1 00:00:00,960 --> 00:00:05,340 Hello and welcome to Regional Classics, a podcast from the University of Oxford, 2 00:00:05,340 --> 00:00:12,210 which reflects and celebrates the diverse voices of Oxford classicists past and present from different parts of the UK. 3 00:00:12,210 --> 00:00:21,210 All the while creating thought provoking conversations, breaking down barriers and showing that if you want to study the world any aspect politics, 4 00:00:21,210 --> 00:00:27,270 history, art, science, literature, culture and much more than you can observe. 5 00:00:27,270 --> 00:00:32,100 Classicists do not and need not come from only a narrow cross-section of society. 6 00:00:32,100 --> 00:00:36,030 This episode features three Oxford classicists from Northern Ireland. 7 00:00:36,030 --> 00:00:41,250 I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Sarah Cullinan Herring and alumna of both Oriel 8 00:00:41,250 --> 00:00:46,270 and University Colleges and now a fellow and tutor in classics at Wadham College. 9 00:00:46,270 --> 00:00:52,170 She previously held teaching positions at Balliol and Trinity Colleges, also by Jenyth Evans. 10 00:00:52,170 --> 00:00:56,430 Once a classics undergraduate at Jesus College, then a mediaevalist, 11 00:00:56,430 --> 00:01:02,220 she is now studying for a doctorate in English at St Edmunds Hall, affectionately known as Teddy Hall. 12 00:01:02,220 --> 00:01:09,600 And finally by Professor Peter Stewart, a fellow at Wolfson College and formerly based at the Courthauld Institute in London. 13 00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:13,680 He's now the director of Oxford's Classical Art Research Centre. 14 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:18,420 A very warm welcome to you all. Thank you for being on this podcast, Peter. 15 00:01:18,420 --> 00:01:22,920 I wonder if you can just start us off by giving a sense of where exactly you're 16 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:27,810 from in Northern Ireland and how you first encountered the ancient world. 17 00:01:27,810 --> 00:01:30,090 Well, I was born and brought up in Belfast. 18 00:01:30,090 --> 00:01:39,150 And I think like many people in my first experience of the classical world was at primary school being read Greek myths. 19 00:01:39,150 --> 00:01:48,360 And then when one of the primary school teachers went off for a honeymoon in the Bay of Naples, came back, lots of slides of Pompeii, 20 00:01:48,360 --> 00:01:54,460 which really captivated me, and more experiences like that, particularly to do with archaeology at archaeological sites. 21 00:01:54,460 --> 00:02:00,810 So I think, you know, long before I was in a position to think about studying Latin or anything like that, I think it was fixed. 22 00:02:00,810 --> 00:02:07,320 And in my brain when I was older, I did have the chance of secondary school to study Latin. 23 00:02:07,320 --> 00:02:10,660 And I started learning ancient Greek for myself as well. 24 00:02:10,660 --> 00:02:17,880 And that sort of moved me a little bit away from archaeology, actually, towards the classics in general as a degree. 25 00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:22,800 And I ended up going to Cambridge to read Classics and Jenyth? Hi. 26 00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:29,220 Yes. So, yeah, similar similar to Peter, kind of my earliest encounter with the ancient world. 27 00:02:29,220 --> 00:02:32,180 was also Greek myths and stuff like that. 28 00:02:32,180 --> 00:02:40,410 I distinctly remember being really young and picking up loads of constellations and their names and the stories behind them and stuff like that. 29 00:02:40,410 --> 00:02:46,620 So like Orion and Pegasus. So yeah, from a really young age, I loved all that stuff. 30 00:02:46,620 --> 00:02:52,950 But yeah, I didn't ever really have an opportunity to kind of study classics at school. 31 00:02:52,950 --> 00:02:58,830 So I'm from the northwest Northern Ireland, outside the town called Dungibbon, 32 00:02:58,830 --> 00:03:07,140 but nobody in England has ever heard of when I tried to introduce myself. So I just always to keep myself by saying and instead it's near Derry. 33 00:03:07,140 --> 00:03:13,110 But yeah. So my school never offered Latin. Greek didn't do ancient history. 34 00:03:13,110 --> 00:03:14,850 There was no classical civilisation or anything. 35 00:03:14,850 --> 00:03:24,900 So really, I didn't really know that studying classics was an option until I was like 16, 17 and starting to think about uni. 36 00:03:24,900 --> 00:03:34,920 And my school was really supportive and suggested that I think about Oxford or something for university, and I really enjoyed the humanities. 37 00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:39,900 So I really loved English and history. And as I started looking at the website, 38 00:03:39,900 --> 00:03:48,930 I think it was my mum suggested classics because she'd done a lot in a level or GCSE and she brought up the website and had a look at that. 39 00:03:48,930 --> 00:03:53,550 I distinctly remember at that point being like, whoa, I didn't know ancient Greek existed. 40 00:03:53,550 --> 00:03:57,330 I didn't know about that. I thought we just had Latin, that Greek was just gone. 41 00:03:57,330 --> 00:03:59,970 So that was really cool. But yeah. 42 00:03:59,970 --> 00:04:06,570 And then I think what solidified it was that I studied Antony and Cleopatra for A-level Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. 43 00:04:06,570 --> 00:04:12,380 And then just looking into the background of that, I started reading Plutarch's Lives and yeah, 44 00:04:12,380 --> 00:04:16,650 just had no idea that all this literature was out there and then. 45 00:04:16,650 --> 00:04:23,820 Yeah, like that sort of carried on. And when my teacher suggested that I apply for a unique summer schools and I put down, 46 00:04:23,820 --> 00:04:29,730 I think I put on English as my first option because I didn't think I would get into the classics course because I never studied it before. 47 00:04:29,730 --> 00:04:37,350 But the yeah, the classics summer school took me on and I spent a week learning Greek and studying all sorts of stuff. 48 00:04:37,350 --> 00:04:41,430 Yeah, I haven't looked back since. It's just been amazing. What a fantastic journey. 49 00:04:41,430 --> 00:04:47,190 And Sarah. Yeah. Funnily enough, I think I'm kind of like a combination of Jenyth and Peter in some ways. 50 00:04:47,190 --> 00:04:53,550 So for me it was I realise you're really recording the audio of this, but it was actually this book that I had when I was a child, 51 00:04:53,550 --> 00:05:00,830 which is a really amazing illustrated version of The Odyssey, which I kind of obsessively read over and over again. 52 00:05:00,830 --> 00:05:05,940 The images are really evocative, as well as a kind of a good translation for kids, 53 00:05:05,940 --> 00:05:11,390 that it kind of really got me into it, but I think that probably that was where it all started. 54 00:05:11,390 --> 00:05:14,840 It was my classic sort of gateway moment reading that. 55 00:05:14,840 --> 00:05:23,000 And then I went to a school where I was able to study Latin and there was no Greek, but there was a chance to to study laughter. 56 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,030 And I had a really inspirational teacher called John Riley, 57 00:05:26,030 --> 00:05:33,780 who's a bit of a local celeb in North Belfast where I grew up, because he also ran the schools Duke of Edinburgh Award. 58 00:05:33,780 --> 00:05:39,020 So he kind of combined left in and after walking in quite a unique way. 59 00:05:39,020 --> 00:05:45,450 And yet he was really amazing at kind of opening it up a little bit beyond just the language through GCSE lessons like kind of, 60 00:05:45,450 --> 00:05:46,730 you know, language focus. 61 00:05:46,730 --> 00:05:55,220 But actually, John was was brilliant to kind of bringing in, you know, what it was like to to live in ancient Rome of religion. 62 00:05:55,220 --> 00:06:00,380 You know, kind of all of that background material really kind of brought it alive for us, I think. 63 00:06:00,380 --> 00:06:04,280 And he was certainly one of the most popular teachers in the school. 64 00:06:04,280 --> 00:06:12,710 And he also taught A level classical civilisation, which you had the chance to do even if you hadn't done Latin earlier on in the school. 65 00:06:12,710 --> 00:06:17,600 And that's where I discovered more great literature. So he taught us Aristophanes in translation. 66 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:23,640 And I think that was what really made me think I've got to do this at university. I'm not ready to sort of, you know, leave this behind. 67 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:26,120 Yeah, it's great to have those influences. And also, like you say, 68 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:32,480 reading translations of classical text is another gateway into the classics if you're not able to study those languages. 69 00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:34,890 I know that they've recently published a report. 70 00:06:34,890 --> 00:06:41,390 I think Language Trends have done a survey early this year into provision of languages in primary schools in particular, 71 00:06:41,390 --> 00:06:48,840 as well as secondary in Northern Ireland. And as you know, it shows that only one percent of the languages studied at key stage three. 72 00:06:48,840 --> 00:06:53,000 So in secondary school, Latin, and there's no sign of Greek at all. 73 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:58,580 So the provision is a real problem. And I don't know what your thoughts are on perhaps how that can be combated, 74 00:06:58,580 --> 00:07:04,070 but also how if you're a young student in Northern Ireland and you aren't able to study those languages, 75 00:07:04,070 --> 00:07:11,060 what are some of the other ways that they can engage with the ancient world and discover that passion that that you will found in one way or another? 76 00:07:11,060 --> 00:07:16,440 Yeah, I do. Mind hopping in first, I guess. Yeah. I think there's so much stuff. 77 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:20,840 I know now that I really wish I'd known as a student or stuff. 78 00:07:20,840 --> 00:07:28,940 I wish I'd been there like there's a really amazing classical association in Northern Ireland that does like a language summer school in Belfast. 79 00:07:28,940 --> 00:07:35,720 And I went once when I was still at university because I picked up Latin halfway through the Greek first and then Latin. 80 00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:40,280 And then I went to the summer school in Belfast for a week and did lots. 81 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:46,460 And I was just brilliant. And there's just so support of people that were on it I think is ahead of it. 82 00:07:46,460 --> 00:07:52,430 And she's just fantastic. So it's just an amazing resource lot if I'd known that was there in high school, 83 00:07:52,430 --> 00:07:57,170 because I always I try to like, buy a book and teach myself Latin and Greek, 84 00:07:57,170 --> 00:08:02,690 but it just didn't really work out as a 16 year old also trying to do like a and 85 00:08:02,690 --> 00:08:06,590 A-levels and also wondering what on earth all these grammatical terms meant. 86 00:08:06,590 --> 00:08:08,990 I just have no idea. But yeah, that sort of stuff. 87 00:08:08,990 --> 00:08:15,050 And then I said, oh, I find another really amazing gateway into that, especially from the Northern Irish perspective. 88 00:08:15,050 --> 00:08:20,090 It's just like Northern Irish writers. There's been a real kind of uptick, I guess, like this. 89 00:08:20,090 --> 00:08:28,670 Michael Hughes has written a bit in the Iliad, but from the perspective of the troubles, and it's just super moving and really well written. 90 00:08:28,670 --> 00:08:36,050 And then also Seamus Heaney, of course, he's translated the Aeneid book 6 which is So Beautiful. 91 00:08:36,050 --> 00:08:41,720 But it's also I don't know, I just find it really powerful that it's written in a voice from home, 92 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:44,660 like Northern Irish writers just writing such a different way. 93 00:08:44,660 --> 00:08:51,320 And it just really reminded me that I do know it's Northern Irish, people who bring something different to bring to the table something important. 94 00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:56,480 And it's just really nice to see that connection to home as well with the classical tradition. 95 00:08:56,480 --> 00:09:03,980 I think I would say also that, I mean, obviously the classical languages are really important for the subject, 96 00:09:03,980 --> 00:09:06,960 but on the other hand, they're not the be all and end all. 97 00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:14,570 And, you know, you can you can you can study the world to a very advanced level without feeling you have to become, 98 00:09:14,570 --> 00:09:20,450 you know, become anyway proficient in reading ancient ancient Greek and Latin. 99 00:09:20,450 --> 00:09:27,470 Don't ask how many of us who work in classical archaeology are really accomplished in these languages. 100 00:09:27,470 --> 00:09:38,300 So it's one you know, there's so many different aspects of classical civilisation which are illuminating and exciting and 101 00:09:38,300 --> 00:09:44,240 challenge all kinds of expectations by the ancient world without language being barrier and that. 102 00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:46,940 And there's so much more available. 103 00:09:46,940 --> 00:09:56,000 You know, even when I was growing up online resources and as Jenyth has said by the classical associations, a lot more going on. 104 00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:00,310 So I think, you know, it's it's there. I think if anyone thinks 105 00:10:00,310 --> 00:10:05,720 They might be tempted to pursue these subjects. There's so much available to explore. 106 00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:10,090 I don't think anyone should feel that this is some kind of psychological barrier. 107 00:10:10,090 --> 00:10:15,330 They're about languages, excluding them from the subject. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. 108 00:10:15,330 --> 00:10:20,610 And I think maybe one of the good few good side effects of the pandemic that we've all been 109 00:10:20,610 --> 00:10:26,310 through is that there are so much more available online or lectures and kind of discussion 110 00:10:26,310 --> 00:10:31,950 groups and reading groups all happening kind of over resumes or people can join in from 111 00:10:31,950 --> 00:10:36,690 from all over the world because I know I felt I don't know if he felt this as well, 112 00:10:36,690 --> 00:10:41,520 kind of growing up in Northern Ireland, that there was a lot of exciting stuff happening on the mainland in London. 113 00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:46,800 And kind of a lot of my peers at Oxford when I arrived had been to the British Museum 114 00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:50,910 loads of times and had kind of been to places in London that were based on classic stuff. 115 00:10:50,910 --> 00:10:56,520 And, you know, it's kind of like I'm not sure there's much going on in in Northern Ireland of that sort. 116 00:10:56,520 --> 00:11:01,350 But I think now, you know, there's so much more virtual tours of museums and virtual tours of exhibitions and 117 00:11:01,350 --> 00:11:06,990 stuff that at least people can kind of join in from without having to kind of fly over, 118 00:11:06,990 --> 00:11:11,310 which is maybe not still not very accessible for everyone. No, I completely agree. 119 00:11:11,310 --> 00:11:15,700 I realise this is an audio podcast, but I was like nodding vigorously to that. 120 00:11:15,700 --> 00:11:23,260 But yeah, yeah, it's kind of I also remember going up to the museum and, like, asking whether the attendance was like a really keen teenager. 121 00:11:23,260 --> 00:11:29,550 I was like, do you have any Roman coins or anything? And they were like, Oh, we don't think so. 122 00:11:29,550 --> 00:11:33,600 But I think they do somewhere in their collection. 123 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:38,010 But yeah, it does definitely like in school, it definitely did feel like that. 124 00:11:38,010 --> 00:11:44,910 And especially whenever I went over on UNIQ and talked to people from England and listened to the sort of stuff like that, 125 00:11:44,910 --> 00:11:51,540 they had like different weekends and taster sessions and stuff running in London especially. 126 00:11:51,540 --> 00:11:55,320 It just it does make you feel very jealous of all that happening. 127 00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:56,250 But yeah, like you say, 128 00:11:56,250 --> 00:12:04,860 like the upside of the pandemic is that there's a lot more online now and stuff just posted on Twitter and everything is just all over social media. 129 00:12:04,860 --> 00:12:13,470 So, yeah, I'd be interested then in how your attitude to classics in the ancient world perhaps altered as you came across to England. 130 00:12:13,470 --> 00:12:20,910 And also was it your subject that influenced you to decide to apply to English universities, or was it a kind of combination of different factors? 131 00:12:20,910 --> 00:12:26,810 Yeah, I mean, I think Queens University, Belfast stop doing classics the year I was applying in 2003. 132 00:12:26,810 --> 00:12:33,690 So I came here in 2003 to start my undergraduate degree. So it wasn't possible for me to stay at home if I wanted to do classics. 133 00:12:33,690 --> 00:12:40,380 And that was a really tough decision. So I remember most of my friends who did apply to English were Scottish universities, 134 00:12:40,380 --> 00:12:46,320 had Belfast in there as well, and they gave him a bit more time to decide if they were ready to move away. 135 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:49,950 And, you know, they at least had that option then of pursuing their course at home. 136 00:12:49,950 --> 00:12:55,350 And we didn't, you know, the classicists or archaeologists amongst us didn't have that option. 137 00:12:55,350 --> 00:13:01,230 So that was a big blow. And I think it is a big problem for the subject in the province, to be honest, as a as a whole, 138 00:13:01,230 --> 00:13:05,370 that, you know, it means that you have to be willing to or able to move away from home. 139 00:13:05,370 --> 00:13:12,300 And not everybody is willing or able to do that, whether it might be financial reasons or they don't want they're not ready to move, 140 00:13:12,300 --> 00:13:17,500 move away from home or they want to stay in Northern Ireland. So I think that's a that's a really big thing. 141 00:13:17,500 --> 00:13:23,130 I think probably the big thing for me was when I arrived in Oxford realising the sheer breadth of classics. 142 00:13:23,130 --> 00:13:28,920 So all I've been exposed to really was literature. So and a little bit of history, but very much text based. 143 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:32,020 You're reading a little bit of Latin in the original books. I did do. 144 00:13:32,020 --> 00:13:39,750 You did have the chance to level a GCSE Latin, but then reading Aristophanes and The Odyssey and the Aeneid in English for class civ a level, 145 00:13:39,750 --> 00:13:46,350 and then suddenly arriving over and realising that there's kind of archaeology and philosophy and 146 00:13:46,350 --> 00:13:51,390 epigraphy and papyrology and that it just kind of there was more and more layers to classics. 147 00:13:51,390 --> 00:13:57,600 You know, every kind of year I studied it, I discovered something new and I thought that was incredibly exciting. 148 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:04,980 So I remember feeling like this is the kind of subject you could study forever and never get to the bottom of it. 149 00:14:04,980 --> 00:14:11,370 Yeah, it's one of the advantages of being in in a larger department as well as a university student. 150 00:14:11,370 --> 00:14:16,410 You know, when I was growing up, I had a very, very piecemeal impression of what classics was about. 151 00:14:16,410 --> 00:14:21,510 And I was I'd come to really love Greek tragedies in translation. 152 00:14:21,510 --> 00:14:28,500 And I was consistently interested in in archaeology, the Latin language. 153 00:14:28,500 --> 00:14:33,690 But I mean, I think it was it was just little glimpses of the subject. 154 00:14:33,690 --> 00:14:42,690 Despite the fact I'll confess, I had an older brother five years older than me, studied classics at Cambridge. 155 00:14:42,690 --> 00:14:45,660 So he had quite different interests from me, I think. 156 00:14:45,660 --> 00:14:56,010 I mean, despite that, I still don't think I completely understood what university was about or what studying classics there would be. 157 00:14:56,010 --> 00:15:00,490 So really, for me, it was just an expansion of this. 158 00:15:00,490 --> 00:15:06,910 Incredibly exciting and complicated discipline, which is really, really stimulating. 159 00:15:06,910 --> 00:15:12,490 Yeah, like like I said beforehand, it was kind of a steep learning curve. 160 00:15:12,490 --> 00:15:20,800 Learning what classics kind of was not knowing that ancient Greek was a thing like a year before I did my interview to, like, arriving. 161 00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:21,930 So, yeah, when I got there, 162 00:15:21,930 --> 00:15:29,050 it was it was just a bit of a culture shock in general coming from somewhere so rural in Northern Ireland then to I mean, 163 00:15:29,050 --> 00:15:34,540 Oxford feels like a big city to me. Still but to other people from London it doesn't. 164 00:15:34,540 --> 00:15:42,460 But yeah. And then expanding what classics was to me, I really agree with what Sarah said, because, like, 165 00:15:42,460 --> 00:15:48,400 my perspective was so much about the literature, like through the tiny snippets that I read. 166 00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:50,710 And then whenever I was doing my Mods, 167 00:15:50,710 --> 00:15:57,520 which were like the first set of exams that you do and you're if you're just doing the straight classics degree one of my tutors 168 00:15:57,520 --> 00:16:02,740 suggested that I look at some of the archaeology papers and that quickly became one of my favourite parts of the course. 169 00:16:02,740 --> 00:16:08,320 I did a Greek vases paper and I took another one for my finals and it was just I just loved it. 170 00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:12,010 And I think the biggest thing for me was when I went and applied, 171 00:16:12,010 --> 00:16:17,500 I viewed it as a this is basically doing a joint history English degree for me because I couldn't decide 172 00:16:17,500 --> 00:16:22,390 between the two for what I wanted to study at uni when I thought all classics is a good way to combine it. 173 00:16:22,390 --> 00:16:31,120 But then once I got here, I realised it's kind of it's more of a study of an entire culture or cultures all around the Mediterranean 174 00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:38,750 world and loads of different people and studying how all of them lived like social history and all that. 175 00:16:38,750 --> 00:16:45,220 So, yeah, expanding it way beyond what I ever conceived it to be before him. 176 00:16:45,220 --> 00:16:48,490 And you can see that so strongly in all of your differing research interests. 177 00:16:48,490 --> 00:16:54,850 Now, I know, Sarah, you've gone from having done some Latin at the beginning to your research, particularly on Greek literature, 178 00:16:54,850 --> 00:17:01,480 Peter, from doing classics and finding out more in archaeology and art and all the different cultural influences that come with that. 179 00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:06,550 And Jenyth you're now doing English and have kind of incorporated that throughout all of your degrees, 180 00:17:06,550 --> 00:17:10,660 I'm interested in how you got into the mediaeval part for you, for your masters. 181 00:17:10,660 --> 00:17:16,360 Can you tell us a bit more about your kind of whole Classics Journey, which is just so interesting? 182 00:17:16,360 --> 00:17:21,940 Oh, thank you. Oh yeah. It has been a bit twisty road to where I've gotten to be. 183 00:17:21,940 --> 00:17:29,680 Yeah. During during my degree. Yeah. I also I really want to pick up on what Peter said, as well as not just about languages, the degree as well. 184 00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:35,680 I didn't do any classical languages before I started, but I really enjoyed both Latin and Greek. 185 00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:42,040 I did struggle trying to learn both of them within four years and then also sit the same exams as everyone else. 186 00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:50,050 But because of that, I was kind of thinking for my options. I wanted to do a dissertation so that wasn't too focussed on just exams and stuff. 187 00:17:50,050 --> 00:17:54,760 And yeah. And then I started reading about I don't know how I came across it, 188 00:17:54,760 --> 00:18:01,210 but I basically found out about a mediaeval saga written in Ireland called Tain Bo Cuailnge, 189 00:18:01,210 --> 00:18:07,120 which is the cattle raid of Cooley, and someone had summed up as Ireland's Iliad. 190 00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:08,560 And I was like, oh, that's interesting. 191 00:18:08,560 --> 00:18:16,600 So I wrote I wrote an undergrad dissertation on kind of that and the use of classics in mediaeval Ireland and specifically 192 00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:23,860 the influence of Virgil in mediaeval Ireland and really enjoyed that and learnt old Irish with the English department. 193 00:18:23,860 --> 00:18:28,540 They were really open. They just said turn up to the classes, see what you think. 194 00:18:28,540 --> 00:18:32,260 I loved it so much. I really wanted to do a masters on it and continue my research. 195 00:18:32,260 --> 00:18:38,380 And now, yeah I did that last year during the pandemic, which was a fun, but yeah. 196 00:18:38,380 --> 00:18:42,880 And now, I learned Middle Welsh during that year as well. 197 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:46,270 So now I'm writing my Yeah. 198 00:18:46,270 --> 00:18:48,280 My DPhil is hosted by the English faculty. 199 00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:59,380 But it's a comparative study of mediaeval Irish Welsh historical writing and thinking about that and but also a lot of classical reception. 200 00:18:59,380 --> 00:19:04,210 And that's something on Sallust in the Middle Ages and how he's read. 201 00:19:04,210 --> 00:19:10,780 But yeah, I still definitely use all my stuff from my classics degree and like it just opened up so many 202 00:19:10,780 --> 00:19:16,480 different avenues of research and that really because I Latin as well during that as well as well, 203 00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:20,230 helped me a lot for my research. I'm reading mediaeval Latin. 204 00:19:20,230 --> 00:19:23,140 It's just been so, so fun to continue that, 205 00:19:23,140 --> 00:19:31,750 but also in a way that I can bring it back to where I live at my home and research more about that and learn more languages, which is cool. 206 00:19:31,750 --> 00:19:43,540 I love the way you talk about, you know, the challenge of learning Latin and Greek, but then you just went on collecting them! So it obviously gave you a good foundation. 207 00:19:43,540 --> 00:19:48,250 Yeah, I mean, I it helps. I don't have to sit in exam in old Irish. 208 00:19:48,250 --> 00:19:55,750 Old Irish is extremely hard. I guess it kind of helps because once you do something it's just a different language family. 209 00:19:55,750 --> 00:19:59,820 like Celtic languages are so different, the classical languages. 210 00:19:59,820 --> 00:20:07,400 And you go back and sit you Thucydides exam and you're like, OK, that was hard, but it wasn't as hard as that. 211 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:11,250 Yeah, it definitely like and that's one of the things like classics as well. 212 00:20:11,250 --> 00:20:16,770 I mean, once you have the foundation in Latin and Greek, should you choose to learn them, 213 00:20:16,770 --> 00:20:21,000 if that's part of what you want to do, it could be such a foundation for other languages. 214 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:28,140 It really, really helps. So I mean, I haven't grappled with old Irish, but I've definitely found that to be the case. 215 00:20:28,140 --> 00:20:34,230 Then when I moved on to do my Ph.D. in Oxford and they suddenly sprung on us all that we had to do 216 00:20:34,230 --> 00:20:39,360 exams in French and German and Italian to prove that we could read scholarship in those languages, 217 00:20:39,360 --> 00:20:42,750 which, you know, when you sort of apply for a DPhil or a Ph.D. in classics, 218 00:20:42,750 --> 00:20:46,110 you think, Oh, I'm going to be doing my good Greek literature that I signed up for. 219 00:20:46,110 --> 00:20:53,040 And I think suddenly you've got to do these exams. So I had to kind of go to these weekly lessons of French and German for classicists. 220 00:20:53,040 --> 00:21:01,530 And I definitely find that Latin and Greek can of they're sort of deeply buried sometimes, but definitely there is a scaffolding to help. 221 00:21:01,530 --> 00:21:06,780 So, yeah, that was a kind of unexpected benefit. I guess a lot of having done the classical languages. 222 00:21:06,780 --> 00:21:12,180 Certainly I'm interested in how you felt like kind of your background is fed into your research 223 00:21:12,180 --> 00:21:16,090 and your work and and especially when we look at the historical and political context, 224 00:21:16,090 --> 00:21:20,280 to classics and and the breadth that we've already covered that it encompasses. Yeah. 225 00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:23, 669 I mean, I think that Jenyth really touched on this earlier, 226 00:21:23,670 --> 00:21:32,340 but the I completely agree with what she said about the relevance of classical literature for understanding the Northern Ireland conflict. 227 00:21:32,340 --> 00:21:37,320 And I'm 35, so I kind of missed the really bad part of the troubles. 228 00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:41,470 But I definitely much more so than maybe someone 10 or 15 years younger. 229 00:21:41,470 --> 00:21:46,650 My childhood was really coloured by things like bomb scares or, you know, 230 00:21:46,650 --> 00:21:53,280 kind of protests and kind of protests are on the orange marches that happen every summer and kind of a lot of violence or in that. 231 00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:57,870 So, you know, there was a big army presence on the streets of Northern Ireland when I was growing up, 232 00:21:57,870 --> 00:22:00,750 which stopped in nineteen ninety nine after the Good Friday Agreement. 233 00:22:00,750 --> 00:22:05,640 But it was normal to see tanks rolling on the streets, very heavily armed British soldiers. 234 00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:10,110 And I think there's a lot of classical literature that looks that kind of conflict and 235 00:22:10,110 --> 00:22:16,680 occupation and the kind of collateral damage of war or civil war that really spoke to me. 236 00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:21,990 So I think probably rather than being from Northern Ireland affecting my research, 237 00:22:21,990 --> 00:22:27,000 it's almost like my reading of classical literature has helped me understand more what it means to be 238 00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:33,150 from Northern Ireland and to help me understand the kind of conflict more and put it into context. 239 00:22:33,150 --> 00:22:35,190 And I think there's a there's a real movement for that. 240 00:22:35,190 --> 00:22:41,700 And also, I don't know if any of the Peter or Jenyth read the novel Country, which is a kind of version of the Iliad. 241 00:22:41,700 --> 00:22:49,050 So a prose novel. And I mean, it was incredible. And it sort of took the Iliad and kind of rewrote it based in Northern Ireland. 242 00:22:49,050 --> 00:22:58,430 And I thought it was just a tour de force. And so, so interesting as a way of exploring all of the issues around the conflict in Northern Ireland. 243 00:22:58,430 --> 00:23:05,810 I sort of want to answer your question by saying that, no, my background hasn't been relevant to my research at all, really, 244 00:23:05,810 --> 00:23:12,920 because I'm looking at big sort of global questions about connections between ancient art traditions and so on and on. 245 00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:23,960 Really, you know, no matter how big the subject is or how unrelated it might appear to be from the things that are closest to you and your background, 246 00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:28,250 actually there is a kind of deeper relevance. So I wanted to say all of that. 247 00:23:28,250 --> 00:23:37,540 But then immediately I started thinking and actually a large part of my research has been on culture in the provinces of the Roman Empire, 248 00:23:37,540 --> 00:23:42,470 the Roman provincial art, art in Roman Britain, for example. 249 00:23:42,470 --> 00:23:51,290 And I have thought a lot in my research, actually, about what it means to be on the fringe of other countries or to, 250 00:23:51,290 --> 00:23:57,950 you know, to be provincial to provincial culture within some kind of bigger entity. 251 00:23:57,950 --> 00:24:02,930 So I think probably on the on a deeper level, that has been relevant as well. 252 00:24:02,930 --> 00:24:06,680 Yeah, that's super interesting and actually kind of doesn't first spring to mind. 253 00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:07,610 But the more you consider it, 254 00:24:07,610 --> 00:24:15,110 then the more thinking there is behind what have obviously been real passions for you and you've explored as you've gone on throughout your career. 255 00:24:15,110 --> 00:24:22,910 What are some of the interdisciplinary connections that all three of you, I think have have have drawn and enjoy discovering? 256 00:24:22,910 --> 00:24:27,170 Are there any particular examples that you know that really excite you and interest you? 257 00:24:27,170 --> 00:24:30,890 The classics as a discipline is inherently interdisciplinary. 258 00:24:30,890 --> 00:24:40,610 As Jenyth was saying, it's the study of a whole culture, the whole society with all its facets interlinked with each other. 259 00:24:40,610 --> 00:24:47,150 But it's also an incredibly accommodating subject that is very flexible. 260 00:24:47,150 --> 00:24:54,350 So I am interested in connections between Greek and Roman culture and other cultures of the ancient world. 261 00:24:54,350 --> 00:24:58,370 To the extent that a lot of what I'm working on at the moment is, you know, 262 00:24:58,370 --> 00:25:04,850 ancient Buddhist art in the area of what's now Pakistan and its connections with 263 00:25:04,850 --> 00:25:11,540 the Greco Roman world or connections between ancient China and the classical world. 264 00:25:11,540 --> 00:25:15,290 And I do these things in Oxford and nobody bats an eyelid, you know, 265 00:25:15,290 --> 00:25:21,530 it's like I don't think it's crossed anyone's mind that what I do might not be classics. 266 00:25:21,530 --> 00:25:23,690 So it's almost like, you know, 267 00:25:23,690 --> 00:25:31,930 you can test the boundaries of the subject and you actually discover that whatever direction your academic journey takes you, 268 00:25:31,930 --> 00:25:34,730 it's still somehow part of classics as a discipline. 269 00:25:34,730 --> 00:25:42,950 And it's still rooted it still has that sort of centre of gravity in core aspects of Greek and Roman culture, the Mediterranean world. 270 00:25:42,950 --> 00:25:47,060 But it's incredibly accommodating. 271 00:25:47,060 --> 00:25:55,430 It gives you a foundation for basically anything you might be interested in arising from that. 272 00:25:55,430 --> 00:26:01,580 Do you think in some ways then it would be better if there were a different word than classics for describing the breadth of the subject, 273 00:26:01,580 --> 00:26:08,390 or does it actually give us that flexibility and that those boundaries are malleable enough under under the heading? 274 00:26:08,390 --> 00:26:12,440 I was thinking about that after seeing this sort of debate on Twitter about it. 275 00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:16,820 And I think probably in some ways the term classics isn't very helpful. 276 00:26:16,820 --> 00:26:21,980 I also find that when in a practical level, as an undergraduate, it doesn't so much happen now but as an undergraduate. 277 00:26:21,980 --> 00:26:26,330 When I went home to Northern Ireland and said I studied classics, people would be like music. 278 00:26:26,330 --> 00:26:31,790 No. Oh, Jane Austen then? No, you know, cars? definitely not. 279 00:26:31,790 --> 00:26:36,470 You know, and I think it's not a word that kind of explains what the subject is in a way, 280 00:26:36,470 --> 00:26:40,520 very helpfully, unlike almost every other subject that you can study at university. 281 00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:48,980 So I think I'd probably be quite pro changing the name to something else and potentially something more more inclusive. 282 00:26:48,980 --> 00:26:55,700 That reflects the fact that the study of the ancient world or ancient cultures can 283 00:26:55,700 --> 00:27:01,340 and must encompass so much more than study of just ancient Greece and ancient Rome. 284 00:27:01,340 --> 00:27:01,880 And I think, you know, 285 00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:11,660 that kind of interdisciplinarity or breath that that might bring of kind of knitting together classics with other branches of ancient study, 286 00:27:11,660 --> 00:27:16,040 ancient worlds, ancient culture can only be a good thing, really. 287 00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:23,660 I think there are some advantages, though, in having a word sort of, you know, doesn't inherently mean anything because you can reinvent it. 288 00:27:23,660 --> 00:27:33,650 You can apply to all kinds of things. And I mean, the word Classics, it does have its problems and has a lot of baggage with it. 289 00:27:33,650 --> 00:27:41,090 Certainly in the past, it's been regarded as sort of, you know, it conjures up images of a sort of elitist education. 290 00:27:41,090 --> 00:27:48,180 And it's been brought home to me as well. Recently, I've written a number of things where to be translated into Chinese. 291 00:27:48,180 --> 00:27:55,850 And although there are equivalent words for classical, the classical equivalent of classical, 292 00:27:55,850 --> 00:28:03,590 you always have to qualify it to make it clear you're not talking about Chinese classical culture, but rather Greco Roman culture. 293 00:28:03,590 --> 00:28:11,780 So I find myself using the term Greco Roman a lot more, but at the same time none of the alternatives to classics like Greco, 294 00:28:11,780 --> 00:28:16,220 Roman studies, ancient Mediterranean studies or whatever it might be. 295 00:28:16,220 --> 00:28:24,890 None of them seem to me actually to to encapsulate all the things that are important for this discipline in its modern form. 296 00:28:24,890 --> 00:28:31,670 So so, again, I think sometimes just having this weird word classics is a handle for the subject. 297 00:28:31,670 --> 00:28:39,800 Can be can be useful. I think the risk that we need to avoid is that people start to think of it as a kind of 298 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:45,410 I've noticed more and more in the last year or two journalists talking about the classics, 299 00:28:45,410 --> 00:28:49,070 which kind of conjures up an image of a, 300 00:28:49,070 --> 00:28:55,700 you know, a sort of range of canonical literary texts or something like the classic books that we must study, 301 00:28:55,700 --> 00:28:59,730 which couldn't be more different from what the discipline actually is. 302 00:28:59,730 --> 00:29:04,160 So we need to try and avoid that kind of pitfall. 303 00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:11,960 Yeah, I don't have too much more to add. I think you have said it, but yeah, it's really funny that I had the exact same experience as Sarah, 304 00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:16,290 where it was somewhere in a restaurant was coming to take our order. 305 00:29:16,290 --> 00:29:20,840 And my mom and dad were so proud that I just got my offer and they were like 'what you studying'. 306 00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,350 And I said classics and they were like, oh, I love Jane Austen. Like, she's the best. 307 00:29:24,350 --> 00:29:27,890 I was like, not quite, but yeah. 308 00:29:27,890 --> 00:29:33,710 Yeah, I think I saw I'm personally a fan of maybe ancient world studies or something just because of that. 309 00:29:33,710 --> 00:29:40,430 And I kind of agree. But I think there's some really good discussions happening on Twitter and in different departments at the moment. 310 00:29:40,430 --> 00:29:46,940 And I'm just excited to see where the discipline takes itself and how, yeah, this goes. 311 00:29:46,940 --> 00:29:53,990 I just be interested to know what Peter and Jenyth think of the the kind of concerns that people have that are being raised in debates on Twitter. 312 00:29:53,990 --> 00:30:02,280 That classics is inherently kind of white supremacist or or racist in its actual conception. 313 00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:10,130 I mean, is that a concern that you felt as sort of students of and then teachers of the subject? 314 00:30:10,130 --> 00:30:17,420 It's definitely something. Well, I mean, if you're on Twitter as well, there's definitely been a reckoning of mediaeval studies as well, 315 00:30:17,420 --> 00:30:26,000 especially with the use of the term Anglo-Saxon. And so it's been something I've obviously felt about being in and both of those subjects. 316 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:33,740 And I don't know it's it's I obviously don't have an answer to it, because obviously if we did, then that would be resolved. 317 00:30:33,740 --> 00:30:36,890 But it's such a complicated question. 318 00:30:36,890 --> 00:30:45,650 But what I do know is that there's some really exciting and amazing work, especially going on at the university by like the Christian Cole Society. 319 00:30:45,650 --> 00:30:51,530 So I'm really keen to support all of that work and everything that's happening. 320 00:30:51,530 --> 00:30:57,350 But I do think we have to kind of reckon with the background of the subject and the history of the subject, because it doesn't. 321 00:30:57,350 --> 00:31:05,530 Yeah, I think just ignoring it isn't the approach. The answer is kind of working together and supporting each other in that. 322 00:31:05,530 --> 00:31:13,340 I got to go with your answer. I don't really have a solution. But, you know, I think one of the things that has made this, 323 00:31:13,340 --> 00:31:22,850 it's actually impeded the discussion to some extent is the big difference in perspective, particularly on opposite sides of the Atlantic. 324 00:31:22,850 --> 00:31:30,200 You know, some of the some of the language that was used in critiquing classics as a discipline in America, 325 00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:35,240 which is kind of targeted at a kind of image of classics, 326 00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:45,710 as you know, as the study of Western civilisation or something that makes a lot less sense in the context of British classics, 327 00:31:45,710 --> 00:31:49,760 you know, sometimes struggling to to compute what that's all about, 328 00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:57,480 even though for many years I think there's been a lot of soul searching within classics in this country about this, 329 00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:05,390 you know, by all the, you know, inequalities and prejudices that are embedded in the discipline of its history. 330 00:32:05,390 --> 00:32:07,730 You know, there is there's common ground there. 331 00:32:07,730 --> 00:32:15,780 And I think a sort of common consensus about the need for critical reflection, about the discipline and about many other disciplines of the humanities 332 00:32:15,780 --> 00:32:16,290 As well, 333 00:32:16,290 --> 00:32:26,130 but I think some of the headlines can be a distraction from getting into the getting into the complexity of those debates and trying to work out, 334 00:32:26,130 --> 00:32:35,820 you know, in tighter contexts what the problems actually are, what their legacy is and how you address that. 335 00:32:35,820 --> 00:32:38,700 And how do you think that we can, as Oxford classics here 336 00:32:38,700 --> 00:32:44,550 represented by people all kind of stages within their careers of being classicists and 337 00:32:44,550 --> 00:32:50,740 encountering the different subjects too, how can we make the the discipline more accessible, 338 00:32:50,740 --> 00:32:51,990 but also more appealing, 339 00:32:51,990 --> 00:33:00,300 trying to show the light in between the headlines and the positivity around the subject and the importance of debate and 340 00:33:00,300 --> 00:33:09,010 of thinking critically about about our discipline to young people around both Northern Ireland and around the rest of the UK. 341 00:33:09,010 --> 00:33:12,910 I'm going to say I don't think you need to make the subject any more appealing. 342 00:33:12,910 --> 00:33:23,560 I think it's I think it's intrinsically appealing and exciting and fascinating and not just for a small group of people who got into it, 343 00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:25,300 but actually much more widely. 344 00:33:25,300 --> 00:33:33,310 You only have to look at the popularity of some of the television programmes dealing with archaeology or ancient history, 345 00:33:33,310 --> 00:33:42,100 or the celebrity of Mary Beard and some other colleagues, for example, who have brought this subject to wide audiences. 346 00:33:42,100 --> 00:33:50,710 You know, there's a real thirst, actually, from people of all kinds of different ages and different places for finding out about the ancient world. 347 00:33:50,710 --> 00:33:57,640 And I think that the challenge for us is perhaps to tap into that, 348 00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:06,490 but also to try and demonstrate that maybe some of the imagined barriers to studying it professionally, you know, aren't real obstacles. 349 00:34:06,490 --> 00:34:15,490 And, you know, I think I think Oxford sometimes has particular problems because there's a lot of Oxford bashing that goes on. 350 00:34:15,490 --> 00:34:23,580 There's a stereotype of Oxford as an exclusive place, and it's repeated in a slightly lazy way sometimes in the media, 351 00:34:23,580 --> 00:34:29,650 dare I say, by politicians over and over again, which probably reinforces that. 352 00:34:29,650 --> 00:34:35,680 And I think I think we need to get the message out to people that that actually Oxford 353 00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:41,590 Oxford classics is isn't one thing, that all kinds of people come here to study this subject. 354 00:34:41,590 --> 00:34:49,840 Whoever you are, wherever you're from, whatever you are, you know, there's a place for you in Oxford. 355 00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:59,950 potentially studying the subjects that you don't need to have any preconceptions about what kind of person can come and study classics here. 356 00:34:59,950 --> 00:35:02,690 And I think, you know, one of the things very striking. 357 00:35:02,690 --> 00:35:12,460 I guess the background to this to these podcasts is that the Oxford attracts people from all over the world to study classics, 358 00:35:12,460 --> 00:35:22,840 particularly international students at postgraduate level, especially, but at the undergraduate level, disproportionately from certain parts of England. 359 00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:26,740 So we've got international students and we've got the south of England. 360 00:35:26,740 --> 00:35:35,290 And really, this should be a place for people who are enthusiastic about the subject from from from every part of the country. 361 00:35:35,290 --> 00:35:40,720 So I think through exercises like this are valuable in trying to get that message out. 362 00:35:40,720 --> 00:35:46,090 Yeah, I have to agree as well. If I'm from a purely Northern Irish point of view as well, 363 00:35:46,090 --> 00:35:53,050 and fairly recent from leaving school, I guess, although it's now been like seven years, maybe not that recent! 364 00:35:53,050 --> 00:35:58,720 But I think one of the main barriers for coming from Northern Ireland to go 365 00:35:58,720 --> 00:36:03,220 into Oxford was the perception either about not getting in or not belonging. 366 00:36:03,220 --> 00:36:07,480 As you say, Peter, like everyone at my school was like is just going to be full of posh English people. 367 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:08,980 Why would you want to go there? 368 00:36:08,980 --> 00:36:15,910 Also, the fees barrier, as well is a massive thing, you pay half the amount of fees to go to Belfast or anywhere in Northern Ireland for uni. 369 00:36:15,910 --> 00:36:17,710 And that's a big deal to people. 370 00:36:17,710 --> 00:36:26,050 And that's a big financial barrier that's in place that I think needs to be addressed a bit more, talked about a bit more. 371 00:36:26,050 --> 00:36:30,540 And then, yeah, I, I was particularly thinking about it before this podcast. 372 00:36:30,540 --> 00:36:35,140 I think it's definitely a general approach of English universities in general to Northern Ireland, 373 00:36:35,140 --> 00:36:43,030 but there's no sort of sustained engagement or kind of explanation of how to apply to uni in England, 374 00:36:43,030 --> 00:36:49,180 why you should apply to uni in England, and then for Classics in particular, why you should study humanities. 375 00:36:49,180 --> 00:36:56,200 I think that's a massive barrier back home, because I distinctly remember in my physics class a boy I was talking to, 376 00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:03,340 one of the boys in my class about going to Oxford. I just got my offer and he said to me, Oh, such a waste that you're not studying science there. 377 00:37:03,340 --> 00:37:09,940 I was like, OK, but at the time I was like, that was just done the attitude. 378 00:37:09,940 --> 00:37:14,800 like, if you're not studying science or maths, there's no point. 379 00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:19,240 I think we were really missing a trick by not explaining how many transferable 380 00:37:19,240 --> 00:37:23,470 skills you can get from your degree from a purely cynical point of view. 381 00:37:23,470 --> 00:37:28,840 But just how enjoyable the discipline is, how varied it is, the directions you can go. 382 00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:34,510 And, yeah, it just doesn't limit you in any way like even like a science degree might. 383 00:37:34,510 --> 00:37:41,320 Yeah, there was just whenever I was in school, it was really like once every two years they'd be an Oxbridge day talk. 384 00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:49,240 I think there's something a bit more sustained. But yeah, it just kind of felt like it was like an access programme was like, 385 00:37:49,240 --> 00:37:54,100 oh, we'll do one day in Northern Ireland here and then that's us done. We've done our thing. 386 00:37:54,100 --> 00:38:03,430 But something sustained and more of a relationship with the schools in Northern Ireland, I think would have a massive impact of just knowing. 387 00:38:03,430 --> 00:38:08,590 Yeah, knowing what's going on and having a contact and knowing what's happening because you're too shy as a teenager to 388 00:38:08,590 --> 00:38:13,680 ask those questions in one day, but if you have a sustained thing, I think it would be better. 389 00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:21,160 But anyway, that that's also just a general approach of English universities to Northern Ireland in general. 390 00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:30,010 So much of that kind of resonates with me. I think probably there are two strands that I would pick from from my perspective. 391 00:38:30,010 --> 00:38:38,860 I spent 10 years in teaching and secondary education before I came back to Oxford a couple of years ago to to work at the faculty and at Wadham. 392 00:38:38,860 --> 00:38:41,770 So I think I could have seen this from a teaching perspective to you. 393 00:38:41,770 --> 00:38:45,610 And what kind of motivates people to apply for different degrees or what are their concerns? 394 00:38:45,610 --> 00:38:55,150 And I think thinking about Northern Ireland in particular, there is a real I think, a culture there of valuing practical, pragmatic subjects. 395 00:38:55,150 --> 00:39:01,600 So STEM subjects or subjects that directly lead to a career. So I had a lot of people telling me, you know, but you're really bright. 396 00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:07,000 Why don't you do law? You know, why don't you do something that really obviously leads to a kind of professional 397 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,840 career and people kind of were a bit suspicious about what you could actually do, 398 00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:14,110 you know, with with classics. And then I think this was less of an issue. 399 00:39:14,110 --> 00:39:19,240 And I went to university, but with the level of fees, the way they are noise. So you're paying nine thousand pounds a year. 400 00:39:19,240 --> 00:39:21,580 I think there's a lot of concern from some parents. 401 00:39:21,580 --> 00:39:26,860 Again, they want their if their their children are going to get into a lot of debt from university again, 402 00:39:26,860 --> 00:39:30,280 they think, well, why not do something more "practical" in inverted commas? 403 00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:39,190 So I think communication about what a humanities degree or what degree can offer, you know, the pupils, the applicants, and to reassure the parents, 404 00:39:39,190 --> 00:39:44,530 you know what what kinds of careers and opportunities are possible after that that don't just involve 405 00:39:44,530 --> 00:39:50,260 being a classical teacher or staying on to do the classics PHD as wonderful as obviously those things are. 406 00:39:50,260 --> 00:40:00,340 And I think that's where the kind of communication about how multidisciplinary classics is could be really helpful so that it's not just one thing, 407 00:40:00,340 --> 00:40:02,170 as Peter said, but involves, you know, 408 00:40:02,170 --> 00:40:11,980 the possibility of studying loads of different things, each of which could lead on to multiple career paths and and give you other skills, 409 00:40:11,980 --> 00:40:15,920 you know, thinking about the kind of practical sort of archaeology side of things. 410 00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:22,230 I've got a friend who did classics, who now does kind of practical archaeology for new developments. 411 00:40:22,230 --> 00:40:27,820 So he kind of searches for anything important historically. And that's what he did with his classics degree. 412 00:40:27,820 --> 00:40:33,160 So you don't have to end up as a kind of as classics teacher. There's lots of different things you can do. 413 00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:43,340 And looking back, I realise, you know, you got a lot of advice from relatives, from teachers, often quite negative advice. I remember 414 00:40:43,340 --> 00:40:49,030 science teachers are shocked when they heard that 'he wanted to study Latin' or whatever. 415 00:40:49,030 --> 00:41:00,190 But now I think there's sort of well-meaning advice which is often based on very limited knowledge or or a kind of knowledge of one example, 416 00:41:00,190 --> 00:41:06,150 you know, some anecdotal information about somebody who went to a particular university or whatever. 417 00:41:06,150 --> 00:41:10,690 And so I want to encourage people, you know, potential students, 418 00:41:10,690 --> 00:41:16,930 but also their families actually actually find out more about what's really involved from a particular 419 00:41:16,930 --> 00:41:25,540 university they're interested in or just the discipline in general rather than just jumping to conclusions. 420 00:41:25,540 --> 00:41:34,240 Yeah, just off the back of that as well. I think the thing that just completely changed my whole application or the chances of my 421 00:41:34,240 --> 00:41:39,280 application was going on UNIQ and going to Oxford for a week like that scheme was so, 422 00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:43,390 so helpful to me in breaking all the perceptions that I had. 423 00:41:43,390 --> 00:41:48,640 Because as you say, Peter, you get loads of people thinking that they're an expert in what England and 424 00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,370 are Oxford going to be like and they don't have a clue, 425 00:41:51,370 --> 00:41:55,730 like another friend at school thought that you have to wear subfusc to all your lectures and everything. 426 00:41:55,730 --> 00:42:01,900 That was the reason that you didn't apply because you didn't want to wear a uniform all day. And it was stuff like that. 427 00:42:01,900 --> 00:42:09,580 But yeah, it would just be great. Like, schemes like that are so great and amazing, but it would be great as well if there was more of us coming, 428 00:42:09,580 --> 00:42:15,490 like not expecting more from our students to come to Oxford or to do a bit more meeting, getting us on our own ground. 429 00:42:15,490 --> 00:42:22,990 I think I'll be really, really cool and helpful. Yeah, that's an excellent idea that you didn't all have to wear subfusc every day. 430 00:42:22,990 --> 00:42:26,590 But what were some of the highlights of your Oxford experience, 431 00:42:26,590 --> 00:42:32,290 whether that be academically or socially or any kind of aspect of your Oxford 432 00:42:32,290 --> 00:42:36,820 time as a student or as a tutor or teacher that really stands out to you? 433 00:42:36,820 --> 00:42:44,620 Jump in. So I think for me, the most exciting thing and the most memorable thing that I did as a student here 434 00:42:44,620 --> 00:42:49,030 was actually when I was a master's student and I did a module in papyrology. 435 00:42:49,030 --> 00:42:57,910 And so I was taught how to to read the different scripts on into papyri and kind of make 436 00:42:57,910 --> 00:43:02,020 transcripts of them and work out what what text they were from or whether they were. 437 00:43:02,020 --> 00:43:08,110 They might be a literary text. Of course, these papyri are, or they could equally be a what we call a documentary. 438 00:43:08,110 --> 00:43:13,060 Papyrus, which is a kind of a non-literary written record of something from the ancient world, 439 00:43:13,060 --> 00:43:16,480 so people kind of sometimes sarcastically say it's a shopping list, 440 00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:21,250 but it could be something a bit more interesting than that, than a shopping list, a legal document or a letter or something like that. 441 00:43:21,250 --> 00:43:27,070 And I just find that completely fascinating. It was completely different from the sort of slightly diluted way. 442 00:43:27,070 --> 00:43:30,670 I think a lot of people who work on literature like myself, 443 00:43:30,670 --> 00:43:34,900 we normally use modern editions that you take off the shelf in the library there like any other book. 444 00:43:34,900 --> 00:43:39,940 And of course, the content in the material is amazing and inspiring and it's what keeps us coming back. 445 00:43:39,940 --> 00:43:42,580 But that direct connection with the ancient world. 446 00:43:42,580 --> 00:43:48,940 Of course, we'll be much more familiar to someone like Peter who works with objects, which was just completely thrilling for me so, 447 00:43:48,940 --> 00:43:53,530 to hold a papyrus between glass safety preserved from the oils in my hands, 448 00:43:53,530 --> 00:44:02,500 but to hold a kind of ancient papyrus that had been written by a person in the second century B.C. and to read it and then to kind of 449 00:44:02,500 --> 00:44:08,170 compare that to other versions of that literary text that we have and realise that this was a different version of Aristophanes Thesmophoriazeusae, 450 00:44:08,170 --> 00:44:12,130 or this is a different version of Homer's Iliad. 451 00:44:12,130 --> 00:44:18,730 And it was just it was absolutely incredible. And it made me feel so connected to the world in a way that I think I hadn't before, 452 00:44:18,730 --> 00:44:22,910 you know, despite the fact that I was already deeply invested in it. 453 00:44:22,910 --> 00:44:25,810 Yeah, I have I kind of from a classics perspective, 454 00:44:25,810 --> 00:44:33,620 like I have a very similar kind of story to Sarah as well, like whenever I did my Greek Vases paper, 455 00:44:33,620 --> 00:44:37,700 from what I was taught by a professor called Thomas Mannack 456 00:44:37,700 --> 00:44:45,800 and we did a practical handling session in one of the rooms and the faculty kind of linked to the Ashmolean. 457 00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:49,460 And yeah, it was we were just holding vase fragments and looking at them. 458 00:44:49,460 --> 00:44:56,430 And it was like a little thing about whether you could date them from the paintings on the side or the shapes or whatever. 459 00:44:56,430 --> 00:45:03,350 I remember holding one piece and he told me to flip it over and there was fingerprints from the potter like the Potter. 460 00:45:03,350 --> 00:45:08,900 who had made it. It was just such a moment of being like like this is studying like a culture 461 00:45:08,900 --> 00:45:13,580 and actual people like these people lived like over two thousand years ago. 462 00:45:13,580 --> 00:45:17,630 And I'm holding part of their work that they made that may have been super important to them, 463 00:45:17,630 --> 00:45:23,480 may not have been, but it was so just really, really cool to have it, like, come alive in that moment. 464 00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:27,440 And then as I was doing that, John Boardman just walked past. 465 00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:30,830 He's like the expert in Greek Vases, written loads of books. 466 00:45:30,830 --> 00:45:36,860 I just read all his books that term. And I was just like, this is a really cool place to study Classics. 467 00:45:36,860 --> 00:45:48,300 There's just a lot going on. But yeah. And then Oxford in general, just like formal halls and just being in such beautiful settings and just meeting, 468 00:45:48,300 --> 00:45:52,880 meeting such amazing people I'm choosing loads of best things about Oxford here 469 00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:58,370 But I know that I've made friends for life here and that's just so incredible and. 470 00:45:58,370 --> 00:46:02,180 Yeah. And doing lots of sport as well. Like I took up rowing for the first time. 471 00:46:02,180 --> 00:46:06,620 I'm not sure that anyone or that I would have been able to do that any other university. 472 00:46:06,620 --> 00:46:10,000 So yeah, it's just lots of lots of fun times as well. 473 00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:19,340 Studying. I was never a student in Oxford, but I was attracted to come and work here ten years ago, 474 00:46:19,340 --> 00:46:27,470 partly because I used to be the biggest classics department in the world and the biggest concentration of classical archaeologists as well, 475 00:46:27,470 --> 00:46:32,870 or more specifically, people studying Greek and Roman art. 476 00:46:32,870 --> 00:46:38,840 So it's very exciting to come into that kind of community of people with shared interests. 477 00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:45,350 But I mean, one of the amazing things about Oxford is because it's so big in certain subjects like classics that, 478 00:46:45,350 --> 00:46:50,460 you know, no matter how obscure your interests are or, 479 00:46:50,460 --> 00:46:58,230 you know, if you think something was really idiosyncratic and only you are thinking about it, it's quite likely that you'll find people to talk to. 480 00:46:58,230 --> 00:47:04,170 in Oxford and in my first week working here, just, you know, socially, I, 481 00:47:04,170 --> 00:47:09,790 I met six people who studied the Sogdians, now, nobody listening to this will be looking at the Sogdians 482 00:47:09,790 --> 00:47:19,850 And so the ancient people who inhabited parts of Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or so six people, 483 00:47:19,850 --> 00:47:27,410 six Sogdian experts I met in that first week and they didn't even know each other, but they were working in different parts of Oxford. 484 00:47:27,410 --> 00:47:37,010 So it's not even just the faculty of classics. It's about people with intersecting interests in different departments and at different colleges. 485 00:47:37,010 --> 00:47:45,820 And that just makes it so exciting and it creates all kinds of opportunities as well that you simply wouldn't have anywhere else. 486 00:47:45,820 --> 00:47:50,860 And I think that's sort of true too of the way that I teach here and we all teach here, but I personally, 487 00:47:50,860 --> 00:47:57,280 because I come from teaching a school to big classes of 24 or 30 and then teaching now in very small tutorial groups, 488 00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:00,430 or maybe even one on one, if someone's chosen something a little bit niche, 489 00:48:00,430 --> 00:48:06,220 is that, you know, I feel that my students are sort of very intimately involved in my research in that, you know, 490 00:48:06,220 --> 00:48:13,690 I have these conversations with very, very bright, very engaged students about the literature and, you know, kind of spark ideas off each other. 491 00:48:13,690 --> 00:48:14,830 And, you know, 492 00:48:14,830 --> 00:48:21,550 I get the privilege of being involved in their classical journey and seeing them develop all of these ideas about the text that we're studying. 493 00:48:21,550 --> 00:48:25,120 And then in turn, you know, they kind of help shape my ideas. 494 00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:31,840 So I think that's so stimulating. And I obviously had that experience as an undergraduate as well from the other side. 495 00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:36,670 And I remember thinking, you know, I'm coming into a tutorial with Richard Rutherford, who's written, you know, 496 00:48:36,670 --> 00:48:42,850 how many books on Homer, and he's listening to what I have to say about Homer and kind of reading my essay on Homer. 497 00:48:42,850 --> 00:48:52,750 You know, how great is that? And I get to have this hour long conversation with him about this, you know, these ancient texts, which he is an expert on. 498 00:48:52,750 --> 00:49:01,280 So I think that that aspect of it as well is just completely thrilling and keeps being so even now as a teacher here. 499 00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:06,230 Yeah, of course, I should have said that the students are the best part, but it's true, 500 00:49:06,230 --> 00:49:12,530 the students are brilliant and that's one of the real pleasures of the job. 501 00:49:12,530 --> 00:49:14,060 Yeah, I was just going to say as well, 502 00:49:14,060 --> 00:49:23,150 there's so many moments when I was in tutorials in like beautiful old rooms and colleges and just discussing just any aspect of the ancient 503 00:49:23,150 --> 00:49:31,070 world that I wanted to about classical Athens or Rome and stuff and being in the moment thinking why I'm so lucky to be able to do this. 504 00:49:31,070 --> 00:49:35,140 This is just so cool and so much fun. So, yeah. 505 00:49:35,140 --> 00:49:41,320 And as you say, the respect, I think, that is built between students and tutors, that it's very much a two way conversation. 506 00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,020 And as you said, you know, you're learning from each other. 507 00:49:44,020 --> 00:49:48,850 And it's often, I think, for people, sometimes the first time they've experienced that or you when you arrive, 508 00:49:48,850 --> 00:49:53,350 you think, oh, my gosh, these these are tutors and they're so far above me and they know everything. 509 00:49:53,350 --> 00:49:58,540 And I couldn't possibly engage in the conversation, they'll never listen to my ideas. And yet you actually do have those great moments. 510 00:49:58,540 --> 00:50:05,200 And that's what the real about the power of the tutorial system and being able to not only have that conversation with an expert, 511 00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:13,330 but to learn from each other, too, is fantastic. I think that moment when you realise too which I still remember the first moment 512 00:50:13,330 --> 00:50:16,930 I realised I was allowed to disagree with the secondary literature and that, 513 00:50:16,930 --> 00:50:24,130 you know, my my tutor not only kind of allowed that but was encouraging me to to to critique the secondary teacher and to say, 514 00:50:24,130 --> 00:50:29,710 actually, you know, this person might be a kind of a great scholar of, you know, the 20th century. 515 00:50:29,710 --> 00:50:31,470 But, you know, ideas have moved on, 516 00:50:31,470 --> 00:50:37,870 knowing why we study classics and what are the flaws in his argument and to be empowered to do that and to be able to 517 00:50:37,870 --> 00:50:46,310 kind of take your own position as well as just I find that really kind of a really stimulating part of learning classics here. 518 00:50:46,310 --> 00:50:50,210 Yeah, I guess I don't know if there is a final note to end on, 519 00:50:50,210 --> 00:50:59,120 I think I think speaking specifically to North Irish people, I think as a country, we're all so is modest 520 00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:05,450 The word I don't know or just like just not there's like this whole culture of being like, no, I don't think I can do that. 521 00:51:05,450 --> 00:51:10,190 So I won't even apply to to Oxford or whatever it is. 522 00:51:10,190 --> 00:51:11,930 And I would just say go for it. 523 00:51:11,930 --> 00:51:20,870 Like this, like Oxford has honestly changed my life and the way I think and the people that I've met here have just been incredible, 524 00:51:20,870 --> 00:51:25,910 like outside of anything to do with the course. But the course, Classics course, was fantastic as well. 525 00:51:25,910 --> 00:51:34,610 So I just really encourage anyone to give it a go and just go for it, apply for UNIQ, if you can, and see if it fits you. 526 00:51:34,610 --> 00:51:39,120 You won't. You know, there's only one way to find out, really, by having a having a stab at it. 527 00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:44,030 So. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. 528 00:51:44,030 --> 00:51:51,260 I think that it's definitely true that there's a kind of a national tendency to be told by parents 529 00:51:51,260 --> 00:51:55,850 and maybe even teachers not to put yourself forward and not to kind of disagree with people. 530 00:51:55,850 --> 00:52:00,980 So I remember we watched a video in school that came from an Oxford admissions 531 00:52:00,980 --> 00:52:05,270 team and the girl in the video disagreed with her interviewers and sort of said, 532 00:52:05,270 --> 00:52:09,200 no, I do think it was actually for law she was applying for. And she kind of took an opposite stance. 533 00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:14,960 And my teacher said, well, I wouldn't advise any of you to do that in your interviews, you know, it is the fastest way to get rejected. 534 00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:18,030 So I think, you know, there's definitelym I would agree with you. 535 00:52:18,030 --> 00:52:28,070 there is that sort of tendency to modesty and to be warned against and just have a go and come along and see what you think exactly, 536 00:52:28,070 --> 00:52:30,140 well, do come along and see what you think. 537 00:52:30,140 --> 00:52:38,240 Thank you so much to all three of you for a fabulous conversation and discussion and taking part in this episode of Regional Classics. 538 00:52:38,240 --> 00:52:40,265 And thank you for listening.