Call for papers: Married to the military – soldiers’ families in the ancient world and beyond

Offers of papers are invited for this two-day international conference to be held at The Open University in London (1-11 Hawley Crescent, Camden, London NW1 8NP) on 11th and 12th November 2016.

In societies where the threat of armed conflict was an ever-present element of the political and social experience, the impact of war was acutely felt by the immediate families of those whose role it was to train for and engage in combat. This conference aims to explore the roles and experiences of military families (defined here as the nuclear family of soldier, partner and children) in the ancient world and to situate these within the wider context of the history of such families. We therefore welcome offers of papers on any aspect of military families in the ancient world as well as comparative studies which consider more recent historical contexts.

The conference aims to commemorate Remembrance Day with a detailed discussion of a subject that is rarely broached in historical and cultural studies. It is true that there has been some headway made in understanding the role of women and children in Roman military forts, especially on the north-west frontier, but there has been very little joined-up thinking on the military family as a general phenomenon in antiquity and how it sits within the history of military families as a whole. The Greek model of standing armies who spent long periods of time away from home in combat – leaving behind wives and children – contrasts, for example, with the Roman practice of establishing permanent garrisons with ‘camp followers’ attached to military bases. The experiences of partners whose husbands were fighting a defensive war at home might differ considerably from those left behind or even joining their partners as they fought in territory far from home.

Possible themes for discussion might include:

social status and identity of soldiers’ partners and children
legal status and security for soldiers’ partners and children
raising children in a military household or with an ‘absent father’
experiences of separation, reunion and readjustment
relationships between military families and the army
dealing with bereavement and physical or psychological trauma
military education of children/the role of military children in recruitment

Confirmed speakers include:

Prof. Edith Hall (King’s College London)

Prof. Penelope Allison (University of Leicester)

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to Ursula Rothe ([email protected]) or Emma Bridges ([email protected]) by Monday 23rd May.

Iambus and Elegy: New Approaches (A Q&A with Laura Swift)

This week we chatted with OU Classicist Laura Swift about her newest publication – a volume co-edited with Chris Carey (UCL) entitled Iambus and Elegy: New Approaches (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Please can you define iambus and elegy for us?

LS: Iambus and elegy are two important types of early Greek poetry, and along with melic poetry, they’re often grouped under the category of ‘early Greek lyric’. They flourished in the seventh and sixth centuries BC (though they were almost certainly performed long before that), and in chronological terms our surviving examples come in the period between Homer and Athenian tragedy that often gets skipped over in undergraduate courses. The famous authors include Archilochus and Solon (who wrote both iambus and elegy), Tyrtaeus, Theognis and Simonides (who wrote elegy), and Semonides and Hipponax (who wrote iambus). Neither form is particularly easy to define, which was one reason that we wanted to compile an edited volume on them. Normally ancient scholars divided up poetic forms according to metre, but iambus and elegy both use metres that cross genres. Elegy is more straightforward in a way, as it can be defined as poetry that uses the elegiac couplet, but it’s very hard to pin down in terms of any core content or style, since we have narrative or mythological elegy, drinking songs, love poetry, and political philosophy. The one thing it doesn’t seem to contain is anything ‘elegiac’ (in the sense of the English word ‘elegy’, meaning a lament), and that’s often muddied the waters in trying to define it. Iambus is rather a hotch-potch of different metres, so people have often tried to define it in terms of content instead, and it’s usually thought of as abuse poetry. It’s true that there’s plenty of abuse, vitriol, and dirty language in iambus, but it’s not only blame-poetry: it can also be humorous, or even moralising and philosophical. So both are very wide-ranging and diverse forms, and are hard to pin down.

How have these subjects traditionally been studied?

A lot of scholarship has focused on definitional questions, and so one aim of the book was to move beyond this and study the poetry itself for what it is. Iambus and elegy have also been considered the poor cousin of melic poetry, and so they’ve had less attention than (say) the poetry of Pindar or Sappho. But they’re also a dynamic area, not least because new poems continue to turn up regularly. Over the course of the twentieth century, the amount of iambus and elegy that is available to scholars increased dramatically, and that has carried on in recent years. For example, a major new elegy by Archilochus was published in 2005, and some more fragmentary lines of his iambics were found in 2012. Because we’re dealing with quite a small corpus, new finds can really change what we think about a poet or a genre, and that makes it an exciting field to study.

How did you get the idea for the book?

The book was based on a conference that my co-editor Chris Carey and I organised in 2012, as part of a Leverhulme Fellowship that I had at that time. I had originally thought of having a conference just on Archilochus, the author I was working on, but then decided to broaden it out to iambus and elegy (the two forms Archilochus composed in), because I thought that would allow more variety and help us make connections between different poets. Lyric poetry is a vibrant sub-field in Classical Studies, with a very lively community, but most of the conferences in lyric are dominated by papers on the melic poets. Chris pointed out that there hadn’t ever been a conference focusing exclusively on iambus and elegy, and it was a great opportunity to put them centre-stage. We were really happy with how the conference went, and OUP was interested in publishing a volume inspired by it, and so we worked alongside some of the scholars who gave papers at the conference to put a collection together.

How long did it take to put the book together?

The conference took place in July 2012, and we started talking to contributors about a volume and putting together a draft proposal for OUP that autumn. The whole process of getting together the contributions, getting feedback to the contributors on their chapters, and then working with them to get revised versions took just over two years, and we submitted the completed manuscript to the Press in December 2014. After that, the copy-editing and typesetting process took about another year, and so the book appeared in print this February.

What was the hardest part of the process, for you as an editor?

There were two aspects that I found challenging. The first was keeping on top of all the contributions at the stage where we were dealing with revisions: for example, keeping track of which stage each paper was at, when we had last been in touch with each contributor, and whether there were outstanding queries we needed to resolve or we were waiting for them to respond to something we had raised. In any edited volume, some contributors are in a position to turn around their piece very quickly and others need more time to fit it in with their other commitments, and so there’s a certain amount of diplomacy needed in encouraging those who still needed to get papers in, while making sure that the people who had already done so didn’t feel we’d forgotten all about them or that the project had lost momentum.

The second thing was that I hadn’t realised how much work would be required from the editors after the final submission of the manuscript, during the copy-editing and typesetting process. Although I’ve been through that process with monographs, it’s much easier when you’re dealing with something that’s just your own work. Dealing with copy-editing queries on someone else’s article and checking consistency across chapters is much more challenging. Fortunately, Chris had done all of that before, and so it was fantastic to have an experienced co-editor.

Can you tell us about your own chapter on Archilochus’ erotic imagery?

My chapter is about how Archilochus uses imagery associated with the natural world in his erotic poems, particularly images of plants and fertility. This is a very common strand of imagery in Greek poetry, where a woman’s body is compared to the landscape (so a young girl is like a beautiful wild meadow, and a married woman is like fertile ploughland). But I argue that Archilochus plays with this imagery and turns it around. For example, rather than praising a young woman by comparing her to a beautiful landscape, he abuses a woman for being ‘past it’ by comparing her to a dried up wintry landscape, or to a fruit that’s starting to get flaccid and over-ripe. So Archilochus is reworking imagery from other poetic genres in a provocative and playful way, which showcases his creativity as a poet.

Iambus and Elegy: New Approaches is published by Oxford University Press.

My MA experience, by Sam Spencer

In December 2015 our first holder of the Baron Thyssen MA Scholarship in Classical Studies completed her studies, achieving a Merit in our MA in Classical Studies. To celebrate this achievement we asked Sam to share her experiences of being an MA student at the OU. Here’s what she wrote …

I started with the OU in 2006, a level 1 Spanish module for pleasure, which quickly developed into a BA (Hons) Humanities with Classical Studies. I had always regretted not taking Latin and Roman history further than ‘O’ level at school, so this was the fulfilment of a personal ambition. Three months after finishing my degree, I realised that I missed the studying (the OU is addictive!), and looked into an MA in Classics. There was a taught MA at the University in my home city, but I felt that the OU continued to meet my personal needs better: I am a single mum, who works school hours, and I needed the flexibility that studying with the OU gave me. The fact that it was mainly assignment-based was an important part of my choice, as I don’t do as well in exams. And I knew that I would have the same tutor from my Classics degree modules for the first two years of the MA (who then became my dissertation supervisor), and that continuity was a bonus.

The first year was busy, four different blocks, giving a good grounding for what was to come, and although the TMAs were challenging, I could see my progress through the year as I became more analytical, critical, and more concise in my writing, and was beginning to get an idea for what I really enjoyed and would like to do for my dissertation. I even passed the exam at the end of the year, which gave me confidence for the second year, which I was not looking forward to: Greek Theatre. I didn’t think I would enjoy this, but threw myself into it in my normal way, and discovered that it really wasn’t too bad. I think that having done the Myth module as part of my degree helped with the background, and a few of us from across the country met in Cambridge just before the module started to watch the Greek plays that year, which brought them alive, and showed us that Aristophanes was still relevant (and very funny) today.

And finally, my favourite part: the dissertation. I am quite motivated and focussed in my studies, and really enjoyed all of the reading and researching. I knew that historiography was the area that interested me the most, and wanted to investigate Marcus Agrippa and his contribution to Augustus’ rise to power. Having discussed this with my tutor, this was expanded to ‘How important were Augustus’ networks and alliances in gaining and maintaining power?’. It was a really vibrant time in Rome’s history: there is still a lot of extant literature and even more modern scholarship. My research led me through some well-known names: Julius Caesar, Marcus Antonius, Cicero, but also the development of the army, and of patronage, the changing political situation, and relationships with client kings. But most of all, to find evidence of the many skilled men who worked in the background and supported Augustus.

How did I develop? Key to it all were my time management skills, and being flexible in my studies (as my children moved from primary to secondary school, it became increasingly difficult to put them to bed at 8 pm so that I could study, so l adapted to shorter sessions at night and early morning, and whenever the opportunity arose!). I developed the ability to speed read and quickly pick out what I needed from a text. Now I am definitely more critical when reading modern scholarship and finally better at argument and balance, thanks to my supervisor who constantly challenged me. I also benefitted from SCONUL access to Manchester University Library, and the OU’s own online resources and the JSTOR database. I have a small library of my own now too.

I hope that I have shown my children that it is never too late to achieve something you really want, and that you can do well if you work hard at it. Achieving the MA was good, but more than that, I met some wonderful people along the way who kept me going (we were lucky enough to have face-to-face tutorials then, but still used forums to keep in touch). I now enjoy Greek theatre, which seems to be enjoying a revival, and I discovered a love of Homer. I’m not sure of my next steps – after a few months off, I am definitely missing the studying, and want to brush up my Latin, while I keep my eyes open for opportunities where I can use my administrative skills combined with something in the Classical world. I would really recommend the OU MA: as University teaching becomes more digital and online, they have a wealth of experience in providing distance-learning modules, and excellent tutors to support you.

by Sam Spencer

Of scholarship and superheroes

OU Classical Studies MA student Suzanne Slapper shares her experiences of bringing the joys of the ancient world to schoolchildren.

As is so often the case, my obsession with Classics started when I was a child. I remember a man coming to our junior school to talk about Greek myths; I was captivated. So, when ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ later came on TV, I watched it in awe and spent a whole summer fighting imaginary skeletons grown from teeth.

Graduating with my BA

Unfortunately, I could not pursue this interest at school, but the seed had been sown and so, as soon as I was able, I opted to take a little course in Latin. Well, we all know that Latin is a gateway drug and it wasn’t long before I was onto the hard stuff – yes, ‘Continuing Classical Greek’. The years sped by and before I knew it I had my BA. I am now in the second year of the fantastic MA in Classical Studies, all thanks to the Open University and its mission to educate anybody and everybody who comes knocking. I really love the interdisciplinary approach of the MA course, and have found all the varied aspects of it stimulating. The structure of the material interweaves the development of the students’ research skills with the imparting of scholastic knowledge in a way that is seamless. So I am now looking forward to writing my dissertation in the summer, rather than dreading it, as I have been able to practise all of the necessary steps in a carefully gradated way.

Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s rewind a bit. I was a couple of years into the BA when I was thinking about how fantastic it is that the OU brings Classics to all and wishing that I’d had the same opportunity at school. I guess that’s what led me to contact The Iris Project. This educational charity was founded by Lorna Robinson with the idea of bringing Classics to children who would not normally have access to it. I was welcomed on board and soon found myself editing the online version of the Iris Magazine. This was great fun and afforded me opportunities to see behind the scenes at the Fitzwilliam and Ashmolean museums and even handle some of their artefacts.

Selling ‘Roman herbs’ at the East Oxford Classics Centre

As my MA has progressed, I have less time to spend on the magazine, but I am still involved with the project’s Classics days at the East Oxford Classics Centre. Yes, people flock from miles around to see my Roman herb stall – oh, and to listen to the speakers, I guess! On one occasion, a certain Helen King came to speak. If I remember correctly, it was an ‘eye-opening’ account of being a Roman soldier with conjunctivitis – if that’s not an oxymoron.

So this year I decided to set myself a further goal and take some direct action in the area where I live. I plucked up the courage to email the local junior school to ask whether they would be interested in my giving some enrichment classes for their pupils. An email popped back with a ‘yes please’ within five minutes! I ran a class on ‘superheroes’ ancient and modern just before Christmas and it really was the best experience. Just like me, the children all seemed to have a natural interest in the subject and soon we were discussing the underlying structures of superhero plots. I was very impressed by the level of understanding; in fact, at one point it got pretty philosophical about the difference between a superhero and a god. In the end the children decided that Dr Who was indeed godlike, but that Harry Potter was ‘just’ a superhero. I then read a version of the myth of Perseus as a way of thinking about the same issues, and the children went on to write some wonderfully imaginative stories of their own using a similar structure. I had super… -men, -women, -boys, -girls, -plants, -dogs, -cats, -robots, and even -hair. I’m not sure what the class teacher thought about it all, but they have asked me back to run some classes about the Olympics in the summer, and the class seemed delighted!

Even if I have managed to plant a seed of interest in just one of them, that would be a matter of huge excitement for me. Who knows where it might lead to – maybe one of them might be a future OU MA student?

So now for my next challenge…big school!

by Suzanne Slapper

‘How to submit a PhD thesis’, by Rebecca Fallas

Rebecca Fallas is a full-time PhD student who has just submitted her thesis on ‘Individual Responsibility and The Culture of Blame Surrounding Infertility in Ancient Medical Texts’. We asked her if she had any advice for other PhD students approaching submission – here’s what she wrote!

‘You know the transitional phase of childbirth, where a woman says she can’t go on and the midwife will say that means you’re nearly there? Well I’m hoping that is the same with this thesis.’

About a month before submitting my thesis I found myself uttering this sentence (working on ancient infertility inevitably means that any analogies I make are related to childbirth in some way). This was at the stage where the tiredness had really set in but it was also the point where the end was in sight and I finally began to believe that my thesis could be completed before the deadline for submission.

As anyone will tell you, the final few months before submitting a PhD thesis are a whirlwind. There are drafts and redrafts being pinged back and forth between you and your supervisors. That section of a chapter that you’ve been (often with good reason) putting off for the last three years can wait no longer. There are corrections to be made, references to chase, a bibliography to check and arguments to refine and all you really want to do at this point is lie down in a dark room and pretend the world doesn’t exist (this may have been just me but I suspect it’s fairly common).

Although slightly manic, as the thesis came together I actually found I enjoyed the final stages of thesis writing. Admittedly this may have been an academic version of Stockholm syndrome (where kidnap victims start to identify with their captors) but I learned a lot in those last few months before submission. Having had some time to reflect I thought I would share some of the tactics I employed to get my thesis written, things which helped me to keep my sanity – and one thing which meant that I nearly missed my deadline.

1) Get organised.

In the final few months before submission your world shrinks somewhat and your thesis is likely to become, if not the only thing in your life, one of the few things that can grab your attention. Although this is true to some extent throughout your PhD it does step up a gear at this point. Knowing that this would be the case a couple of months before submitting I decided to get organised.

In terms of thesis this meant going through all the criteria for submission from how to set out the title page to downloading the form that I needed to complete when I submitted. I also made sure I had all the paper and ink cartridges I would need for printing. I also sorted out all the non-thesis things that needed to be done before submission. I wrote birthday cards, booked appointments and did anything I could that would mean I needed to keep as little as possible in my head and fewer things to distract me.

2) ‘Thesis brain’

Unfortunately being so focused on one thing means that inevitably other things fall out of your brain. This might be a case of not being able to remember simple facts or completely forgetting people’s names. In my case it was forgetting that the university library doesn’t open on a bank holiday (let’s be honest, forgetting that it actually was a bank holiday). If your brain deems it non-essential it may well refuse to recall it.

I termed this phenomena ‘thesis brain’ and if it does happen to you rest assured you probably aren’t losing your memory and it is (mostly) reversible once you’ve submitted. The other positive of ‘thesis brain’ is that it gives you some interesting stories to tell post-submission (one of mine includes two suspected cases of Ebola – don’t ask).

3) Plan some time out.

With a deadline looming it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking ‘I don’t have time to stop’ but you do and it’s essential that you do. This doesn’t have to be a big night out and to be honest you will probably be too tired at this point anyhow. Take an hour out to have coffee with a friend or dinner with family or anything that involves communicating with another human being. Admittedly, had I read this advice six months ago I would have thought two things: a) what an obvious thing to say and b) it’s ok for you to say that but I really don’t have time. However, in the middle of submitting a thesis it’s easy to forget and although it’s taken me a long time to learn this, taking that time out will make you more productive in the long run, I promise.

4) Beware of the inevitable guilt trip.

On the subject of taking time out, this seems the perfect time to mention guilt. For me, and probably a lot of people, writing and guilt go together. From asking myself why hadn’t I read/written this before now, to ‘what on earth was I thinking taking a week off last Christmas?’: I could beat myself up about anything. About two months before submitting I realised that I was spending too much time and energy (of which I had little to spare) on asking myself why I hadn’t done something already rather than getting tasks completed now.

In the end I told myself there was time to beat myself up after submitting (although to be fair after the thesis was finished it didn’t matter anymore) and right now it was about getting on with it – this telling-off was the best thing I ever did and freed me to get on with finishing the thesis.

5) There is no right way to complete a thesis.

Of course, there are guidelines to follow and standards to be met but how you go about getting there is unique to you. Just because Bob wrote his introduction in his first year and looks at you in horror when you say you haven’t written yours 5 months before submission does not mean you are doing the PhD wrong, just that you’re approaching it in a different way, and that’s fine (really it is). Also if, like Bob, you did write a perfect introduction by the end of your first year that’s also fine but do try and keep the looks of horror to a bare minimum – they are not helpful.

6) Do not – I repeat do not – finish proofing, print, bind and post off your thesis on the submission date.

This is what I did and it was nearly my undoing (and yes I should know better). I was very lucky that this did not go terribly wrong. It will take you longer than you think to print out your thesis. In my case, this was a three-and-a-half hour printing marathon which involved much shouting at my printer (which I still cannot look at without an involuntary shudder) and cleaning the entire house because I could not stare any longer at the printer willing it to print quicker.

This resulted in me turning up at the binders 15 minutes before it shut. They (very kindly) ended up staying open 30 minutes later than normal during which time they had to deal with a slightly hyper and very tired PhD student (I still owe them a box of chocolates). Then there was the sprint to the post office before it shut at 6pm.

Do not do this. However, if this does happen to you remember you are not alone.

7) Recognising that the end is in sight.

One of the scariest things about a PhD is that it is your project and only you can write it. This is not merely scary: it can be overwhelming at times. However, in those final few months I realised that while the impending deadline was still scary, my thesis no longer was. Despite all its faults, all the things I might have done differently and all the things I still don’t know (I have a long list of all three) I had written a thesis. Four months before I submitted, I genuinely didn’t believe this was something I would achieve. However, very slowly in those last few months I began to feel that, although I still had no idea how it was going to happen, finishing my thesis was something I could do.

Those final few months are tough, there is no way around that, but for me they were also the most rewarding part of the entire PhD. In the final stages of thesis writing everything happens fast; all of a sudden, chapters go from being drafts to being finished, you find a place for the pesky bit of evidence that needed to be included but didn’t seem to fit anywhere and that perfect quote to open Chapter 5 suddenly appears from nowhere. There is nothing like seeing a project you’ve been working on for so long come together in this way. However, in the midst of submitting a thesis it’s easy not to recognise this and to ignore all the little accomplishments because all you can think about is what is left to do.

And perhaps this is the most important message I would pass on to anyone heading towards completing their thesis. No matter how stressful it is or how tired you are, take enjoyment out of seeing your thesis come together and from the knowledge that the end is in sight.

by Rebecca Fallas

Call for papers: Remaking ancient Greek and Roman myths in the twenty-first century

Offers of papers are invited for a one-day colloquium on the theme of Remaking ancient Greek and Roman myths in the twenty-first century. This event will be held at The Open University in London (1-11 Hawley Crescent, Camden, London NW1 8NP) on 7^th July 2016.

The recent upsurge in revivals of classical myth on the stage – with UK theatres currently programming adaptations of both Greek tragedy and the Homeric epics on an unprecedented scale – is mirrored in other artistic media ranging from the visual arts to contemporary poetry and fiction as well as television and film. This one-day colloquium aims to foster conversation between academics and practitioners working on contemporary versions of the ancient myths in order to examine some of the issues encountered by both scholars of classical reception and those whose creative works they study. How might we account for the ongoing appeal of ancient myths for artists/writers and their audiences? In what ways are retellings of ancient myths shaped by the new contexts or media within which they are produced? Whilst myth is by its nature pliable, are there any limits to the flexibility which creative practitioners have in adapting the ancient tales for a twenty-first century audience? We also hope to consider the ways in which audience engagement with retellings of mythical narratives can foster wider interest in the classical world.

Proposals for twenty-minute papers are invited; we would also welcome proposals for presentations in formats other than lecture-style delivery (e.g. performance pieces from practitioners or ‘in conversation’ sessions).

Confirmed speakers: Emma Cole (Bristol); Lorna Hardwick (Open University); Laura Martin-Simpson (Blazon Theatre); Justine McConnell (Oxford); Henry Stead (Open University).

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Emma Bridges at the Open University ([email protected]) by Monday 18^th April 2016.

Introducing… Cathy Mercer, Associate Lecturer (AL) in Classical Studies

This week we asked one of our Associate Lecturers, Cathy Mercer, to tell us about life as an OU Classical Studies tutor

Cathy posing as a centurion

“Like most ALs, I’ve had a varied career, as entertainments manager, city accountant, teacher, examiner, editor, online shop manager and European tour guide but, without doubt, my most fulfilling and interesting work has been (and still is!) working as an OU AL. I have wonderful tutor groups full of keen, committed students from varied backgrounds and we study fantastic OU materials. Both these materials and the students’ responses to them are stimulating and enlightening.

As a tutor in the London Region, I get to meet a good proportion of my students face-to-face, which is always exciting. However, as for all ALs, my main work is guiding the students through their studies and keeping them on-track by marking their assignments (TMAs = tutor-marked assignments) and here I have a slightly embarrassing confession to make: I have always enjoyed marking my students’ work and actually look forward to each batch of TMAs. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the more obviously attractive aspects of teaching such as face-to-face tutorials, but I have always liked seeing students’ own work and believe that prompt, positive responses to this is what helps them most. Even as a school teacher I used to mark students’ work as they were actually producing it in the classroom, keeping them on appropriate paths. Each student responds individually to their studies and respecting and acknowledging this through feed-back on their work is what benefits them.

In many ways my editing work in publishing was a type of marking and inevitably this affects my marking of students’ TMAs, making me perhaps a tad over-keen to add apostrophes and colons etc. It’s the Lynne Truss in me trying to steer students clear of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, though I warmly remember one pupil’s account of ‘red hot saliva’ rolling down Mount Vesuvius and I always smile at mentions of ‘Media dominating the agenda’ in Euripides’ tragedy.

The OU offers tutors many opportunities and treats and I make good use of these, offering language taster sessions in R01 in Greek and Latin and working as forum moderator, TMA setter, exam/ETMA marker and TMA monitor. This means I get to look at other tutors’ marking of TMA assignments and learn from their approaches. It is always striking how important the tutor’s personal touch is, and how the PT3 form can be used to acknowledge a student’s individual strengths and issues.

One of the great advantages of living in London is that there are loads of great theatres on the doorstep. Last summer we were treated to a cavalcade of Greek tragedy and this Christmas it was the turn of the Romans, with Ben Hur at the Tricycle.

This pantomime for grown-ups has now finished at the Tricycle but it will surely move on to the West End, as their previous small scale epic, 39 Steps, did so successfully. If so, do try to see it. It may owe more to Michael Frayn’s Noises Off farce than to Plautus or Terence but it is a wonderful pastiche of General Wallace’s epic novel, with its slightly lumpen conversation style, and the epic film, complete with chariot race powered by lawn mowers.

Ben Hur reviews were excellent but the proof of the pudding is always in the tasting and my friends and I loved it, even more than marking.”

by Cathy Mercer

My experience as an MA student, by Flora Stagg

I never intended to go on to do an MA, let alone an MA in Classical Studies, after my undergrad degree – BA (Hons) in Humanities with Music – but for the last module of that degree I chose a completely different subject ‘Myth in the Greek and Roman World’ and I became hooked on the classics. I was at a considerable disadvantage as I did not have a classical background, only a little Latin, but no Greek. My tutor gave me a list of books which helped increase my knowledge of the classical world before the first module began. Although the first year of the MA was a steep learning curve, it was very enjoyable, if tough. During the year I learned to improve my argument in my essays, and became more critical of academic writing. I developed a passion for the Etruscans after writing a TMA on the stork vase discovered at the Mola di Monte Gelato site in South Etruria. An essay followed on ‘Who were the Etruscans’ – a difficult subject to choose, as I soon found out! The Etruscans believed that there was a limit to the length a civilization would survive and it would indeed appear that after 800 years much of their own civilization was swallowed up by Rome. It was suggested I should consider archaeology for my dissertation topic, but I felt that was a learning curve too far.

In the second year I had reached the module that had sparked my interest in the MA in the first place – The Greek Theatre. The role of powerful women in the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides proved a fascinating area of research. After the tragedians, Aristophanes took over my life. For the EMA I spent an absorbing period comparing the text of Wasps prepared in 1897 by the classics scholar and barrister Benjamin Bickley Rogers, which Vaughan Williams set to music for the 1907 Greek Play at Cambridge, with its English adaptation by David Pountney to fit the original music of Vaughan Williams. Bickley Rogers’ expurgated version was appropriate to the sensibilities of the time, but Pountney reinstated most of the obscenities, taking a fair amount of liberty in his interpretation of the text and structure of the play. He was faced with the difficult task of finding lyrics to fit the metre of the original Greek text which Vaughan Williams had set to music. It was intended as a concert version in which one actor would play the roles of Philocleon and Bdelycleon, renamed Procleon and Anticleon in the Pountney version, which the Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Trust had commissioned to make the whole work (rather than just the Wasps’ overture) more widely known. I would argue that Vaughan Williams came out of it better than poor Aristophanes.

My dissertation was on the last two extant plays of Aristophanes – The Assembly-Women and Wealth – which involved a considerable amount of research on the politics and social changes of the time. The evolution of Aristophanes’ style from Old towards New Comedy played an important part in my argument: I compared these plays with the New Comedy style of The Old Cantankerous of Menander, a playwright of whom I had not heard before the MA. A month into the dissertation I had a crisis of confidence and requested to change the topic to a music-related one, but still remaining faithful to Aristophanes. I nearly gave my supervisor a heart attack, but after thinking about it for a nano-second, and much to my supervisor’s relief, I realised what a foolish idea it was, since all my research up to that point had been on the last two plays. I was assured that it would not be the only crisis of confidence I would go through during that year.

I have always enjoyed the research aspect of studying and I am now suffering severe withdrawal symptoms, as I have no present plans to go on to do a Ph.D, but Aristophanes is my constant companion and who knows where he will lead me next. Learning ancient Greek would be a good start….

by Flora Stagg

Introducing…Paul Found, Classical Studies teacher and former OU student

Paul Found is a former Open University student who now teaches at Norton Knatchbull School in Kent. Here he tells us how his Open University MA in Classical Studies has enabled him to introduce the subject to his school’s curriculum.

We experience very few truly life-defining moments, but clicking on the ‘apply now’ button for my first Open University course is undoubtedly the one that put me on the path to the most rewarding career move I have undertaken.

It was 2005, and after working on the Channel Tunnel construction and for several years in the diving industry, I decided I was fed up with getting cold, wet and dirty for a living and it was time for a change. I decided on a career in teaching and I needed a degree, despite the fact I hadn’t written an essay since I left school in 1978. I also had a family and a mortgage, so there was no way I could give up working and this was where the Open University presented itself as the only viable option.

My decision to study for a masters in Classical Studies was itself driven by the presentation of the classical units in the old A103 module ‘An Introduction to the Humanities’ – and while I enjoyed every aspect of study, the units on the Colosseum and classical architecture, gladiators, and Euripides’ Medea had me hooked. Switching to a Classics undergraduate degree would have been simple, but I needed a job, and felt that the combination of English and History would give me more schools to choose from. Along with a mixture of luck and pure stubbornness on my part, however, the OU Classical Studies MA has allowed me to introduce Classical Studies to my school curriculum and to forge for myself the position of leading the subject alongside my role as a Teacher of English.

Studying for an MA in Classical Studies without a prior qualification in the subject was both challenging and rewarding in equal measure. The academic level of the course materials, coupled with the elevated academic requirement for the marked assignments, very quickly made me realise I was going to have to ‘up my game’. My tutor’s level of knowledge and expertise meant there would be no taking short-cuts and for me ‘near enough’ was never going to be ‘good enough’. The feedback for the first submission of my final dissertation began with ‘Oh dear Paul…’, and for the revised submission with ‘We need an urgent meeting!’ I started again, spending my entire summer holidays locked away working on the dissertation. The final result narrowly missed out on a distinction, but the experience of that year equipped me for the rigours of a teaching career more than anything the classroom or teacher training could throw at me.

Some of the GCSE and A level classicists at Norton Knatchbull School

The final year of the MA coincided with my first year at the Norton Knatchbull Grammar School in Ashford, Kent, which followed three years working in a somewhat challenging secondary school. Employed as a Teacher of English, I was delighted to be allocated an A level English Literature class and even more delighted that one of the set texts was Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, a novel that draws many parallels with Homer’s Odyssey. This, along with the classical references in the Shakespearean texts, presented the only real opportunities to present my classical knowledge in any meaningful way, until the school decided to drop its International Baccalaureate provision and offer a wider range of A levels. Seizing the opportunity, I offered a proposal for Classical Civilisation A level, waved my MA at the right people, and an agreement was reached to include the subject on the curriculum.

Meeting Peter Stothard, Edith Hall and Tom Holland with some of my sixth-formers.

I had arguably the most eclectic bunch of students you could imagine in that first intake, ranging from a student who has subsequently gone on to study English Literature at Cambridge to another whose main interest was in computers and who hardly knew which way up to hold a pen! The one thing they all had in common was that none really knew what Classics was all about when they signed up. Those who stayed on to continue at A2 had really caught ‘the Classics bug’, and their enthusiasm did much to raise the profile of the subject. I’m delighted to report that Classical Civilisation is now the fastest-growing academic subject in the school, with five of this year’s Y13 having applied to study Classics degrees at various universities.

With Mary Beard at the British Museum in 2014

The subject has now expanded to a lunchtime Latin club and a well-attended extra-curricular GCSE Classical Civilisation class. Much of this is driven by the 6^th form students; some even assist with the GCSE teaching and help to deliver a new initiative to take after-school Latin into a local primary school. The now annual Classics drama production has become one of the most anticipated events on the school calendar and we have a schedule of trips, events and lectures which mean we are always looking forward to something outside of the classroom, including an annual trip to Rome.

While studying with the OU taught me a great deal about the importance of time-management, it also ignited an insatiable (if time-consuming!) hunger for knowledge which went far beyond the scope of my OU assignments. It was always satisfying gaining that knowledge through totally independent study and being able to meet the assessment deadlines despite the pressures of work and life in general. How does this help me in my work? I don’t need to ‘teach’ my students what they can read in a book – they can do that themselves. In addition to ‘how to pass the exam’, I teach them what the OU taught me – how to take ownership of the subject, personalise their studies and use them as a foundation to go off and explore independently some of the many wonderful aspects of ancient life and culture.

How far we can expand Classical Studies at my school, I don’t yet know. I am currently the only teacher of the subject there, and there is only so much one person can do, but it is the enthusiasm and dedication of my students which will determine how far we can develop each year. On current form, we are going a long, long way!

Paul Found MA (Class. Stud.), Norton Knatchbull School (http://www.nks.kent.sch.uk/)

Editor’s note: If you’ve been inspired by Paul’s story and would like to find out more about postgraduate qualifications in Classical Studies at the Open University you can do so by visiting our departmental web pages here. The undergraduate humanities foundation module which Paul mentions in his post has been replaced by a newer version, The Arts Past and Present, which still includes lots of classical material: see here for more information and taster materials from that module.

Classics, Film and Video Games

Sian Beavers is a first year PhD student researching depictions of antiquity in film, TV and videogames and the potential there is for informally learning about classics through these media forms. The following blog post explains some of her reasoning for this research in relation to her pilot study that is currently underway.

“Often representations of Classical content seen in popular culture (such as film, TV or video games) are considered not to be “proper” Classics – inaccurate, ahistorical, and in some cases – downright silly. But it is probably fair to say that the reason many of us study Classics, in one way or another, is due at least in part to a pop culture product that influenced us previously.

Whether it was the highly regarded 1976 TV series, I Claudius, based on Robert Grave’s book of the same name; a children’s adaptation of The Odyssey; the video games Age of Empires or Age of Mythology; or the film widely credited with reinvigorating the ‘sword and sandal’ epic, Gladiator: by now hopefully few can doubt the impact that historical representations in popular culture have on our interest, perceptions and understandings of the ancient world.

Ryse Arena In the modern world, these re-workings of ancient content and material must also be considered re-mediations, in that they not only reference ancient sources but also borrow tropes (in story/content decisions as well as aesthetic representations) from other media. For example, the arena scenes that were so iconic in the film Gladiator are now familiar to us precisely because they have been reproduced in an array of other media with similar content: the TV Series Spartacus; HBO’s Rome; as well as the videogames Ryse: Son of Rome and Spartan: Total Warrior, amongst many other film, TV and videogame adaptations. This trope has become something that we expect to see when we engage with media that represents ancient Rome.

Some may question my inclusion of videogames as a legitimate media form for representing the past, but when one considers that Ryse: Son of Rome, a launch title for the Xbox One sold in 2014 alone more than 5 million copies and the Assassin’s Creed franchise more than 73 million, we cannot deny the popularity and wide-spread effects of the historical videogame genre, or more so that videogames are a new historical form that have the ability to portray a history, even if the history can be said to exist.

My PhD research with the Open University is concerned with how people engage with these historical representations in popular culture, and how audiences’ and players’ understanding of the past are shaped by them. What opportunities for learning do the different forms (TV, film, videogame) offer? How is this related to how the form structures the content? What specific media forms or products are considered to be the ‘best’ for learning about antiquity, the most entertaining, or more authentic? This is not to say that that this is merely research into the historical accuracy of a form or product, but the audience-player perceptions of it. For example, videogames have received much criticism over the last couple of years because of how women are represented. In a historical videogame, do the players believe that the representations of women align with the history? (“That’s how women were treated at the time….”) Or are they aware, as Hardwick and Stray note, that representations of Classical content in modern culture shed more light on the receiving society than on the ancient context?

The research as a whole will start answering some of these questions, through beginning with a Pilot Study that investigates audience and player perceptions of their learning through different forms and products; the viewer/player practices while engaging with these media forms (“Do you watch/play alone, or with people?”, “Do you post to blogs or social media in response to the content?”); and the longer lasting effects of engaging with such media (“Has a TV show/film/game ever inspired you to research the history of it more?”). This will allow the narrowing and focussing of a research area that has the potential to be gigantic.

Although at this point I have ensured that the questions in the survey (mostly in a mercenary attempt to increase response rate) relate to ‘general history’ as opposed to antiquity specifically, I am very keen to receive responses from Classicists in order to begin answering some of these questions, both because your perceptions of these media forms and products will be extremely interesting, as well as the fact the research as a whole will ultimately be looking at representations of antiquity in popular culture.

I hope that you could spare 10 minutes or less to aid me in this research and do this brief questionnaire, and if it might be something that a friend or colleague would be interested in, pass it on to them too. I’m also more than happy to talk to any one of you about the research and any suggestions you might have about its nature or direction so please contact me on twitter or at [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

Sian Beavers