Workshop: Multitudo: a multisensory, multilayered and multidirectional approach to classical studies

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Saturday 21st November 2015, 9.30am-6pm at Roehampton University

Organisers: Alessandra Abbattista (Roehampton) [email protected] and Eleanor Betts (OU): [email protected]

We are pleased to announce that registration for Multitudo is now open. This one-day workshop brings together postgraduate students and early career researchers interested in taking a multidisciplinary approach to sensory studies of Greek and Roman societies. The objective of the workshop is to explore the value of applying sensory approaches to the material and literary evidence of the ancient world, and to illustrate how they complement and/or contradict each other. In particular, the workshop will demonstrate a range of methodologies and approaches which may be applied to different literary and archaeological contexts, with a focus on how empirical sensory data may combine, or at times conflict, with that of ancient sources.

There is no fee for attending the workshop, but all attendants must register. Please do register via https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/multitudo-tickets-18818572858. The deadline for registration is the 15th of November. We welcome a participative audience and with the support of the Classical Association are pleased to be able to offer a small number of student bursaries to eligible presenters and participants. If you would like to be considered for a bursary, please send a request to Alessandra Abbattista ([email protected]) or Eleanor Betts ([email protected]), indicating your status and the cost of your travel and/or accommodation expenses, when you register for the workshop.

We are keen to attract undergraduate, MA and PhD students to the workshop, from Classical Studies and other disciplines, so please advertise it as widely as you can. If using Twitter, please use the hashtag #multitudo15.

The full programme and registration details are available on our website:

http://sensorystudiesinantiquity.com/2015/09/28/multitudo-a-multisensory-multilayered-and-multidirectional-approach-to-classical-studies/

See also: http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/Courses/Humanities/Calendar—Humanities/Workshop—Multitudo–a-multisensory,-multilayered-and-multidirectional-approach-to-classical-studies/

For further information please do not hesitate to contact us: Alessandra Abbattista ([email protected]) or Eleanor Betts ([email protected]).

Programme:

9.30-10 Registration and coffee

10-10.10 Introduction: Alessandra Abbattista & Eleanor Betts

Panel 1: Embodied Performance

Chair: Eleanor Betts

10.10-10.50

Alessandra Abbattista & Giacomo Savani

“The Multisensory Metamorphosis of a Thracian King”

Metamorphosis – ancient Greek tragedy – funeral mourning – myth of Procne

Fabio Lo Piparo

“Blowing Through the Gorgon Mask: a Reading of the Cassandra Episode in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon”

Aeschylus’ Agamemnon – Cassandra – aulos – Gorgon mask – Tony Harrison’s Oresteia 

10.50-11.30

Helen Slaney

“Kinaesthesia as Methodology”

Dance – sculpture – movement – aesthetics – reception – cognition – enactment – embodiment – haptic – tactility – interactive

Anna Trostnikova

“Multisensory Experience of Audiences at Roman Religious Festivals. Spectators or Participants?”

Theatre – collective experience – ritual vs performance – lex iulia theatralis – crowd behaviour – production of space

 

11.30-11.40 Coffee

 

Panel 2: Smell, Taste and Touch

Chair: Giacomo Savani

11.40-12.20

Catherine Hoggarth

“Crossing the Multisensory Bridge”

bridges – urban – rural – multisensory – multidisciplinary – risk – comparative approaches – value – reconstruction – methodologies

Stuart McKie

“Practical Magic: How, Where and When to Curse a Thief in Roman Britain”

Magic – Roman Britain – curse tablets – ritual – experimental archaeology – movement – gesture

12.20-1.00

Marta Garcia-Morcillo

“Feeling the Market in Ancient Rome”

Smell – hearing – product recognition – competition – social status – performance – interaction – atmosphere – daily life

Patty Baker

“Tasting Roman Food: Experimental Archaeology”

Taste – senses – reenactment – experimental archaeology – recipes – environmental remains

 

1.00-1.40 Lunch

 

Panel 3: Sights and Sounds

Chair: Alessandra Abbattista

1.40-2.20

Orestis Mitintzis

“Visual Aspects in the Experience of Pilgrimage in the Ancient Greek World”

Pilgrimage – pilgrim – sight – nature – sanctuary – buildings – votives – cult statue – Classical and Hellenistic world

Matteo Olivieri

“The Song of the Maidens of Delos: Homage to the Identities of the Pilgrims of Apollo?”

Delos – sanctuary – religious festival – cult – regional sanctuary – Apollo, Artemis and Leto – Delian Maidens – Homeric hymn to Apollo – choral lyric – mimetic performance – dance – ethnic identity – polis identity – Ionian – Cyclades islands – Aegean sea – Greek language & dialects

2.20-3.00

Francesca Berlinzani

“An Acoustic Problem of the Ps. Aristot. ΠΕΡΙ ΦΩΝΗΣ. Between Auditive and Visuospatial Perception”

Ancient acoustics – Aristotle – formants – echo – resonance – sound perception

Jeff Veitch

“Hearing Architecture: Sound Samples in Architectural Context”

aural architecture – acoustics – sound perception – Roman buildings – sound samples

3.00-3.30

Jasmine Parker & Eleanor Betts

“A Phenomenology of Visual Perception”

 

3.30-3.40 Coffee

 

Panel 4: Theorising the Senses

Chair: Jeff Veitch

3.40-4.20

John Harrison

“The Stourhead Temple of the Nymph: a Multisensory Experience”

Grotto – Stourhead – nymphaeum – multisensory – synaesthesia – kinaesthesia – vision – audition – olfaction – thermoception

Hannah Platts

“Sensing and Feeling at Home: Multisensory Approaches to the Roman Domestic Realm”

Multisensory – insula – domestic – home – status – identity (belonging) – Roman

4.20-5.00

Kelli Rudolph

“Method and Theory in Ancient Sensory Studies”

Ancient methodologies: analogy – polarity – inference – theoretical positions: status of qualities – the relations between contraries – notions of elements; understanding of ancient approaches to study of the senses

Emma-Jayne Graham

“Objective Senses and Sensory Objectives in the Graeco-Roman World”

Objective/subjective senses – texts/materials – metaphor/experience – perception/description

5.00-5.20 Closing discussion

5.20-6.00 Drinks reception

 

Introducing our Classical Studies students

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Although at the OU we don’t always get to meet our students face-to-face (but see here for an insight into how our teaching is carried out), here in the Classical Studies department we enjoy finding alternative opportunities for engaging with the people who are studying our modules. One way in which we do this is through the use of online2015-03-09 001 2015-03-09 002 forums. This summer several members of the department ran an online discussion forum aimed at students who are making the transition from Level 1 study to our Level 2 modules (the equivalent of the step up from first- to second-year undergraduate study elsewhere); the forum was a place where we could offer help and advice, and share our enthusiasm for the subject, and it also allowed our students to make contact with each other before the online forums for their individual modules opened. As a result we ‘met’ a whole range of students who form this year’s cohort. As always they’re a diverse bunch, spread over a wide geographical area, and with a variety of reasons for undertaking Open University study – there is no such thing as the ‘typical OU student’. We asked them to introduce themselves and to tell us a little bit about why they’ve chosen to study with us, so here are a few of their stories:

– Sasha, who lives near Leicester, told us that, with four young children and another on the way, the OU enables her to combine studying with raising a family in a way that would not be possible via a ‘brick’ university; having enjoyed the classical elements of the OU’s interdisciplinary Level 1 Arts module (in which students encounter, among other things, Sophocles’ Antigone, Plato, Cleopatra and Roman archaeology) she has decided to pursue a single honours Classical Studies degree.

– Several students cited a lifelong interest in ancient Greece and Rome as their inspiration for beginning formal study. Brian recalled a school trip to Chester and studying Latin at ‘O’ Level in the 1970s as fuelling his enthusiasm, and, having studied several history modules with the OU, is 150hornblower[1]now embarking on Exploring the Classical World, our wide-reaching Level 2 module which introduces our students to the literature, history and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. Trevor, who is studying the same module from his home in the Scottish Highlands, told us that he’s been studying with the OU since 2013; he’s enjoying reading all manner of ancient texts and plans to go on to study our Level 3 module Myth in the Greek and Roman Worlds next year. Another of our students, Alisha, lives in Switzerland, and dropped in to tell us that she’ll be studying the myth module along with our brand new Level 3 module The Roman Empire. Philip in west Wales, meanwhile, is a local guide who spends a lot of time talking to tour groups about the Roman heritage of his town, so he’s joined us in order to find out more about the Greeks and Romans.v2a21923[1]

– Our new Level 2 Latin module, which we are offering for the first time this year, has been eagerly anticipated, and we met several students who are looking forward to learning the ancient language. Among them are those for whom the study of the language offers them the opportunity to enhance their understanding of the ancient world, and others who plan to study Latin as a way of complementing their knowledge of a variety of modern languages.

– Meanwhile we also give our students the opportunity to learn ancient Greek, with a module which teaches the language from beginners’ level as well as allowing students to gain a deeper understanding of some key literary texts by reading them in translation. Gale told us that, having retired after a long career in the NHS, she now has the time to take up formal study; she confessed to feeling a little daunted by the challenge of studying ancient Greek but is fascinated by the ways in which the ancient world continues to influence our own society.

If you’d like to know more about what we offer please visit our departmental website, where you’ll find information on our modules and courses (at both undergraduate and postgraduate level) as well as free taster materials and contact information.

Wishing all our students the very best of luck with their studies for the coming year!

Publication announcement: War as Spectacle

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War as SpectacleThis autumn sees the publication of an edited volume to which several members of the OU Classical Studies department have contributed. War as Spectacle: Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Display of Armed Conflict  (Bloomsbury) originated in an OU conference organised by Anastasia Bakogianni during her time in the department, and is co-edited by Anastasia and Valerie Hope, as well as featuring essays by Laura Swift, Naoko Yamagata and Emma Bridges.

The book takes an interdisciplinary and transhistorical approach, comprising eighteen essays which examine the ways in which war was presented as a multi-sensory spectacle in ancient texts and material culture as well as considering the reception of ancient conflicts since antiquity. Themes include the spectacle of combat in epic and lyric poetry, historiography and commemorative monuments as well as post-classical responses to ancient warfare, with chapters on film and the media, theatre and political propaganda.

To mark the publication of War as Spectacle Anastasia has recorded two interviews for Classics Confidential. You can see Sonya Nevin talking about her work animating hoplite scenes on ancient vase paintings here, and Anastasia talks here about her own chapter discussing the Euripidean anti-war trilogy of film director Michael Cacoyannis.

Thinking through theatre

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by Emma Bridges

This week I’ve been lucky enough to see productions of two Greek tragedies in London. The first, Euripides’ Bakkhai, was at the Almeida Theatre; the second, a version of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, was also an Almeida production but after a highly successful run earlier in the summer it has now transferred to Trafalgar Studios in the West End. The experience of watching, on consecutive days, two very different plays whose production and performance contrasted strikingly with one another, set me thinking about what we can take away from actually seeing a performance of a play rather than simply reading it as a text on a page.

Bakkhai progAs a classicist with a particular interest in the reception of Greek literature I spend a lot of time thinking about how the context in which a text is written/read/viewed/performed/rewritten affects both the appearance of the text itself and an audience’s response to it. When we look at Greek tragedy and its manipulation of ancient myths (themselves fluid stories which did not have a fixed form, but which evolved depending on who was telling the story, to whom, and the context in which it was being told) this becomes interesting in all sorts of ways. For me, one of the things which makes tragedy so thought-provoking is the way in which it takes themes which are universally applicable to the human condition, and looks at some heavy moral questions (What is justice? Who gets to decide who lives and who dies? Are divine laws more important than those made by humans?). These questions, which exercised the theatregoers of fifth-century Athens, are not confined to one era or geographical location. This is precisely why Athenian tragedy can be transferred to new contexts, and why it has enjoyed a long and varied performance history.

Bakkhai – in the translation of Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson – took what might be described as a fairly traditional approach to the staging of the play, in which the god Dionysus, walking the earth in disguise as a mortal, wreaks terrible revenge upon those who deny his divinity. This production broadly maintained the structure of Euripides’ original text and made use of a full Chorus, whose note-perfect singing was one of the highlights of the play; their odes, echoing the themes of the play – nature versus civilisation, irrationality and madness versus rationality and sanity, belief in the gods versus scepticism – provoked for me a series of reflections on the significance of religious ritual in the original performances of tragedy and offered an insight into how this might have appeared when performed in the Theatre of Dionysus in the fifth century BC. By contrast, the Oresteia – a new version by the Almeida’s Associate Director Robert Icke, Oresteia progwhich condensed the three separate plays of Aeschylus’ trilogy into one new play – was undeniably contemporary in both its setting and its structure, with Agamemnon reimagined as a modern politician whose actions as he carries out his civic duty have unbearable consequences which rock the foundations of his family and reverberate down the generations. In watching both plays I was struck overwhelmingly by how many of the questions which these stories raise have their equivalents in our own generation. Bakkhai, for example,focuses on the nature of religious belief, or superstition, and asks why some embrace it, yet others scorn or fear it. Meanwhile the Oresteia raises questions about loyalty and sacrifice, asking whether one death can ever be excused if it saves countless other lives, and whether revenge can ever be justified or appropriate.

Ultimately what makes these dramas so gripping is that they are essentially human stories, and there is a sense in which the viewers of a play see elements of themselves, and their own world, reflected back to them. This week I was beguiled by a disquieting Dionysus who was by turns charismatic and sinister; I recoiled at the horror of Agave’s slaughter – blinded by Bacchic madness – of her son Pentheus; I shared in Agamemnon’s conflicted loyalties and his impossible moral dilemma as he sacrificed his daughter for the sake of his army; and I lived through Clytemnestra’s maternal anguish as she wreaked her bloody revenge for the death of her child. That live performance of tragedy still has the ability to engender strong emotional responses and provoke profound reflection reminds us of the enduring power of these ancient narratives millennia after they were first conceived.

Introducing…Sophie Raudnitz, PhD student

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sophieJust over 23 years ago, I received the advance reading list for my undergraduate degree in English. At the top of the list was the Odyssey. I remember reading it during the lazy summer holiday between ‘A’ Levels and university, dutifully at first but soon sucked in to the twists and turns of the story. As my degree progressed, I began to realise the extent to which it underlies our literary tradition and my interest in cultural, or ‘literary’, memory began to take root.

Now, I am coming to the end of the first year of my PhD with the OU and my project has memory at its centre. The title is ‘Tracing the Establishment of Political Society: Remembering and Forgetting in Ancient Greek Literature’ and it starts with the premise that memory is a political process, taking place in a political environment, one which memory itself helps to engender. I was fortunate enough to get funding for this project from the OU and have two fantastic supervisors from the Classical Studies Department (Elton Barker and Helen King) and a third supervisor – a specialist in Memory Studies – from the English Department at Goldsmiths (Rick Crownshaw).

My topic evolved out of an essay on Justice in the Odyssey which I wrote at the end of the first year of my MA in Classical Studies, also with the Open University. (At that time, my three children were very small and I little thought that I would do more than that one module of the MA, let alone go on to do a PhD.) I began to notice that an analysis of the different memory groups inside and outside the poem – suitors, suitors’ families, Odysseus, the audience – might offer a more interesting and nuanced interpretation of Homeric justice than I had yet come across. After this, I knew that I wanted to be the one to do that work.

I have spent this year adventuring on the high seas of memory theory, trying to navigate a path through research in Social Studies, Psychology, History and Literary Studies around terms such as social memory, cultural memory, myth and tradition. Some ideas have called me with the song of the Sirens, luring me onto the academic rocks, while others have sped me on with power of the West Wind to make new connections and to give me the feeling that progress is being made. I have developed an interpretive process based on my reading which involves: i) looking at literary representations of remembering and forgetting and considering the ways in which they contribute to the formation of political identities within texts; ii) examining the ways in which the audience’s or reader’s memories of other texts or of historical events might affect their interpretations of texts and, by extension, how this might make them reflect on and, even, seek to change their own political environments; and iii) analysing the ways in which texts themselves were remembered, for example in quotations or allusions in other texts and what this might tell us about the changing political climate in which they were created and received.

I have also been testing out this interpretive process on a range of primary texts, developing my analysis into papers for presentation at postgraduate conferences. At the OU Classical Studies Postgraduate Conference in April I spoke about Plato’s Theaetetus and the image of the wax tablet as a metaphor for memory – one which recalls memories of tragedy in its language and is itself remembered in Aristotle and Freud. Here I also reflected on the potential offered by memory for thinking through the seeming paradox presented by Plato’s written philosophy and the Socratic dialectic his writings espouse. I also delivered a paper at a postgraduate conference based around the topic of ‘Looking Back and Looking Forward’ at King’s College, London. This paper focused on Euripides’ Trojan Women and, in particular on his depiction of a present in which time is suspended, from which characters remember their pasts and reflect on their futures, prompting the audience to do likewise. In both cases, remembering is more than simply recalling. It is a process of recreation in a specific political situation which demands reflection and debate: a political process which re-members society. Both experiences were hugely beneficial (if incredibly daunting in the anticipation) not only for drawing my ideas together but for getting a sense of the work in which others in the field are engaged.

At present, I am still forecasting with blithe confidence that this will be a cross-generic study, encompassing Homeric epic, drama, historiography and philosophy, though perhaps I’ll be forced to abandon some aspects of the study by the wayside. Cross your fingers for me that, even if trouble may lie ahead, I may find my way ‘home’!

by Sophie Raudnitz

Farewell to Paula James

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James Robson writes on behalf of Classical Studies colleagues as the Department bids a fond farewell to Paula James, who is retiring after 22 years at the OU.

paula-jamesPaula originally joined the OU in November 1993 and has made an enormous contribution not only to the life of the department, but also Region 13, where she worked as a Staff Tutor. Anyone who has studied or taught on an OU module dealing with the Roman world or Latin language over the last 20 years will be familiar with Paula’s work. She has written at all levels in her time at the OU, often – in true Paula style – choosing to work in close collaboration with central academic and Associate Lecturer colleagues. On the cultural side, she co-wrote A428 (The Roman Family) and the hugely popular material on the Colosseum for A103 (An Introduction to the Humanities), in addition to making distinctive contributions on topics as diverse as Roman reputations (A219 Exploring the Classical World), Roman North Africa (AA309 Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman Empire), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (A330 Myth in the Greek and Roman Worlds) and Seneca (MA in Classical Studies). Her work on our language modules has included chairing Reading Classical Latin (A297) in production – a module that hit the headlines by attracting 1,000 students in its first year.

Paula has always been a hands-on colleague who cares deeply about the social mission and traditional values of the OU. Often outspoken about the need to maintain as many face-to-face opportunities for students as possible, Paula put in ten years of Summer School teaching and is proud to have begun the tradition of visiting Associate Lecturers’ tutorials to provide them with feedback and support. Her ‘outspokenness’ is hardly restricted to the realm of teaching, however, and many of her Arts colleagues know Paula best for her lively and polemical contributions to Faculty debates. She is always articulate, always passionate and always determined to hold the university management to account. Most notably, Paula recently led the fight to save Region 13 when the university announced its closure in 2014. The campaign may have been ultimately unsuccessful, but Paula nevertheless won some important battles.

They may at times have been at loggerheads, but Paula and the OU have also been such a great fit. As someone who came to Classics as a mature student, she provides a great example of the transformative power of education as well as the OU’s preparedness to take a punt on someone who doesn’t neatly fit the cookie-cutter mould. The eclectic nature of her research is not just refreshing (Apuleius’ The Golden Ass and Roman poetry on the one hand; film, TV, literary parrots and trade union banners on the other), it has also consistently grown out of her teaching, demonstrating an exemplary mesh between the two. Importantly, too, Paula’s presence has always added energy, informality and friendliness to the department, qualities that contribute towards making OU Classical Studies such a wonderful place to work. I don’t suspect for one moment that we have seen the last of Paula at Walton Hall, but she will be much missed by her colleagues all the same.

Greek and Roman Holidays

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Stuck for somewhere to go this summer? We’ve collected together some last-minute travel ideas from members of the OU Classical Studies community. If you’d like to add any more classical destinations to our list, please feel free to use the ‘Comments’ feature at the bottom of the article. Happy travels!

Trier, Western Germany (as suggested by Ursula Rothe)

Urs_blog

If you want to combine glorious medieval architecture and continental urban sophistication with your visit to Roman antiquities this summer, look no further than Trier in western Germany. It has an intact late antique basilica (still in use), a Roman bridge (still in use), the ruins of two bath complexes and the famous Porta Nigra – a Roman city gateway that has remained intact because it was used as a church in the Middle Ages. It’s also a beautiful city with a twin cathedral and lots of nice cafes and restaurants. If you hire a car, the surrounding countryside is also full of interesting stuff, and not only because it is the Moselle Valley wine region: there is a huge, 23m-high Roman gravestone covered in reliefs from family life at a place called Igel; a rebuilt Gallo-Roman temple at Tawern; and a spectacular rebuilt Roman villa at Nennig.

Italica, Spain (as suggested by Paula James)

Casa_de_los_Pájaros,_Itálica._Santiponce,_Sevilla.(1)

In summer 2001 our daughter Tanith, then resident in Madrid, arranged a few days’ stay in Seville and the three of us took the 50p bus ride to the Roman remains of Italica early in the morning. We were on our own for a couple of hours and I suspect it was a little visited site (and may still be!) but it was well worth it (vale la pena!). Hot and dusty (the surroundings and us!) we could only imagine what this walled town (home of emperors Trajan and Hadrian) might have been like in its heyday with colonnades, temples, baths, water features, theatre etc. Every house seemed to have had a mosaic and you got a real sense of this as a vibrant place to be from the time of Augustus. Standing under the baking sun in the arena of what was the third largest (and well preserved) amphitheatre in the Empire I found myself shuddering at what the prisoners must have felt as they stepped out onto the sand. The Ridley Scott movie Gladiator was a recent phenomenon and suddenly the scene in the provincial arena when the fear of the ‘performers’ was palpable rang horribly true. Sometimes keeping a critical and dispassionate distance which I had urged our students to do when studying the Roman Games at the Colosseum in A103 Introduction to the Humanities course is just not possible!

Pompeii, Italy (as suggested by Joanna Paul)

Pompeii

Given that Pompeii is already one of the most-visited archaeological sites in the world – attracting well over 2 million people each year – its inclusion on a list of recommended ancient sites might seem a bit pointless. Indeed, even if you can’t visit the site in person, there are a multitude of ways to do so virtually, whether it’s through blockbusting museum exhibitions like the British Museum’s ‘Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum’ (2013) or smartphone apps like ‘Pompeii Touch’. But having visited the site repeatedly over the past couple of decades, and after devoting a good deal of my research time to exploring its reception in the modern world, I couldn’t not make this my number one site to visit. Cliches and superlatives are applied to Pompeii with good reason – it is an awe-inspiring place, unrivalled for the scale and apparent immediacy of access to the ancient world that it seems to give us, and even a slog round the site in the heat of the summer sun in the company of thousands of other tourists can’t fail to have an impact. But a little extra effort is well worth it. The Pompeii that I love is the backstreet Pompeii, the quiet road that you stumble across when you’ve struck out beyond the Forum or the Via dell’Abbondanza, where the hubbub of tourist noise is suddenly replaced by the sound of cicadas, and Vesuvius looms at the end of the street, unimpeded by tourist-guide umbrellas and selfie-sticks. I’ve never really thought of Pompeii as a time machine that transports us magically back into the past (although many people do), but it is in these quiet and deserted spaces that contemplation of this ancient town – and of the distance between us and yet the close relationship that we seem to have with it – really becomes possible.

Unfortunately, this quiet contemplation isn’t easy to come by. Over the years, I’ve seen access to these Pompeian backstreets become ever more difficult, and the dream of stumbling across an empty house that you can wander around at leisure is often frustrated. Huge chunks of the site are invariably closed as the demands of staffing, and conserving, such a fragile site take their toll. But it can be done. On my most recent visit, in June this year, a lucky tip-off alerted me to the fact that the Via di Nola, heading towards the north-east edge of the site, was open beyond the usual barrier, allowing access to the House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto (see picture). Though hot, dusty, and footsore, we set off down the road, and were soon to be rewarded with a fantastic spell alone in this house, with its beautiful frescoes – by far the most memorable aspect of this trip for me. So, my advice to you is: don’t spend too long studying your map; instead, be prepared just to wander, to leave the tourist crowds behind as much as you possibly can – and if you turn a corner and a quiet road with no barrier opens up before you – follow it!

Naples (as suggested by Jessica Hughes)

Naples from the Certosa di San Martino

If you do go to Pompeii, then chances are you’ll be staying in nearby Naples and making a day-trip to Pompeii on the Circumvesuviana train. Tourists often use Naples as a base for visiting other local destinations (Herculaneum, Cumae, Solfatara, Sorrento, and so on), but the city itself is an absolute treasure-trove for historians of every period.

One of my favourite sites is the Museo San Martino up on the Vomero hill. This is a kind of ‘Museum of Naples’, filled with paintings of the city and objects from its past, so it’s a great place to start getting to grips with Neapolitan history (as well as the urban layout, thanks to the gorgeous panoramic views – see the image above). Archaeologists will obviously love the National Archaeological Museum (perhaps the best museum in the world?), but there are also many other Greco-Roman elements of the city to explore, such as the Roman macellum beneath the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore in the historic centre, and the underground tunnels of Napoli Sotterranea (‘Naples Underground’), which can be visited as part of a guided tour starting from near San Lorenzo. And there’s always something new to discover: on my last trip I wandered into the Museo Duca di Martina at the Villa Floridiana which is dedicated to the decorative arts, especially 18th-century ceramics from the porcelain factory at Capodimonte. Lots of the objects in the Villa Floridiana depict classical scenes, and the imagery is often drawn from Pompeian paintings – a nice example of the close relationship that’s always existed between Naples and the other ancient cities in the region.

If you’re preparing for a trip to Naples, two popular history books that I’d recommend as preparatory reading are Peter Robb’s Street Fight in Naples and Jordan Lancaster’s book In the Shadow of Vesuvius. To find out about ancient Naples, you can download for free Rabun Taylor’s  A Documentary History of Ancient Naples, and for an insight into how this ancient past has been appropriated in later eras, you can look at our edited volume Remembering Parthenope: The Reception of Classical Naples from Antiquity to the Present. There are lots of good websites devoted to the cultural history of Naples, and I’ve particularly enjoyed dipping into Naples: Life, Death & Miracles and Napoli Unplugged. Naples is one of the most heavily stereotyped cities in the world (pizza, traffic, chaos etc), but that’s partly why it’s so rewarding to go there in person – you’ll have many of your expectations confounded, and if you’re interested in ancient history and classical reception studies – well, you’ll probably discover a dozen new research topics in the process!

Amiens, France (as suggested by Cathy Mercer) 

Amiens

Just across the Channel, easy to get to, with a splendid Gothic cathedral, twice as big as Notre Dame de Paris which, remarkably, survived WWI intact. Jules Verne lived in Amiens and you can visit his house, complete with tower. There are lovely walks along the River Somme, through the Hortillonages, miles of marshy market gardens and parks, reached by charming little bridges.

Some may say that the delicious macarons d’Amiens are reason alone to visit and the delightful patisserie opposite the cathedral does a wonderful lunch. But why might a classics person would want to visit Amiens rather than Rheims or Rouen?

Why, for the outstanding archaeological display in Amiens’ museum, the Musee de Picardie, tagged by Amiens TI as a fantastic museum and they’re right. It has a really good Roman collection and a tremendous display of archaeological artefacts, carefully arranged in those lovely 19th century typologies so beloved by Pitt-Rivers and co. Amiens skilletFor me the museum’s star exhibit was the beautifully displayed Amiens Skillet, a Roman enamelled bronze souvenir of Hadrian’s Wall found in Amiens in 1949. It shows soldiers with shields peeking through crenulations, conveniently marked up with names of the forts from Mais to Banna, Bowness to Birdoswald, maybe birthplace of St Patrick. There must be a matching cup waiting to be found out there, with forts from Vindolanda to Wallsend. The Amiens Skillet is similar in design to the British Museum’s Rudge Cup and lists the same western forts on Hadrian’s Wall. Another similar HW tourist souvenir is the Staffordshire Moorlands Pan found in 2003. The interesting difference is that the Amiens Skillet shows that the fame of Hadrian’s Wall had spread beyond the shores of Britannia. The museum is housed in a handsome chateau in the centre of Amiens and visits cost 5.5 Euros. This was clearly enough to put locals off because the only other visitors we met were two English ladies on a choir visit. The contrast with the crowds at the British Museum could not be more striking. Samarobriva, as Amiens was known in Roman times, seems to have been excavated in the main in the 19th century but there is remarkably little to see in town, except for a corner of the amphitheatre under a square and a block of flats named Samorobriva. For details of these and other places to visit see www.visit-amiens.com

We enjoyed a splendid long weekend in Amiens, with stop-offs at Boulogne for its splendid old town and riverside walk as far as the La Manche (English Channel). These stop-offs were in fact enforced by the rather eccentric timing of local trains – this meant that, apart from early morning and evening worker services, there is just one lunch time train to Amiens. But Boulogne’s medieval ramparts and fascinating Napoleonic connections are reasons enough to visit. 

Samothrace (as suggested by Elton Barker)

Samothrace

The suggestions from my (esteemed) colleagues are all very good and excellent, but they’re all a bit too Roman for my liking. Perhaps that’s because there are simply so many places to go to in Greece that it’s difficult to choose a favourite – the sheer variety can be bewildering! Whether it’s the centre of the world at Delphi, or the wandering island of Delos, Greece is impossible to beat for the sheer joy of ancient monuments jostling for attention amidst stunning landscape.
A personal favourite of mine, and off the beaten track, is Samothrace. You’ll all know its most famous export, the Winged Victory of Samothrace (now in the Louvre): but you’ll possibly be less familiar with the site where it was found, the Sanctuary of the Great Gods (Hieron ton Megalon Theon). I guarantee that you’ll be blown away by the views. More than that, Samothrace is the alternative place to visit. The people are incredibly friendly, it has great camping facilities, and the walks through the forests provide a welcome relief from the heat (you can even take a dip in natural mountain pools – if you’re brave enough!). The question is, with all the choices Greece has to offer, do I go there again this year…?

It was all Greek to me….

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 OU Classical Studies student Ian Ramskill shares his experience of studying with us.

…Well it was ‘all Greek to me’ until I completed A275 Reading Classical Greek: Language and Literature, a wonderful module, on which more later; but first a quick introduction to myself and some of my experiences of studying Classics with the Open University over the last six years. In briefIR student pic, I’m now approaching the big half century and I’m a freelancer in the aviation industry, having previously served in the RAF. Before joining the OU I had no experience of university level education, having left school at sixteen with a clutch of ‘O’ levels. A trip to Rome reignited my childhood interest in the classical world and I began to read more about it. This was the point at which, with some trepidation, I decided to give the OU a go, over twenty five years since I’d written more than a couple of sentences together, never mind an essay!

The OU humanities gateway module AA100 (The Arts Past and Present) was just great; it still surprises me how much my essay writing developed and improved in just 8 months. After this I worked through the then available Classical Studies modules A219 (Exploring the Classical World), A330 (Myth in the Greek and Roman Worlds) and the two Latin courses (now the new A276); all were intriguing, informative and utterly engaging. In A219 we studied Homer and classical Athens – with, among other things, an in depth analysis of the Parthenon – before moving on to the fall of the Roman Republic and Augustan poetry. The Latin courses, while hard work, were very satisfying. Translating book II of the Aeneid – the fall of Troy – was a particular highlight once I had acquired the language skills to do so. In A330 we investigated literary, artistic and political uses of ancient myths; Ovid’s Metamorphoses in particular was well received. It would be remiss of me not to mention the fantastic support I received from all of my tutors; without fail they have been enthusiastic and encouraging, providing timely and constructive feedback on assignments and being readily available to provide help when needed.

So now to my most recent module, A275, and the study of Greek langureadinggreekage and literature. I found this a challenging module, but the excellent materials provided by the OU – coupled with some tenacity on the part of the student – made it more than manageable. One of the first challenges was to master the Greek alphabet, but there is a great free learning aid available to non-students on the OU Classical Studies department website, which also acts as a taster of what the module offers. Those who take up the module are almost spoiled with the amount of textual, audio and visual learning aids provided; CDs provide recordings of many of the Greek exercises, and there is lots of help with the translations of adapted texts. There are also some great websites to aid vocabulary and grammar retention. I used these almost daily in my breaks at work; with language work ten minutes here and there, but often, is a useful learning strategy.

Even students who do not wish to go on and read original Greek texts benefit from the focus on analysing different translations and assessing their merits. The module Socratescan also be tailored to your individual needs; as you progress you can slow down the language learning and invest more time in studying literature in translation if you prefer. The three key texts studied in translation are Euripides’ Medea, Aristophanes’ Clouds and Plato’s Defence of Socrates.These are three pearls of Greek literature; the betrayal and horrific revenge depicted in Medea pushes what it is to be human to the limit. Clouds,with its irreverent and bawdy humour, may not be to every modern reader’s taste, but offers important insights into contemporary views on philosophy and indeed daily life in late fifth-century BC Athens. Plato’s work though, for me, is brilliant artistry; the CD recording which is provided enhances understanding of the text, as with the audio-visual materials for the rest of the module (these include a DVD showing a performance of Medea, and a CD recording of Clouds).

To say that I have enjoyed the last six years would be a gross understatement; investigating and writing about the classical world has given me a much more informed understanding of this fascinating era. It has been difficult at times balancing work and family commitments but somehow I have managed to make the time and meet the deadlines; it is with gratitude that I give my thanks to my patient and encouraging wife. Now onwards to my final year and the new Roman Empire module, A340, which I’m sure will be just as enjoyable as all of the previous ones.

Editor’s note: if you’ve enjoyed reading Ian’s post and would like to know more about Classical Studies courses at the Open University have a look at our departmental pages, where you can find information on our modules as well as a whole range of free taster materials.

Behind the scenes: In the studio with the A276 module team

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Even if you’ve never studied with the Open University before, you’ll probably be aware of the central role that audio-visual materials play in our teaching resources. In fact, from the earliest days of the university (which was established in 1969), the image of the OU broadcast, delivered by a kipper-tie-wearing lecturer and screened on the BBC at some ungodly hour, has become a fondly remembered (if sometimes gently ridiculed) feature of our teaching. But we’ve moved a long way past these stereotypes now. Today, our modules offer an exciting variety of audio-visual resources, from short documentaries filmed in exotic locations to intimate discussions between academic experts. Everything is carefully planned and integrated with the rest of our study material so as to support students in their studies as effectively as possible. It’s hard work, but it’s also one of the most interesting and rewarding tasks for those of us working on modules in production – and with an unprecedented number of new modules about to be launched by the Classical Studies department, we wanted to take this opportunity to give you some more insight into just how this process is carried out.

I’m the chair of the new Latin literature and language module, Classical Latin: the language of Ancient Rome (A276), which will have its first presentation in October 2015. Earlier this year, the module team finished work on a whole suite of audio features which will be interspersed throughout the three Blocks of the module. A few of them are specifically designed to support the language sections – so, for example, students will be able to hear the Latin texts of some of the literature that they will be studying spoken out loud – but the majority are related to the module’s literary and cultural units. A276 focuses on literature written in the Augustan period, from Livy’s histories of early Rome, to Virgil’s Aeneid, to the love poetry of Ovid, and addresses the central theme of how such texts were vehicles for exploring Roman identity. The units that we’ve been writing, as part of the core teaching materials, offer lots of different angles on this – but sometimes, the best way of bringing these texts and the debates around them to life is to talk about them.

So, from an early stage in the module’s production, we’ve been working with JustRadio, a production company who have a great deal of experience with the OU, as well as in making programmes for the BBC and other broadcasters. They’ve helped us to identify what sort of features would be most useful and interesting for our students, and have enabled us to really get the best out of our material. At the heart of many of these features are conversations with leading academics and professionals, from a discussion about epigraphy with the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard, to an on-site interview with a botanist at Kew Gardens who regularly uses Latin in her day-to-day work. One of the most memorable was a 20-minute piece that we put together for Block 3 of the module, in which students spend some time thinking about the process of translation. I went to King’s College London to interview two academics about their views of translation: William Fitzgerald talked about the scholarly side of things, and the history of different kinds of translation, while Henry Stead gave us an insight into his own practice as a translator of Latin literature. Conducting the interviews in their offices was just the first step, though. Next, my own introduction and links had to be recorded in studios on Wardour Street, Soho (a historic centre of film and radio production in the UK), where I was closeted in a tiny booth behind glass, feeling like I might have been about to read the news on the Today programme. And finally, JustRadio edited these links and the conversations into a seamless piece of audio, interwoven with clips of Henry’s recital of his own poetry, along with archive material of the poet Ted Hughes reading from his ‘Tales From Ovid’. The result is, we think, a really engaging way of getting students to think about what’s at stake when we translate, as well as providing an opportunity to listen to different ways of performing poetry.

The courtyard at the British School at Rome, one of our recording locations

The courtyard at the British School at Rome, one of our recording locations

JustRadio helped us to find other ways of bringing Latin literature to life, too. Not wanting to be outdone by the exotic trips undertaken by our colleagues working on A340, our new Roman Empire module, we also found space in our schedules for a quick trip to Rome. Not merely an excuse to sample pizza and gelato, this turned out to be a real boost to some of the audio features that we wanted to include in the module’s earlier blocks. It gave us the opportunity to speak to people like Chris Smith, Director of the British School at Rome, about his expert knowledge of early Rome, along with Diana Spencer, a leading scholar of Augustan literature – but it also provided crucial atmosphere and a sense of location for our own discussions of Augustan Rome. We didn’t really believe it until we heard the first cuts of the features ourselves, but it was so much easier to conjure up the importance of what was happening in the city of Rome itself when all this great literature was being produced, when we could connect our discussion to a real geographical location – and hopefully our students will feel a sense of our excitement too.

Now that the long process of writing and interviewing, editing and mastering is over, all that remains is for us to unleash our efforts on our first cohort of A276 students. If you’re interested in being among them, and would like to know more about what this module has in store, then our short introductory audio is online now, and you can read more about it on the OU website, too.