classicsconfidential

Meet the Romans with Mary Beard

classicsconfidential — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:38:21 +0000

This week on Classics Confidential Professor Mary Beard tells us about her new three-part BBC series MEET THE ROMANS, the first episode of which will be shown in the UK next Tuesday (April 17th) at 9pm. This series tells the story of Rome from the bottom up, focussing on the ordinary people who inhabited the city, rather than the emperors and politicians who ruled over them. We learn about the evidence used to reconstruct these (extra)ordinary lives, and get a glimpse of some of the colourful characters who will be featured in the programmes – such as Calidius Eroticus (‘Mr Hot-Sex’) and his wife Fannia Voluptas, and the eleven year old poet Sulpicius Maximus, whose very special tombstone you can see reproduced here.

You can read more about the programme and watch a clip on the BBC website. Mary Beard’s blog A Don’s Life reports on both the ancient and modern world.

Follow this link or click on the image below to watch our interview.

The Flashing Midwife

classicsconfidential — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 07:10:47 +0000

In this interview Professor Helen King from The Open University tells us about the fascinating ancient story of Agnodike ‘the Flashing Midwife’, and its uses by medical practitioners in later eras. The tale first appears in a Latin text by Hyginus, before re-entering the Western tradition in 1535. As Prof. King explains in an article written for the Wellcome History website:

“The bare details – Agnodike disguises herself as a man in order to learn medicine, but then reveals her true sex to women in labour, until she is taken to court – were fleshed out in many different ways by writers from 1600 onwards who enlisted her as a classical ally to fight their contemporary battles: men trying to enter midwifery, women trying to prevent them, midwives seeking to raise the status of their profession, women struggling to enter other areas of the medical profession, and men endeavouring to keep them out. It featured in debates about Caesarean section and abortion, despite neither even being mentioned in the original Latin text. Studying the extraordinary range of variations in how this story was told provides a window on to the medical debates of the early modern and modern periods, and illustrates how a story from even a very marginal Latin writer could be seen as powerful enough to support various positions in professional and gender politics.”

Follow this link or click on the image below to watch our interview on YouTube!

Iphigenia in Tauris

classicsconfidential — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:34:31 +0000

Henry Stead meets up with Prof. Edith Hall, who last year went to Tauris (modern day Crimea) on a research trip with the poet and playwright, Tony Harrison. After a Leverhulme funded residency at University of London Harrison has all but finished his new version of Euripides’ ‘Iphigenia in Tauris.’ Video includes rare footage of Harrison reading from ‘Trackers of Oxyrhynchus.’

Making Myth

classicsconfidential — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:18:17 +0000

This week we’re VERY pleased to be able to share the video diary of a recent conference on ‘New Approaches to Greek and Roman Myth’, which was held at The Open University London Regional Centre in Camden Town on Saturday 21st January 2012.

We filmed short highlights of the six papers given during the day, and caught up with some of the speakers and other conference participants in the coffee breaks. Hopefully the video will give you a taster of what the conference was like – obviously there wasn’t space to film each paper in its entirety, BUT if you’d like to hear more from any of the speakers please do let us know, and we’ll do our best to convince them to give longer interviews for Classics Confidential! Paper titles and speaker names are listed below, together with some relevant weblinks. (Follow this link if you’d rather watch the video on YouTube)

Anastasia Bakogianni (OU) – Electra Ancient and Modern: The Reception of the Myth in Greek Tragedy and in the Modern World
Joanna Paul (OU) - The Half-Blood Hero: Percy Jackson and Mythmaking in the 21st Century
Frances Eley (OU) – Staging Sacred Drama: Reception in Process
Sam Newington (OU) – Greece and the Near East: Creation Myths
Tori McKee (OU) – Reconstructing the Hippolytus myth: Euripidean Echoes in Modern Adaptations of Racine’s Phedre
Susan Deacy (Roehampton) – How to Write a Classical Mythology Textbook

Love Latin

classicsconfidential — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:12:31 +0000

LOVE LATIN is a brand new Mayoral initiative run by The Iris Project which will bring Latin and Classics to state schools across London through a team of volunteers.

In November, Classics Confidential went along to Dormers Wells High School in Southall, London, to film a Love Latin lesson about gladiators. The volunteer speaker was Michael Scott from Cambridge University, who was one of our first ever guests on Classics Confidential! (Follow this link to watch his interview, recorded last summer at Darwin College in Cambridge). Michael was talking to a very enthusiastic group of students, some of whom are already learning Latin with their teacher, Mrs Birchall. The lesson was a great success, as you can see from our mini-documentary. Many thanks to all involved, and especially to Mrs Birchall and the students!

Click on the picture below to watch the film, or follow this link to see it on our YouTube channel. You can read more about the Love Latin project on the Iris Project website.

Sparta and the Nazi Imagination

classicsconfidential — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 23:03:29 +0000

This week Classics Confidential has been to Cambridge to talk to Helen Roche about her fascinating PhD research on ideas of Sparta in German elite education in the 19th and 20th centuries. Helen is exploring two case studies in her PhD, firstly the Prussian Cadet Schools (1818-1920), and secondly the Napolas (Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten, or ‘National-Political Education-Institutes’), a type of Nazi elite school. In this interview we focus on the Napolas: Helen tells us about how and why Sparta was appropriated by these schools, and how this might fit into the broader background of Nazi responses to Sparta and to Greece in general. She also talks about her experience of interviewing past pupils of the Napolas, whose memories have given her some valuable insight into how Sparta was used as a paradigm in this turbulent period of European history.

Rome Reborn

classicsconfidential — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 23:02:43 +0000

Our interview this week features Professor Bernard Frischer, Director of the Virtual World Heritage Center at the University of Virginia. The interview was filmed at the American Academy in Rome at the end of a three-day conference on the topic of Roman Memory, which formed part of a multi-year international project on Memoria Romana (directed by Prof. Karl Galinsky of the University of Texas at Austin). Prof. Frischer’s presentation at the conference had introduced the audience to a range of his current projects, which include a new virtual world model of Hadrian’s Villa, new digital tools for restoring the polychromy of ancient sculptures, and ‘Rome Reborn 2.2′ – a spectacular digital model of the city of Rome as it appeared in 320CE.

In this interview, Prof. Frischer talks to us about what it means to be a ‘virtual archaeologist’, and how he came to be involved in this field. He also tells us more about the Rome Reborn project, which you can visit and explore for yourself by following this link. You can also read more about Prof. Frischer’s work on his website.

Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space

classicsconfidential — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 23:01:13 +0000

‘The Fantastika and the Classical World’ will be the theme of the 2013 Science Fiction Foundation Conference, which is to be held at The Foresight Centre at the University of Liverpool from 29 June – 1 July 2013. In this interview for Classics Confidential, the conference organiser, Dr Tony Keen (Associate Lecturer at The Open University), gives us a preview of some of the themes that will be discussed at the conference, from the ancient roots of Science Fiction, to modern SF appropriations of Classical sources. You can read more about Tony’s work and ideas on his great blog Memorabilia Antonina (the link we’ve given takes you straight to the Call for Papers for the conference, but the blog is packed with articles and reviews of interest to Classicists and Science Fiction fans alike).

Greek tragedy in Latin America

classicsconfidential — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 23:00:11 +0000

In this interview we hear from Katie Billotte of Royal Holloway, University of London, who is just about to submit her PhD thesis on a very exciting topic – contemporary performances of Greek Tragedy in Latin America. Here Katie gives us some useful background to this tradition, as well as discussing specific examples: she talks, for instance, about Patricia Ariza’s Antigona (pictured above in performance at the Teatro La Candelaria in Bogata), which was written after Ariza met a group of Columbian women who could not bury their dead husbands. We also get a sneak preview of Katie’s next project, which will focus on the reception of Greek myth in contemporary Iranian literature.

To find out more about Katie and her work, you can follow her on Twitter.

Imaging Papyri

classicsconfidential — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 22:58:30 +0000

You may know that papyrus is a thick, paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, that was used for writing on in antiquity. But you may not know that millions of fragments of papyri survive and are yet to be transcribed and translated. In this interview, we hear from the Director of the Oxford Imaging Papyri project, Dr Dirk Obbink, who tells us some fascinating facts about ancient papyri (such as how they were preserved, and what sorts of texts were written on them) and the new digital techniques that are being used to decipher their secrets. When you’ve watched the interview, you can read more on the Imaging Papyri website, and explore the pioneering web interface Ancient Lives, which enables users around the world to work collaboratively on these precious documents.