What a Difference a Voice Makes: Andy Burnham and Paul Cartledge's Pericles
A few weeks into his premiership, and Andy Burnham is already pleasing some and annoying others. But as someone with acoustic hyper-phonosensitivity, I must say that the medium—in addition to the...
View ArticleMy New Book, Medea: A Life
Today marks the publication of my new book, Medea: A Life. When Heather Gold at Yale University Press first invited me to write a biography of Medea, I was sceptical. Medea is a character of myth. But...
View ArticleRemembering my Friend Pat Easterling
Yesterday Pat Easterling, the professional mother figure to many scholars of ancient Greek, died at the age of 92. She was not my PhD supervisor, but, with Paul Cartledge, she rescued me way back in...
View ArticleAncient Ideas and Modern Life Skills in UK Prisons
Around 100,000 individuals in the UK are serving prison sentences. Some have access to training in skills to help them find employment on release, but far too few are helped to ask the big questions...
View ArticleLocation Filming on Women Gladiators
A few weeks ago, Barney Rowe, a brilliant young TV producer specializing in factual history, asked if I could join his team at Tomos TV who are making a documentary about female gladiators. I’d...
View ArticleTeaching Ancient Ethics in English Prisons: An Update
Tonight I’m driving with my colleague in all things, Professor Arlene Holmes-Henderson, to teach for a week in a prison, our PhD student Katharine Russell assisting. This is our third such...
View ArticleReview of Dan Mendelsohn's Translation of the ODYSSEY
Homer’s Odyssey is the most familiar work of ancient literature besides Aesop’s Fables. It has been translated into most world languages and transformed into countless operas, plays, novels, poems,...
View ArticlePreserving Democracy & Resisting Tyranny with Aristotle
Friends, especially Americans, and people I’ve encountered recently are all asking the same question: when democracy, free speech, truthful journalism and civil society are under attack, and...
View ArticleWhat's the Point of Universities (e.g. Roehampton)?
On Wednesday I spoke as a ‘specialist witness’ (20 minutes in) on the BBC Radio 4 The Moral Maze, which was asking What is the Point of University? The programme claims to think about the moral...
View ArticleLocation Filming on Women Gladiators
A few weeks ago, Barney Rowe, a brilliant young TV producer specializing in factual history, asked if I could join his team at Tomos TV who are making a documentary about female gladiators. I’d...
View ArticleMy Telegraph article on Gladiators in Britain
The brutal reality of gladiators in Roman BritainHeadless skeletons, feral bears and female fighters – a new British Museum show revolutionises our understanding of life in 175 AD Edith Hall It’s 175...
View ArticleA Week in Classics: Progress, Celebration and Grief
What a week that was. Forgetting that my surgeon told me last year I had to slow down, on Tuesday we wound up our pilot course, attached to both the Durham-based campaign Advocating Classics Education...
View ArticleClassics, Class and ‘Class. Civ.’ Qualifications in the 21st Century
On Thursday I was excited to deliver the inaugurating lecture of the new Leeds University Centre for Ancient World and Classical Reception Studies. The Director, Dr Bev Back, had asked me to report in...
View ArticleHow Low Will Clytemnestra Go? On Editing Aeschylus
My edition of Aeschylus’ Agamemnonhas finally been published, and I’m relieved to say that the paperback edition is currently priced at ‘only’ £31.99. It has taken me twenty years, on and off, to...
View ArticleInaugural Durham Prize in Classical Reception 2024
The results are in!Dr Caroline Barron, Director of the Durham Centre in Classical Reception, has made them public. The panel of judges, Durham scholars who work on Classical Reception, met on...
View ArticleEuripides on the 50th Anniversary of the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus
On July 10 I was in Nicosia and privileged to witness the first public performance of a production of Euripides’ Phoenician Women directed by a great classicist and former PhD student of mine. The...
View ArticleClassics, Speaking Skills & the Dawn of Hope
One of Keir Starmer’s first statements as PM has been that he wants to reduce the number of people going to prison through renewed efforts to cut reoffending. He has appointed the admirable James...
View ArticleDaisy Dunn interviews me in The Daily Telegraph
‘Face ghosts or they will have their way’How the ancient Furies escaped from the pages of Edith Hall’s library to cast a shadow across her lifeThe Daily Telegraph - Saturday27 Apr 2024By Daisy DUNN...
View ArticleGreeks but Few Romans in the Granite City
Four years, an epidemic and a job change after a conference I co-convened with Dr Tom Mackenzie (and blogged about), on the Scottish leader Calgacus, who stood up to the Roman invaders, I have finally...
View ArticleDay of Drama in Dublin
Green was everywhere. The elation was palpable. Half the people on the flight from Stansted were dressed as leprechauns and the other half in Ireland rugby merch. But I wasn’t going for St Patrick’s...
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