This was a great way to end the taught part of the course,
and we were thrilled to see the engagement and enthusiasm of the
students.
The concluding session was dedicated
to presentations by the students, in
which they demonstrated how much
they had learnt over the course of
the sessions. Presentation titles
included: ‘Greek Tragedy in Modern
Performance’, ‘The role of the Fate
in Oedipus’, ‘Slaves in Roman
Comedy’, ‘The role of the Gods in
the Odyssey’ and ‘Renaissance Art
and Architecture’. Both Antony and
I were incredibly impressed by the
originality of content within these
Keely Jones
presentations, and the astonishing
performing Roman Comedy
amount the students had learnt in such
a short period of time. We provided
the students with both verbal and written feedback, as well as
feedback for their independent projects in the following weeks.
This session was followed by a celebratory event in which the
students received a certificate of attendance, and prizes were
given for the best presentations.
The Summer Challenge project provided Year 12 students with an
opportunity to learn more about UCL’s range of degree programmes,
study a subject that interests them, develop their research, writing
and presentation skills to a high level in preparation for A-Levels
and the first year of University. It increased their confidence, subject
knowledge, and ability to articulate ideas and opinions and it
encouraged them to make new friends with common interests. As an
MA student wishing to teach Classics full-time in the near future, this
course offered me a unique teaching experience. Having only taught
Latin Language in schools previously, the course provided me with
an opportunity to teach a vast range of classical subjects to students
that did not have any previous knowledge, which was very gratifying.
I also learnt a lot from working alongside Antony, and we had great
fun putting the course together, delivering the lectures, and seeing
the students grow in confidence and understanding. The Summer
Challenge course will run again next academic year, and I would
encourage any Postgraduate students who are considering getting
involved with Widening Participation and the Summer Challenge
project to do so!
Keely Jones
MA student, Reception of the Classical World
Newsletter 2015
Tragic Modernities
Miriam Leonard
The ancient Greek tragedies of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
have long been considered foundational
works of Western literature, revered for
their aesthetic perfection and timeless
truths. Under the microscope of recent
scholarship, however, the presumed
universality of Greek tragedy has
started to fade, as the particularities
of Athenian culture have come into
sharper focus. The world revealed is so
far removed from modern sensibilities
that, in the eyes of many, tragedy’s
viability as a modern art form has been
fatally undermined. Tragic Modernities
steers a new course between the
uncritical appreciation and the resolute
historicism of the past two centuries,
to explore the continuing relevance of
tragedy in contemporary life.
Through the writings of such influential
figures as Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche,
and Freud, tragedy became a crucial
reference point for philosophical and
intellectual arguments. These thinkers
turned to Greek tragedy in particular
to support their claims about history,
revolution, gender, and sexuality. From
Freud’s Oedipus complex to Nietzsche’s
Dionysiac, from Hegel’s dialectics to
Marx’s alienation, tragedy provided the
key terms and mental architecture of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
By highlighting the philosophical
significance of tragedy, Miriam Leonard
makes a compelling case for the ways
tragedy has shaped the experience
of modernity and elucidates why
modern conceptualizations of tragedy
necessarily colour our understanding of
antiquity. Exceptional in its scope and
argument, Tragic Modernities contests
the idea of the death of tragedy and
argues powerfully for the continued
vitality of
Greek tragic
theatre in
the central
debates of
contemporary
culture.
Newsletter 2015
Tragedy and the
Idea of Modernity
Allegories of the Iliad
Miriam Leonard
In the early 1140s, the Bavarian
princess Bertha von Sulzbach arrived
in Constantinople to marry the
Byzantine emperor Manuel Komnenos.
Wanting to learn more about her
new homeland, the future empress
Eirene commissioned the grammarian
Ioannes Tzetzes to compose a version
of the Iliad as an introduction to Greek
literature and culture. He drafted a
lengthy dodecasyllable poem in twentyfour books, reflecting the divisions of
the Iliad, that combined summaries
of the events of the siege of Troy with
allegorical interpretations. To make the
Iliad relevant to his Christian audience,
Tzetzes reinterpreted the pagan gods
from various allegorical perspectives.
As historical allegory (or euhemerism),
the gods are simply ancient kings
erroneously deified by the pagan
poet; as astrological allegory, they
become planets whose position and
movement affect human life; as moral
allegory Athena represents wisdom,
Aphrodite desire. As a didactic
explanation of pagan ancient Greek
culture to Orthodox Christians, the
work is deeply rooted in the midtwelfth-century circumstances of the
cosmopolitan Comnenian court. As a
critical reworking of the Iliad, it must
also be seen as part of the millennialong and increasingly global tradition of
Homeric adaptation.
From around 1800, particularly
in Germany, Greek tragedy has
been privileged in popular and
scholarly discourse for its relation to
apparently timeless metaphysical,
existential, ethical, aesthetic, and
psychological questions. The tradition
of philosophical appropriations of
Greek tragedy encompasses many
of the most important thinkers of the
past two centuries, including Hegel,
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and
Heidegger. These theories have
arguably had a more profound
influence on modern understanding
of the genre than works of classical
scholarship or theatrical performances.
Tragedy and the Idea of Modernity
aims to mediate between the concerns
of classicists and those of intellectual
historians and philosophers, and
thereby to open paths for approaching
and appropriating this tradition. The
book is focused on the way that
understandings of Greek tragedy have
conditioned notions of modernity, and
suggests that the meaning of tragedy
today is substantially formed by this
interplay. Chapters span 2500 years
of literature and philosophy, mediating
between ancient and modern concepts
of tragedy, and between readings of
individual plays and considerations of
genre.
Dimitra Kokkini
Cicero
Gesine Manuwald
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE)
introduced Romans to the major
schools of Greek philosophy, forging
a Latin conceptual vocabulary that
was entirely new. But for all the
sophistication of his thinking, it is
perhaps for his political and oratorical
career that Cicero is best remembered.
He was the nemesis of Catiline, whose
plot to overthrow the Republic he
famously denounced to the Senate.
He was the selfless politician who
turned down the opportunity to join
Julius Caesar and Pompey in their
ruling triumvirate with Crassus. He
was briefly Rome’s leading man after
Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE.
And he was the great political orator
whose bitter conflict with Mark Antony
led to his own violent death in 43 BCE.
In her authoritative survey, Gesine
Manuwald evokes the many faces of
Cicero as well as his complexities and
seeming contradictions. She focuses
on his major works, allowing the great
writer to speak for himself. Cicero’s
rich legacy is seen to endure in the
works of Quintilian and the Church
Fathers as well as in the speeches of
Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama.
London Summer School in Classics 2015
The London Summer School in Classics 2015 took place in the Department over eight days
in July, taking over from KCL, which hosted the School in 2014. The Summer School remains
popular after more than 40 years and every year we receive many applications from returning
applicants, wishing to continue with their study of ancient languages in a friendly and relaxed
environment. This year, more than 230 students completed the course, distributed over 25
classes of different levels with ages ranging from 13 to 85.
We were very pleased that we managed to offer again this year Beginners’ classes in Biblical
Hebrew, Coptic and Syriac. These languages were added a few years back and students’
response was very warm and enthusiastic. Given the scarcity of similar summer courses
and the specialised nature of these ancient languages, we managed to attract international
students who saw in the Summer School an opportunity to live and study in London for two
weeks as well as acquire the skills necessary to further their research interests.
Naturally, Greek and Latin classes were the most populous, with the students of Greek being
marginally more than the students of Latin. Despite the quick pace – especially in Beginners’
courses, with the shock of coping with a new language structured so differently to English
– student feedback was overwhelmingly positive in its majority, praising the skills and deep
knowledge of their tutors as well as the Summer School as a very positive learning experience
in its entirety.
I am very grateful to the tutors who did a fantastic job inside and outside of class, being
extremely patient and flexible as students were settling in the appropriate level over the first
two days of the Summer School. They all did a great job which is reflected in the levels of
satisfaction seen in the feedback forms.
Professor Gesine Manuwald, Professor Chris Carey, Dr Fiachra MacGóráin and Dr Antony
Makrinos gave afternoon lectures which were very well attended by an enthusiastic student
body who took notes and asked questions diligently. Topics ranged from Homer and Cicero
to Dionysus and Cavafy, catering to different interests and also giving an insight into areas
that were not necessarily familiar to everyone. Dr Peter Haarer from Oxford University and Dr
Charlotte Tupman from King’s College London offered parallel workshops on Greek and Latin
epigraphy respectively, which gave students the opportunity of an interactive experience with
epigraphic material and techniques. Our Coptic teacher, Dr Carol Downer, and the staff at the
Petrie Museum delivered guided tours for about 90 students, giving them inside knowledge of
their amazing collection.
Our administrators, Lucy Felmingham-Cockburn and Luke Richardson, worked incredibly hard
behind the scenes for the smooth running of the Summer School, always willing to run the
extra mile, taking initiatives and being very flexible. A special mention should be made also
of our student helpers, Aeron Brown, Lizzie Lewis and Flora Sethia, as well as our secondary
school helper Emily Foster who did her work placement at the Summer School. Between
them they must have walked about 10 miles per day, taking people around campus, showing
them to their rooms, carrying books and photocopies to various locations, providing impromptu
college walks for potential students and going through 20 reams of paper in photocopying
worksheets and grammar handouts for a very eager student body of about 230 people. Not
forgetting, of course, the 25 punnets of strawberries they chopped and served with cream and
a smile to everyone at the farewell party in Gordon Square on the last day.
Organising and running the Summer School has been a long process that required the
assistance and good-will of a number of people inside and outside the Department. Mary
Moloney, David Alabaster and Ana Higginson have been very patient and accommodating
considering the sudden influx of books, stacks of photocopying paper and files, as well as the
almost complete takeover of the large photocopier for the needs of the Summer School. The
academic staff have been equally understanding despite the disruption of departmental life that
is bound to happen when 25 tutors, 230 students, 3 student helpers, 1 work placement student
and 2 administrators populate the corridors and common rooms for 8 days in the middle of
the research period. But we all survived it fairly unscathed and, despite the workload and long
administrative tasks, I dare say that it was good fun!
Dr Dimitra Kokkini
Director of the London Summer School in Classics 2015
Newsletter 2015
Lyceum Classics Community Seminar
The Lyceum Classics Community
Seminar has now run for several
successful years in the UCL Greek
and Latin Department. Lyceum is a
departmental research seminar aimed
at postgraduate students, both at MA
and PhD level. The seminar is usually
comprised of students from within the
department, though we happily open
our doors to interested students from
other departments, particularly History,
Archaeology, or any other area of
Ancient World studies. The seminar
aims to provide an opportunity for
students to present their work to their
peers in a friendly, informal setting,
and also act as a point of social contact
for postgraduates (who can often feel
isolated by their research). Many
students use the seminar to showcase work-in-progress and gain
valuable feedback, but others have presented conference papers or
side projects, or simply aimed to try out new ideas.
Many also gained valuable experience in preparation for speaking
at conferences or similar events, while others, including myself,
were glad for the opportunity to build confidence in public speaking
more generally!
I took over the running of Lyceum at the beginning of the 2014/15
academic year from the previous organisers, Tzu-I Liao and
Trinidad Silva Irarrazaval. As a part-time student who had lived
in Bristol for the first year of my PhD at UCL, I felt disconnected
from the other postgraduate students in the department, and was
keen for an opportunity to engage with my colleagues. Running
the seminar allowed me to get in touch with more of my fellow
PhD students than I would have otherwise, and I got to know them
in a social context while also finding out more about the exciting
variety of research projects under way in the department. I also
made an effort to reach out to the incoming cohort of MA students,
as I felt that the seminar could offer them a great point of contact
and support for making the transition to postgraduate study and a
more professional academic career. The students who came along
were not only able to ask their postgraduate colleagues about their
experiences and share their own work, but were also afforded a
great social opportunity – aided, as ever, by tea, coffee, and cake.
The programme is already shaping up for the Autumn term 2015,
and will feature papers on intertextual considerations in Petronius,
legal quotation in Demosthenes 23, and reception of Plutarch in the
French Enlightenment, amongst other topics. Lyceum continues to
run on Mondays at 1pm in room G09 in Gordon House, and those
attending are welcome to bring lunch to supplement the provided
tea, coffee, and cakes. All postgraduate students are welcome,
and staff are welcome at the discretion of the speaker – please get
in touch in advance at christine.plastow.13@ucl.ac.uk. Please do
also get in touch if you’re interested in speaking at a seminar later
in the year.
2014/15 saw a varied programme for Lyceum. Speakers from
within UCL Greek and Latin shared work on topics from Greek law
and oratory through Aristotle and Plato to Classical reception in
film and theatre. We were lucky enough to also host speakers from
UCL History as well as further afield, with two visiting speakers
from Royal Holloway, as I was keen to open up the benefits of
the seminar to as many people as possible. We also introduced a
new reading and discussion session, which was well received and
resulted in lively debate.
The seminar has fostered a great sense of community amongst
the postgraduate students in the department, and those who
attend weekly look forward to the break in their schedule and the
opportunity to learn from their colleagues. Papers always result
in fascinating and engaging discussion and debate, which often
continues in the common room after the seminar, and can provide
valuable feedback for those who present works-in-progress.
I look forward to seeing you at this year’s Lyceum series!
Christine Plastow
PhD student
www.ucl.ac.uk/classics
Newsletter 2015