{"id":1657,"date":"2019-12-11T12:04:36","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T12:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2019-12-11T13:52:21","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T13:52:21","slug":"kassman-essay-prize-2019-winner-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/?p=1657","title":{"rendered":"Kassman Essay Prize 2019 – winner announced!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The John Stephen Kassman Memorial Essay prize is an annual award based on the income from a donation given by the late Alec Kassman in memory of his son. Alec was an Arts Faculty Staff Tutor in the London Region and a contributor to Classical Studies modules. The prize is open to all current Open University undergraduates, who are invited to submit a 3,000 word essay on any aspect of Greek and Roman antiquity.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019re delighted to announce that the winner of the\u00a0John Stephen Kassman Memorial Essay prize is Sandy<\/strong> Buckel, <\/strong>who wrote an\u00a0essay entitled “Investigating Constantine the Great: Can Material Evidence Help?”<\/em><\/p>\n

We asked Sandy to tell us a bit about her OU study journey so far, and her plans for the future:<\/i><\/p>\n

“I am 71 and live with my husband in Croatia, on the north Adriatic coast just opposite Venice. We farm our own field of olives and make our own olive oil. I have no intention of stopping learning (or working) in retirement and so the OU has been a real blessing to me. I started with the intention of doing a general humanities degree – the standard year 1 modules followed by A207: From Enlightenment to Romanticism<\/em>, and A226: Exploring art and visual culture<\/em>. Then I did A340: The Roman Empire<\/em>, and it changed my life (well, a slight exaggeration perhaps, but it certainly had an impact). I loved it so much that I then went back a year, ditched A207 (although I am still glad I did it) and did A229: Exploring the classical world<\/em>, so that I could aim at a Classical Studies degree. I am now doing A330: Myth in the Greek and Roman Worlds<\/em>, and hope to graduate next summer. If all goes well I intend to take a Latin course next year and then try for an MA.<\/p>\n

I have been lucky enough to do a lot of travelling all over the world, including the Middle East in the 1980s, where I was able to visit places such as Byblos, Palmyra, Jerash, Madaba, Petra, and many others, and enjoy them in a way which is no longer possible. This may be why A340 had such an impact on me. (Oh, and I live just off the Via Flavia, and the Pula amphitheatre is just down the road!)<\/p>\n

My essay came about through the study of Constantine which occupies the last part of A340. Whist reading Timothy D. Barnes’ book Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire<\/em> I was struck by his comment that non-literary evidence was inarticulate, and would always be inferior to literary evidence when exploring Constantine\u2019s personal beliefs (2011, p.17). Even with my limited experience I have seen that this is all too often the scholar’s view, and I do think it rather unfair. So I set out to investigate one material source: the Arch of Constantine in Rome, and see whether it gave a better (and more unbiased) picture of Constantine than our main primary literary sources. I didn’t succeed completely, but I certainly learnt a lot. And it was great to be able to pick my own topic!”<\/p>\n

Many congratulations to Sandy from all of us in the Department of Classical Studies!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The John Stephen Kassman Memorial Essay prize is an annual award based on the income from a donation given by the late Alec Kassman in memory of his son. Alec was an Arts Faculty Staff Tutor in the London Region and a contributor to Classical Studies modules. The prize is open to all current Open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us","category-undergraduate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1660,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions\/1660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}