1 00:00:01,330 --> 00:00:05,740 Hello and welcome to Regional Classics, a podcast from the University of Oxford, 2 00:00:05,740 --> 00:00:12,640 which reflects and celebrates the diverse voices of Oxford classicists past and present from different parts of the UK. 3 00:00:12,640 --> 00:00:15,550 All the while creating thought provoking conversations, 4 00:00:15,550 --> 00:00:22,210 breaking down barriers and showing that if you want to study the world any aspect politics, history, 5 00:00:22,210 --> 00:00:32,380 art, science, literature, culture and much more than you can box of classicists do not and need not come from only a narrow cross-section of society. 6 00:00:32,380 --> 00:00:36,550 In this episode, I'm thrilled to be joined by Bertie Thompson, 7 00:00:36,550 --> 00:00:42,820 a Classics alumna of St Hilda's College and now VP of Product Communications at Facebook. 8 00:00:42,820 --> 00:00:50,470 Alexander Moore, a postgraduate in ancient history at Lady Margaret Hall, where he researches the late Roman Republic, 9 00:00:50,470 --> 00:00:59,170 and by Ellie Newman an archaeology doctoral student at Somerville College, where she investigates the treatment of black women in Hellenistic art. 10 00:00:59,170 --> 00:01:07,330 They all originally hail from the Midlands in England. And Bertie, can I come to you first and just ask, whereabouts did you grow up? 11 00:01:07,330 --> 00:01:12,460 And can you remember when you first became aware of the study of the ancient world? 12 00:01:12,460 --> 00:01:16,810 Yeah, of course. Thanks so much for having me. So excited for this conversation. 13 00:01:16,810 --> 00:01:24,550 so I was born in Birmingham and raised in Wolverhampton and spent the first 18 years of my life there. 14 00:01:24,550 --> 00:01:29,320 My earliest memories of Classics really stem from my childhood. 15 00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:34,660 And just hearing Aesop's Fables, my dad was always really passionate about the ancient world. 16 00:01:34,660 --> 00:01:39,640 I grew up watching such classic movies as Clash of the Titans and Spartacus. 17 00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:45,940 So it wasn't something where I had a flash of light or a moment where I suddenly discovered classics. 18 00:01:45,940 --> 00:01:50,170 It was always sort of a baseline in growing up much like kind of Star Trek and sci fi. 19 00:01:50,170 --> 00:01:57,850 So some of my earliest memories. Thank you -how about you, Alexander, thank you as well for having me here. 20 00:01:57,850 --> 00:02:01,990 This is a great opportunity to talk about the Midlands perspective on classics. 21 00:02:01,990 --> 00:02:05,320 And I think that's the way I got into this, rather similar to Bertie. 22 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:11,440 I was for as long as I can remember as a child, you know, the ancient world is always something that is naturally drew me. 23 00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:18,250 Everything, video games, TV, media books. You know, I was absolutely engrossed in anything and everything that was just sort of ancient Rome. 24 00:02:18,250 --> 00:02:22,960 And that sort of dictated everything that I did in terms of sort of, as I say, popular media. 25 00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:28,150 So, yeah, it was always a very natural progression for men no singular moment that I could ever point to. 26 00:02:28,150 --> 00:02:34,720 But there were definitely key influences. I remember. So like certain TV shows or video games, 27 00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:41,360 I played as a kid that just stuck with me all my life. And where about exactly in the Midlands where you growing up. 28 00:02:41,360 --> 00:02:45,970 So I'm from Burton on Trent, which is a sort of a small industrial town. 29 00:02:45,970 --> 00:02:52,000 It's, I guess the closest cities are Derby. And Ellie. Hi, thanks so much for having me. 30 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:59,050 So I grew up in a small town called Nuneaton, which is between Coventry and Birmingham. 31 00:02:59,050 --> 00:03:05,530 It's a very, very small town. Not many people have heard of it, but I actually had a bit of a different experience with classics. 32 00:03:05,530 --> 00:03:11,230 It actually stemmed from getting fed up of studying modern history at school. 33 00:03:11,230 --> 00:03:17,830 And that was a course on offer at college to study an A-level in ancient history. 34 00:03:17,830 --> 00:03:22,270 And my mum was like, oh, you realise that that's going to be like all the old myths and all of that. 35 00:03:22,270 --> 00:03:27,190 And I was like, Oh, that sounds so cool. I want to do that. And so that's really the first thing I remember, obviously. 36 00:03:27,190 --> 00:03:34,930 I mean, I watched things like Doctor Who, which had travel into the ancient world and Disney's Hercules and that sort of thing. 37 00:03:34,930 --> 00:03:41,680 But that was like the defining moment for me where I really realised it was actually a thing that you could study. 38 00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:47,110 Yeah. And it's fantastic that you got that chance to do ancient history as a an A level, because it's quite unusual, 39 00:03:47,110 --> 00:03:50,980 not that widely studied throughout the country, but also in the Midlands in particular. 40 00:03:50,980 --> 00:03:57,520 I know there's been research done in 2021 that shows how few opportunities there are, it's been called classics, 41 00:03:57,520 --> 00:04:01,840 poverty within the whole of the Midlands region, particularly in the East Midlands. 42 00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:07,900 So I'm interested to hear what your perspectives are on that, how that situation can potentially be changed. 43 00:04:07,900 --> 00:04:16,940 And if you're a young student today who is unable to access a classical subject at school, what advice would you say or give to them? 44 00:04:16,940 --> 00:04:23,680 I can play a little bit of what Ellie said, because for me, I also was very lucky to find an a level, 45 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:27,760 course, that was of great interest at my school, which was classical civilisations. 46 00:04:27,760 --> 00:04:33,160 so half ancient history and half literature in translation. And it was pretty random. 47 00:04:33,160 --> 00:04:41,890 I was a non fee paying grammar school and no ancient Greek was on offer and Latin for me, actually clashed with music. 48 00:04:41,890 --> 00:04:45,710 The lesson timings. So music was my first love. 49 00:04:45,710 --> 00:04:53,410 So really it was only the kind of literature in translation and Class Civ that gave me the ability to actually study classics. 50 00:04:53,410 --> 00:04:58,960 So I just think being able to offer subjects that give students a choice of what they can study. 51 00:04:58,960 --> 00:05:05,590 And I had actually started off doing an English literature a level and after the first few weeks, I was like, this is just not for me too recent! 52 00:05:05,590 --> 00:05:13,190 I don't know what it was and being able to switch was really instrumental in obviously driving my whole course of study and life and career as well. 53 00:05:13,190 --> 00:05:20,230 So I think just having the ability to have a broad range of subjects to choose from is incredibly critical. 54 00:05:20,230 --> 00:05:27,460 I'd just like to add to that because I actually didn't have any formal sort of experience in education. 55 00:05:27,460 --> 00:05:32,770 There was no option at all. I was from a sort of non-selective state school and there was there was no GCSE, no A level that 56 00:05:32,770 --> 00:05:34,780 was available. And in fact, it took me a very, 57 00:05:34,780 --> 00:05:41,020 very long time to actually realise that classics was more than essentially just as genre of history that I was particularly interested in. 58 00:05:41,020 --> 00:05:45,730 And it was actually a discipline. That was a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. 59 00:05:45,730 --> 00:05:50,830 And I distinctly remember being sort of at the end of my GCSE and picking my A-levels, 60 00:05:50,830 --> 00:05:53,680 and my school didn't exactly have a lot of variety or a lot of choice. 61 00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:58,030 And one of my my English literature teacher at the time said to me, we could do an A level in classics. 62 00:05:58,030 --> 00:06:02,780 And I was like 'what's that' and when she told me I was like, this is exactly everything I need and want to do. 63 00:06:02,780 --> 00:06:06,670 But it was just something that my school were just completely not interested in at all. 64 00:06:06,670 --> 00:06:09,070 And, you know, they shut us down rather quickly. 65 00:06:09,070 --> 00:06:15,310 But I was still fortunate enough, actually, that I had a very supportive teacher and I kind of gained a reputation for myself in English. 66 00:06:15,310 --> 00:06:22,030 Literature as the guy that always brought up classical myths, even when they were not exactly that relevant, as I might have advocated. 67 00:06:22,030 --> 00:06:28,210 And so my sort of experience with that was that I was not even aware that there were such things as a level classical civ. 68 00:06:28,210 --> 00:06:32,650 And so I remember I was in undergrad and people told me today there was an a level in that and I'm so jealous. 69 00:06:32,650 --> 00:06:35,740 How how did you get to do an a level in that?! 70 00:06:35,740 --> 00:06:42,460 So the only experience I had was that I had a teacher who was kind of she was a classics grad and she taught me sort of Latin informally now. 71 00:06:42,460 --> 00:06:48,760 But again, it was it wasn't anything that I thought that was serious. It was to me, it was all part of the fun of ancient history and classics. 72 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:52,300 And I thought, wow, this is this is a great book. This is actually a degree that I can do. 73 00:06:52,300 --> 00:06:58,990 And it took me a long time to realise that just because, you know, we didn't have that formal sort of introduction at GCSE or even a level. 74 00:06:58,990 --> 00:07:07,240 And I think that when it comes to sort of outreach for me, that's so key, because we live in sort of this digital world dominated by media, 75 00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:12,820 where you have things like, know, Assassin's Creed, Odyssey just recently blown up about Greece and anyone can get into that. 76 00:07:12,820 --> 00:07:17,620 It doesn't matter where you're from. Everyone can get into that. But I personally think that for someone in my school, 77 00:07:17,620 --> 00:07:22,780 I had all the passion or the desire for ancient history, but that kind of is only one half of the coin. 78 00:07:22,780 --> 00:07:27,370 You know, you need the A-levels as well. And it just really, you know, to that passion. 79 00:07:27,370 --> 00:07:32,590 And I was kind of lucky that I had a teacher who spotted that within me and encouraged me to follow that passion. 80 00:07:32,590 --> 00:07:40,240 But, you know, not everyone is that fortunate. And it took me a long time to realise that classics was even a discipline that I could actually do at university. 81 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:47,080 So I think it's just very important on a fundamental level that we have something built into the education system itself. 82 00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:52,690 Yeah, see, that's very interesting because even though I did so, I went to an absolutely massive. 83 00:07:52,690 --> 00:07:57,850 It was a state college, so it wasn't selective or anything like that. 84 00:07:57,850 --> 00:08:03,310 It was just so big that it had so many subjects. It had literally every subject that you could think of. 85 00:08:03,310 --> 00:08:08,260 It had archaeology a level when I was there 86 00:08:08,260 --> 00:08:13,030 But it's interesting what you're saying Alex about the balance between having 87 00:08:13,030 --> 00:08:17,560 the passion within yourself and also having someone to sort of nurture that, 91 00:08:40,390 --> 00:08:45,400 So I think, as you're saying, it's sort of so important to have people within schools, 92 00:08:45,400 --> 00:08:50,170 within colleges who want people to study the subject rather than just sort of 93 00:08:50,170 --> 00:08:55,150 from stumbling upon it in university prospectuses or from somebody saying, 94 00:08:55,150 --> 00:09:00,670 oh, you realise that you can study this. You know, it needs to be sort of within within schools. 95 00:09:00,670 --> 00:09:05,650 Can we talk more about outreach? Because I feel like we all have these sort of pivotal people who've helped us kind 96 00:09:05,650 --> 00:09:09,730 of become more interesting or interested or realised that there's a path of study. 97 00:09:09,730 --> 00:09:15,430 I think for me, we actually had a visit from Dr Bowie from Queens while I was doing my A-levels, 98 00:09:15,430 --> 00:09:20,290 and he came to our school and had lunch with the six of us who were during the course. 99 00:09:20,290 --> 00:09:24,250 And Oxford would not have been on my radar at all. Absolutely. 100 00:09:24,250 --> 00:09:29,080 Were it not for that one visit. And so it really was kind of a pivotal moment for me that really kind of changed 101 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:32,710 the course of things and would just like to kind of discuss a bit more. 102 00:09:32,710 --> 00:09:37,930 I'm obviously many years out of Oxford now. And also I've been living in the US for the last 11 years. 103 00:09:37,930 --> 00:09:41,720 And so I'm less close to what the outreach work looks like now. 104 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:44,320 I know at the time there was a lot of great work happening. 105 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:51,310 And the issue that I find actually was I tried to do some outreach with local colleges and schools and was told by one, 106 00:09:51,310 --> 00:09:56,410 oh, our school's not interested in Oxford. There's no point in you even coming, which I just find really depressing. 107 00:09:56,410 --> 00:10:00,830 So I would just love to hear more from you all that is possibly more recent. 108 00:10:00,830 --> 00:10:04,690 within the faculty at the moment, 109 00:10:04,690 --> 00:10:11,380 there are so many initiatives going on which we find on our website things like the classical conversations, 110 00:10:11,380 --> 00:10:16,570 particularly in light of the pandemic whereby Oxford tutors will do a half an hour question and 111 00:10:16,570 --> 00:10:21,310 answer session with a group of students on any topic that the students would like to learn about, 112 00:10:21,310 --> 00:10:27,130 whether it's related to their courses or it's something completely different, something that they're interested in. 113 00:10:27,130 --> 00:10:33,820 There's also a range of classics competitions available to students, but I'd be interested to hear from Alexander and Ellie as well, 114 00:10:33,820 --> 00:10:42,070 kind of seeing it slightly more recently from from the other side of the different ways that Oxford can reach students and also, 115 00:10:42,070 --> 00:10:47,650 I suppose, outreach more generally across across the UK. Yes, I'm happy to to talk about that. 116 00:10:47,650 --> 00:10:50,050 I'm at the moment currently, I'm just a first year DPhil. 117 00:10:50,050 --> 00:10:57,040 So at the moment, my experience of graduate like Oxford has been very much sort of dictated by the pandemic. 118 00:10:57,040 --> 00:11:02,980 So as much as outreach is something I would love to be involved in, unfortunately, it's not something that I have for any first hand experience. 119 00:11:02,980 --> 00:11:07,570 But I definitely think that there are certain strategies, you know, that you can employ specifically. 120 00:11:07,570 --> 00:11:14,680 You know, you think of the Midlands I remember actually studying at Oxford is not something that was ever a consideration at my secondary school. 121 00:11:14,680 --> 00:11:18,760 It was not something that we were ever even, you know, anyone never thought of doing. 122 00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:25,030 And I just don't remember. In fact, my school did take a couple of students, a select few and sort of not so much an open day. 123 00:11:25,030 --> 00:11:29,680 This is a trip to Oxford just to see it. And I'm not quite sure that the purpose of that was no. 124 00:11:29,680 --> 00:11:33,550 I look back in hindsight because we weren't exactly being encouraged to apply to Oxford. 125 00:11:33,550 --> 00:11:38,410 It was just sort of an acknowledgement that this board existed and that maybe one day you might end of that. 126 00:11:38,410 --> 00:11:43,030 And I think that that's a barrier that we have to work better at dispelling. 127 00:11:43,030 --> 00:11:47,290 And one way of doing that is rather than what my school did, which they took a trip, 128 00:11:47,290 --> 00:11:54,070 that is I really like what you were saying about actually having you know, there was a doctor who came in and actually spoke to students about it. 129 00:11:54,070 --> 00:11:59,640 I think that's that's incredible. And that's not something that, in my experience, I would have loved. 130 00:11:59,640 --> 00:12:05,800 That would be something that I would absolutely have been amazed by in secondary school, not only because I would have enjoyed the topic, 131 00:12:05,800 --> 00:12:10,780 but again, it would have just reinforced to me something that I didn't know back then, which is just that is a discipline. 132 00:12:10,780 --> 00:12:13,240 You know, it's something you can study at university. 133 00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:18,160 And, you know, that's something that I think can go a long way in encouraging people not just to study Oxford, 134 00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:21,250 but just to study classics generally, which I think is very important. 135 00:12:21,250 --> 00:12:26,920 But definitely I think that there's a lot that we can do to sort of dispel myths, sort of surrounding, you know, applying to Oxford, 136 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:32,260 because so many people just look at that as just this impenetrable hurdle that's not even worth trying to topple. 137 00:12:32,260 --> 00:12:35,410 And that, to me, I think that doesn't quite make a lot of sense. 138 00:12:35,410 --> 00:12:40,840 Instead of building it up is something that we can't or shouldn't do, which is, I think, 139 00:12:40,840 --> 00:12:45,130 the approach that my school took it it needs to be a bit, you know, encouraged perhaps a bit more. 140 00:12:45,130 --> 00:12:49,180 Yeah, I think having people go to different schools is a really good idea. 141 00:12:49,180 --> 00:12:54,640 Again, I went to a school that it just wasn't it wasn't a thing I think I know of. 142 00:12:54,640 --> 00:13:02,470 My entire time at college, there were three people that got into Oxbridge and there were thousands of us. 143 00:13:02,470 --> 00:13:07,990 But I think as well, it's so important in these outreach programmes to have people who you can relate to. 144 00:13:07,990 --> 00:13:14,980 So, you know, people like us who students can hear come from a similar sort of background, 145 00:13:14,980 --> 00:13:20,920 a similar place to just know that it is an option for people who come from our sorts of backgrounds, 146 00:13:20,920 --> 00:13:26,410 come from even like location wise people who don't come from Oxford, London. 147 00:13:26,410 --> 00:13:30,640 That sort of area, people who come from the Midlands, the north, the southwest. 148 00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:37,000 Like all of this. I think that I think that it's so important and it would encourage more people to think, do you know what, I think that I can do this. 149 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,370 I think that it's somewhere that I want to be as well. 150 00:13:39,370 --> 00:13:48,130 Because you think of Oxford classics and you think of a certain group of people that I personally wouldn't feel like I belong to, you know? 151 00:13:48,130 --> 00:13:53,080 So I think while outreach is so important to get people interested in the subject, 152 00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:59,410 it's also to help people think it's not as exclusive as it once was. 153 00:13:59,410 --> 00:14:07,610 And something as well, I'd just like to add to that is that I think it's very important that we think that we have to be relatable to people. 154 00:14:07,610 --> 00:14:13,240 And it's something that I think would have really benefited me at the time. As I say, it just was not an option in my school. 155 00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:17,350 And in turn, that meant that Latin and Greek again, it took me a very long time before I realised, 156 00:14:17,350 --> 00:14:21,370 of course, I was fortunate enough that I had this dedicated teacher who was teaching me. 157 00:14:21,370 --> 00:14:25,240 very informally at those times. But it was never something I thought that was serious. 158 00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:28,330 And this is something that is still to this day, I feel like impacts me. 159 00:14:28,330 --> 00:14:33,940 The fact that I never had Latin at school, the fact that I was never able to study these languages, whereas I think that, 160 00:14:33,940 --> 00:14:38,890 again, that's something that we need to work on so that you don't have to study these languages to do classics. 161 00:14:38,890 --> 00:14:43,540 Of course, I should say you don't have to study them in secondary school to do classics. 162 00:14:43,540 --> 00:14:46,660 You can still take these languages up at university. It's not too late. 163 00:14:46,660 --> 00:14:51,730 And this was something this is a fear that I had when I was sort of discovering the field and entering the field. 164 00:14:51,730 --> 00:14:55,780 And I thought, oh, gosh, everyone else is doing A-levels in classical civ and Latin. 165 00:14:55,780 --> 00:15:00,850 And this is the first time I've been hearing about this. And it really affected sort of my confidence going in. 166 00:15:00,850 --> 00:15:07,850 And I think that, again, if someone had come to me in secondary school and said, you can absolutely go and do an undergraduate degree in classics, 167 00:15:07,850 --> 00:15:13,040 pick up a language, then, you know, I think that would go a long way in terms of being relatable. 168 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:22,610 And that really resonates to me, I had not done Latin or greek before and so took them both up as part of my undergrad course to be. 169 00:15:22,610 --> 00:15:27,710 And there were four of us, I think, in the whole class who were doing the course to be. 170 00:15:27,710 --> 00:15:32,330 And I think you're right. Right. It's great just for people to understand that it's something you can take up later. 171 00:15:32,330 --> 00:15:39,380 And one of the things that I just love most about the field of study in classics is that it just encompasses so many different things. 172 00:15:39,380 --> 00:15:43,760 I already knew that I loved languages. I had actually studied Russian strangely at my school. 173 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:49,100 The school had just this random history of teaching Russian and i knew i loved literature and then was able to 174 00:15:49,100 --> 00:15:54,320 combine with all of these other kind of exciting areas of study and the paper on Greek vases, 175 00:15:54,320 --> 00:15:58,340 which I love to this day. So, yeah, it's incredible. 176 00:15:58,340 --> 00:16:05,660 And Ellie, just hearing about it really reminded me and took me back to my interview time at Oxford because, 177 00:16:05,660 --> 00:16:11,630 again, you know, there was this like black girl from Wolverhampton sitting at dinner and like a big, 178 00:16:11,630 --> 00:16:18,110 fabulous, scary looking hall with a group of very wonderful public schoolboys, 179 00:16:18,110 --> 00:16:23,000 one of whom kind of said he'd been studying Greek and Latin since he was eight or nine. 180 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:29,060 The other one, he proclaimed at dinner that he could recite the entire first chapter of the Aeneid in Latin. 181 00:16:29,060 --> 00:16:36,560 And I was like, wow, what is this world? And of course, they subsequently went on to be great friends, very wonderful people. 182 00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:40,580 But it really was just like being plopped into a totally different world. 183 00:16:40,580 --> 00:16:50,190 Yeah, I think this languages thing is also something that it's an obstacle that people who study other subjects don't necessarily have to face. 184 00:16:50,190 --> 00:16:54,080 I didn't have the chance to do Greek or Latin at all in school. 185 00:16:54,080 --> 00:17:01,220 We barely did modern languages. And then so when I came to so I actually did my undergrad at Nottingham. 186 00:17:01,220 --> 00:17:06,260 And when I came to Nottingham, I not only one of my first lectures was on the Iliad, 187 00:17:06,260 --> 00:17:11,870 which I'd never heard of in my life, but also because I felt like I needed to have a language. 188 00:17:11,870 --> 00:17:18,560 And I was told by my tutors that I needed to have an ancient language in order to carry on with classics as far as I have. 189 00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:22,610 I decided to take up beginner's Latin, during my first term, 190 00:17:22,610 --> 00:17:30,800 and then in the second term I had to choose between doing beginners Latin again or doing Greek and Roman mythology, 191 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:37,190 which obviously kids who have already studied ancient languages. This isn't something that they have to decide between. 192 00:17:37,190 --> 00:17:42,230 They just do Greek mythology, which I found ten times more interesting. 193 00:17:42,230 --> 00:17:51,530 So I ended up deciding to do that instead. So I think universities need to be prepared for students who have never had the opportunity before. 194 00:17:51,530 --> 00:17:55,640 Yeah, it's interesting that when you're saying that really sort of resonated with me as well. 195 00:17:55,640 --> 00:18:00,890 I actually did my undergraduate degree in dual honours in modern history and history. 196 00:18:00,890 --> 00:18:06,290 The reason being that, you know, when I was at secondary school again, I was still as much as I knew that I wanted to do ancient history. 197 00:18:06,290 --> 00:18:10,730 And that was the interested I was completely unaware that it was even a valid discipline for so long. 198 00:18:10,730 --> 00:18:15,200 You know, I saw in prospectuses and I went on open days and whenever I spoke to my teachers about it, 199 00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:19,670 they would all said the same thing to me, which was you sure about that? stick to modern history? 200 00:18:19,670 --> 00:18:21,350 You know, that that's viable. 201 00:18:21,350 --> 00:18:28,370 And so in the end, ultimately, the way I sort of pick my modules, my credits, was that it was very much an ancient history degree by the end of it. 202 00:18:28,370 --> 00:18:31,470 But it definitely meant that I had the exact same choices to make. 203 00:18:31,470 --> 00:18:36,260 I came in I remember my first year at Liverpool, and I came in in my first year. 204 00:18:36,260 --> 00:18:42,770 And I remember being faced with the choice of do I want to study in my limited history credits that I had at the time? 205 00:18:42,770 --> 00:18:49,250 Do I want to study a language which I've never really done before because I had very limited exposure to language, 206 00:18:49,250 --> 00:18:53,450 very limited, or do I want to study the campaigns of Alexander the Great? 207 00:18:53,450 --> 00:18:57,350 And for me, it was just an easy choice for ancient history through and through. 208 00:18:57,350 --> 00:18:59,000 And I thought, well, this just sounds fantastic. 209 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:04,340 And then it was when I got started my third year at the end, and then I sort of realised that it took me that long to think. 210 00:19:04,340 --> 00:19:09,440 I do sort of want to learn languages now so I can interrogate the text myself when I'm reading them. 211 00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:15,800 And this is something that I recognise when I was doing my masters and especially now my dphil the people when I talk to them about it, 212 00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:20,930 I say, what are you doing in this class? I'm learning modern German now. And I said, Okay, that's great. 213 00:19:20,930 --> 00:19:26,360 I can see why, but how do you get the time for them? So I don't need to learn Latin. I don't need to learn Greek, which, you know, even to develop. 214 00:19:26,360 --> 00:19:32,720 I'm still having to try to learn. Now, I just to think that this is something that doesn't necessarily stop me from being a good historian. 215 00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:37,970 But it definitely means that I feel as if I've gone throughout my undergrad and my masters as 216 00:19:37,970 --> 00:19:43,460 some kind of disadvantage because I didn't have that those language opportunities in school. 217 00:19:43,460 --> 00:19:49,490 And so, again, I think it's important to stress that by no means that does not having these things prevent you from doing what we do. 218 00:19:49,490 --> 00:19:50,990 And I think that's very important. 219 00:19:50,990 --> 00:19:57,440 But of course, it's important to recognise that we should still encourage people when when they go to university, they can still pick these things up. 220 00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:03,890 And that's OK. And sometimes you want to make the choice between an exciting moment for history over the language. 221 00:20:03,890 --> 00:20:09,340 You can absolutely do so. And that does not prevent you, doesn't lock you out of learning any language. 222 00:20:09,340 --> 00:20:13,590 at all further down the line. I think that's such an important message. 223 00:20:13,590 --> 00:20:17,340 What are some of these interdisciplinary connections that you, 224 00:20:17,340 --> 00:20:21,150 the three of you feel that you particularly enjoyed drawing in all the different 225 00:20:21,150 --> 00:20:23,400 elements of the course that you might have done in your undergraduate, 226 00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:28,470 your post grad, or even when you were at school doing if you were able to do classical civilisations, cetera? 227 00:20:28,470 --> 00:20:32,760 What were those Connections that really drew you to then decide, as the three of you did, 228 00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:41,400 that this is the thing I want to study in some shape or form at university, despite some of the barriers that you've faced up to that point? 229 00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:45,540 For me, it was just the breadth of the subjects that were available to study. 230 00:20:45,540 --> 00:20:50,510 I still feel that I haven't decided what I want to do with my life fully. 231 00:20:50,510 --> 00:20:54,490 And it's just like really fun to try new things and be learning all the time. 232 00:20:54,490 --> 00:21:01,410 And so the notion that you can study some language, some history, some art and archaeology, 233 00:21:01,410 --> 00:21:10,440 was just incredibly appealing and I think also is one of the awesome things about the education system in the UK versus the US, 234 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:15,990 where I work with a lot of people who are educated here. And, you know, it's just kind of different. 235 00:21:15,990 --> 00:21:23,040 You have to study certain things and you don't have the opportunity necessarily to pick a bunch of oddball topics, which I did. 236 00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:25,320 And it definitely was the right path for me. 237 00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:32,580 So I think it was just the breadth of things available at a level and not wanting to specialise too soon was what really drew me. 238 00:21:32,580 --> 00:21:36,360 So I think for me it was again, almost the opposite. I didn't have a lot of choice. 239 00:21:36,360 --> 00:21:43,290 I didn't have a lot of variety when I was at secondary school. And actually my A-levels ended up being sort of English literature and history. 240 00:21:43,290 --> 00:21:45,690 I tried to go down that route as much as I possibly could, 241 00:21:45,690 --> 00:21:50,130 but that was sort of the best that I could think I had because of classical or that or anything like that. 242 00:21:50,130 --> 00:21:54,660 And but even still, of course, my history level was very much modern history, 243 00:21:54,660 --> 00:22:00,840 but it didn't stop me from I ended up doing the extended project qualification, which is sort of a voluntary level that we do. 244 00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:07,230 And I decided that I was going to do it on Roman history because that was the only way that I sort of seeing myself of having an avenue into it. 245 00:22:07,230 --> 00:22:14,190 But I think it was only because I had an alevel in history that I had the confidence to tackle that and thought that I have the necessary skills, 246 00:22:14,190 --> 00:22:20,250 that sort of writing and analysis that I could do anything you which in turn know I could then use that as an outlet. 247 00:22:20,250 --> 00:22:24,210 So to sort of demonstrate to myself, because that was a key moment for me as well. 248 00:22:24,210 --> 00:22:30,300 because that was the first time that I'd ever officially studied anything in ancient history. 249 00:22:30,300 --> 00:22:35,430 And that was really sort of a confirmation for me. This is exactly what I want and need to be doing. 250 00:22:35,430 --> 00:22:41,790 But also as well, I think that at school, I can't underestimate the impact that English literature had on me, 251 00:22:41,790 --> 00:22:47,910 because I remember reading a lot of the classics - The Great Gatsby, Frankenstein and the parallels to myths. 252 00:22:47,910 --> 00:22:52,590 I said I developed this reputation to myself as being the guy who always brought myths to every class without fail. 253 00:22:52,590 --> 00:22:56,040 I can't even remember one class. I don't know how I did it. 254 00:22:56,040 --> 00:23:02,130 I was talking about Julius Caesar. I think in relation to wuthering heights I was really going to quite extreme lengths. 255 00:23:02,130 --> 00:23:07,860 But I think the English literature as a subject was for me it was the best avenue into classics. 256 00:23:07,860 --> 00:23:11,890 And I think that there's a lot of overlap between the two subjects, a lot of interdisciplinarity, 257 00:23:11,890 --> 00:23:19,170 that I think if you don't have access to something like classics, I think is still a very viable option. 258 00:23:19,170 --> 00:23:25,650 Languages, too, is we were just talking about if you do languages at a level. Again, my school didn't offer any languages at a level. 259 00:23:25,650 --> 00:23:31,710 Again, it was difficult for me. But again, that's a very good avenue into classics because, of course, we're talking about languages. 260 00:23:31,710 --> 00:23:37,050 If you have romance languages like French or Italian, it can help you then down the line to Latin. 261 00:23:37,050 --> 00:23:41,850 So I think there's definitely even when it looks like you don't have a lot of choice like I did, 262 00:23:41,850 --> 00:23:48,450 are still definitely various avenues and routes that you can take to still sort of help you try to get into classics. 263 00:23:48,450 --> 00:23:55,830 See, I actually went on a completely different route when I was deciding what I wanted to do because I had no idea. 264 00:23:55,830 --> 00:24:01,740 So I ended up doing A-levels in maths, geography and class civ. 265 00:24:01,740 --> 00:24:07,890 But so for me, it was when I sort of figured out, because obviously those three subjects don't relate to each other. 266 00:24:07,890 --> 00:24:15,210 But it was sort of when I found out that you could study reception and look at things like how classics was portrayed 267 00:24:15,210 --> 00:24:24,210 in the media and also reflections in politics and using modern sort of political ideas to look at the ancient world, 268 00:24:24,210 --> 00:24:28,950 things like that, that I realised, you know what? This is something that I could really get into. 269 00:24:28,950 --> 00:24:38,070 You know, I didn't realise that. And I know that it's still sort of frowned upon area within classics amongst certain groups. 270 00:24:38,070 --> 00:24:46,620 But, you know, looking at the media, looking at reception studies, how, you know, at undergrad, I did a module on classics and TV. 271 00:24:46,620 --> 00:24:50,400 I didn't realise that that was a thing until I discovered that. 272 00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:55,860 And I thought, oh, my God, this is so good. This is such a good way to get people involved in it. 273 00:24:55,860 --> 00:24:59,460 So I think if I'm going back to outreach, 274 00:24:59,460 --> 00:25:05,610 if we emphasise that these are the sort of things that you can look at in classics, more people might be interested. 275 00:25:05,610 --> 00:25:08,010 And it makes it more relevant because, you know, 276 00:25:08,010 --> 00:25:13,110 the sort of things that I get asked when I say that I study classics is, oh, well, why do you want to do that? 277 00:25:13,110 --> 00:25:17,520 It was thousands of years ago. Surely it's completely unrelatable, but it's not the case at all. 278 00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:18,480 I thought, you know, 279 00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:27,360 looking at all of the films that it comes up and I saw that there's a conference happening in the US about classics and music and things like this. 280 00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:33,610 It's just so interesting to me. So that's when I really figured out that I wanted to study classics. 281 00:25:33,610 --> 00:25:39,640 That was something as well that I'd just like to say it really I realised that a bit later on after my undergrad, 282 00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:44,770 I think when I did my dissertation, it's just how applicable the ancient world is to the modern day. 283 00:25:44,770 --> 00:25:49,180 So my research actually focuses on the role played by military veterans during the Republic. 284 00:25:49,180 --> 00:25:55,690 You know, this is this is something that is a concept that still very much alive and important in today's discourse, 285 00:25:55,690 --> 00:25:57,850 especially in terms of the relation with politics. 286 00:25:57,850 --> 00:26:03,430 And there's so many different ways where I think that I can almost just see now the ancient world in modern society. 287 00:26:03,430 --> 00:26:07,870 And that's something that I think, as you were saying Ellie, that you can realise very, 288 00:26:07,870 --> 00:26:13,150 very early on when you think about classical reception and things that we think of our childhoods, 289 00:26:13,150 --> 00:26:16,720 I know we started off by saying how we got into classics and quite a few of us. 290 00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:21,190 It was a case of, you know, Disney's Hercules and things like this and watching films and books. 291 00:26:21,190 --> 00:26:25,360 And I think that that is we definitely can't underestimate the kind of relevance that 292 00:26:25,360 --> 00:26:31,610 that that has in how we view and formulate concepts and ideas in the modern era. 293 00:26:31,610 --> 00:26:38,610 And how have you found, Bertie, moving into the world of work that your classics experience and degree both benefited 294 00:26:38,610 --> 00:26:42,690 you but also just influence your choice of career and the skills that you've deployed? 295 00:26:42,690 --> 00:26:49,230 And as we've just said about political and social cultural impacts of classics today? 296 00:26:49,230 --> 00:26:52,920 This is such a good question. I sort of fell into my career, 297 00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:57,420 so I ended up training as a chartered accountant after I graduated just because 298 00:26:57,420 --> 00:27:01,230 it seemed like a sensible thing to do and very quickly realised I wasn't 299 00:27:01,230 --> 00:27:07,500 destined to be the accountant and fell into a role in PR in an agency and then over 300 00:27:07,500 --> 00:27:12,240 many years ended up at Facebook and leading communications for all of our products, 301 00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:14,340 Facebook, Instagram, etc. 302 00:27:14,340 --> 00:27:23,730 And it's funny, I didn't realise at first that connection until I went back to St. Hilda's for a gathering where we saw some of our old tutors. 303 00:27:23,730 --> 00:27:27,120 And I remember one of my old teachers Dr Innes when she found out what I did. 304 00:27:27,120 --> 00:27:34,770 She said, well, of course you can do PR, you studied Cicero, the master of rhetoric was like, good point. 305 00:27:34,770 --> 00:27:40,830 And I think really for me, just the the discipline around how to form an argument, 306 00:27:40,830 --> 00:27:45,750 how to persuade I'm a communicator by nature, it's my job to communicate, 307 00:27:45,750 --> 00:27:52,140 to persuade whether that's employees, reporters, investors, and just being able to kind of formulate that argument, 308 00:27:52,140 --> 00:27:56,070 to articulate something in a way that really relates to an audience. 309 00:27:56,070 --> 00:28:00,630 I definitely draw back exactly from my degree in the way that we did that. 310 00:28:00,630 --> 00:28:09,260 So it feels very relevant to me from a skillset point of view, even if the subject matter isn't necessarily spot on the same. 311 00:28:09,260 --> 00:28:19,280 And have you ever encountered surprise from people when they find out what your actual degree and your academic background is? 312 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:27,900 Yes, very, very often. And obviously, Classics is a known discipline in the U.S. as well. 313 00:28:27,900 --> 00:28:36,200 But I have not found many other classicists in my line of work, although my boss, Mark Zuckerberg, 314 00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:40,040 is very, very passionate about classics and has talked a lot about that publicly, too. 315 00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:46,670 So that's that's fun. What are some of the things that you feel you wish were talked more about in classics? 316 00:28:46,670 --> 00:28:53,240 I think we've mentioned lots from a school's perspective and maybe an outreach one, but just more widely within the discipline, 317 00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:58,350 whether that be amongst academics or teachers or even in the public eye, in the media. 318 00:28:58,350 --> 00:29:02,870 What are some of the things you wish were talked about more or perhaps some that you wish we talked about less? 319 00:29:02,870 --> 00:29:11,830 I was just so excited to hear Ellie, about your areas of study when I was studying classics 20 years ago. 320 00:29:11,830 --> 00:29:20,840 Don't tell anyone. There was no real sense of thinking about social justice or issues of race, so it just wasn't even on the radar. 321 00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,790 I was always kind of the lonely only being a black woman. 322 00:29:24,790 --> 00:29:29,390 That just was I think I was maybe one of the black women in the entire year studying classics. 323 00:29:29,390 --> 00:29:35,060 So it was just something that I kind of couldn't really think about or else I would become too self-conscious. 324 00:29:35,060 --> 00:29:36,500 And I love the idea. 325 00:29:36,500 --> 00:29:47,490 But now the discipline is kind of embracing a lot more intersectionality and ways of studying the past that incorporate some of our present as well. 326 00:29:47,490 --> 00:29:50,660 So I just was really excited to hear about your area of study. 327 00:29:50,660 --> 00:29:56,510 And that's something that that seems very important for students to focus on now, of course, across all subjects. 328 00:29:56,510 --> 00:30:02,870 Something as well, I think that is sort of an issue that we're currently having in classics, aside from, 329 00:30:02,870 --> 00:30:07,070 you know, the name itself classics, and what that can represent is that there's a tendency in it. 330 00:30:07,070 --> 00:30:11,390 And again, it took me a while to realise this, that throughout my undergrad of, 331 00:30:11,390 --> 00:30:14,840 you know, when we think about what is classics and what is ancient history, 332 00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:21,320 we just instinctively, you know, we just go to ancient Greeks and Rome and of course, that there's so much to be, so much what we don't have. 333 00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:27,260 But it's you know, when I was going through my undergrad and I remember thinking about how the Romans were portraying others, particularly, 334 00:30:27,260 --> 00:30:31,400 I remember the Parthian empire at the time and thinking how this was something that was portrayed 335 00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:36,320 as being so dangerous that it was rivalling Roman that Rome had to try and subdue this fact. 336 00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:41,390 And then it clicked with me then. Then I thought and I did a module on Cyrus the Great in the Persian Empire, my undergrad. 337 00:30:41,390 --> 00:30:47,180 And I thought, you know, these these things are these empires. Persia and Parthia afterwards are just as important and just as significant 338 00:30:47,180 --> 00:30:51,580 in terms of world development as the Roman Empire was and ancient Greece. 339 00:30:51,580 --> 00:30:55,430 And yet I think that that's something that obviously has got a lot better in recent years. 340 00:30:55,430 --> 00:30:59,470 But it's still something that I think we need to work out when we say the words concepts and we say, 341 00:30:59,470 --> 00:31:04,820 you know, it's ancient history, what are we really talking about? Are we talking about ancient Greece and ancient Rome exclusively, 342 00:31:04,820 --> 00:31:09,710 or do we mean ancient history and everything that is involved in the empires of Egypt? 343 00:31:09,710 --> 00:31:16,980 And even before that, the Hittite empires, Parthia, Persia and all these things that are just as important as just a significant state interaction 344 00:31:16,980 --> 00:31:21,860 and and even themes such as imperialism by no means exclusive to the development of Greece. 345 00:31:21,860 --> 00:31:30,420 And yet I think we have this tendency to just sometimes prioritise, you know, the sort of more Western Roman Greek history. 346 00:31:30,420 --> 00:31:31,530 Yeah, absolutely, 347 00:31:31,530 --> 00:31:41,760 so I look a little bit ancient Nubia in my studies and sort of the interaction between ancient Nubia and ancient Egypt in the Hellenistic period. 348 00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:49,290 And it's so strange to me that these countries, they bordered each other and yet it's sort of like ancient history, 349 00:31:49,290 --> 00:31:55,290 the discipline has drawn a line underneath Egypt and said, no, after this, it doesn't matter. 350 00:31:55,290 --> 00:32:02,850 It's not part of ancient history. And, you know, even going beyond that sort of the interaction, interactions between Rome and the east, 351 00:32:02,850 --> 00:32:09,990 we see Rome as being ancient history and the contemporary history in the east as 352 00:32:09,990 --> 00:32:15,150 being other and sort of mysterious and sort of a completely different discipline, 353 00:32:15,150 --> 00:32:21,330 which although, you know, the world's a big place, there were many different cultures all living together. 354 00:32:21,330 --> 00:32:26,440 Why is it that when you say ancient history and when you sign up to study in ancient history, 355 00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:32,220 we know we all know that that means Greece, Rome, maybe a bit of Egypt. 356 00:32:32,220 --> 00:32:40,830 And you know that interactions with other places why doesn't include Nubia, you know, maybe places like South America, you know, so interesting. 357 00:32:40,830 --> 00:32:51,090 But there's just nothing. And I think that it also speaks to a wider problem in British teaching of history and in schools and universities, 358 00:32:51,090 --> 00:32:57,030 that it's very sort of white centric, it's very sort of Eurocentric. 359 00:32:57,030 --> 00:33:03,660 And yeah. So it's something that is a problem in classics, but it's something that was rippled out, 360 00:33:03,660 --> 00:33:09,060 just the study of history in general and something that we need to address. 361 00:33:09,060 --> 00:33:14,880 And I think, as we've mentioned before, the fact that Classics has this extra element of the language literature element that creates 362 00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:20,010 additional barriers and complications compared to perhaps the discipline of history in and of itself. 363 00:33:20,010 --> 00:33:24,750 Do you think that I know, Alexander, you just touched on this in terms of the name of classics. 364 00:33:24,750 --> 00:33:28,290 Can we break down one of those barriers by altering that name? 365 00:33:28,290 --> 00:33:36,120 Do you think by with that, would that make a difference or is the terminology just a product rather than the actual problem at the root? 366 00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:40,050 That, of course, I think that terminology can only go so far. 367 00:33:40,050 --> 00:33:44,260 And what we can do by changing names, there's only so much that that can do. 368 00:33:44,260 --> 00:33:48,540 I still think it's important. You know, as I said, when when I was sort of in secondary school, 369 00:33:48,540 --> 00:33:53,460 when I was weighing up my options about what I wanted to do university, I said I did a dual degree in history and ancient history. 370 00:33:53,460 --> 00:33:57,480 And to me, ancient history. That was essentially what it was a name. 371 00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:05,340 It was the period before history. The ancient part of history and classics definitely had a reputation to me as being classical literature. 372 00:34:05,340 --> 00:34:07,150 You know, that's what I sort of associated with the term. 373 00:34:07,150 --> 00:34:12,480 And when I say classics, I thought The Iliad or The Aeneid, and these were things that were completely foreign to me, 374 00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:18,060 mainly because I think that when I thought of those, I thought, I don't know how to read Latin, how am I going to read the Aeneid? 375 00:34:18,060 --> 00:34:23,280 And so I think that there's definitely something we can do by the word classics and breaking that down. 376 00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:27,750 And in terms of things you have, the classics is an amalgamation of many different disciplines. 377 00:34:27,750 --> 00:34:32,100 You have classical literature, as I just said. But there's also more to that. 378 00:34:32,100 --> 00:34:38,310 It's not just exactly literature, there's reception. And these are all very important aspects of classics. 379 00:34:38,310 --> 00:34:43,680 And I think that absolutely, if we think about what classics means, we can start to remove those barriers. 380 00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:52,200 But ultimately, again, I think that terminology can only go so far in that we perhaps need to do more in terms of encouraging people to be of our age, 381 00:34:52,200 --> 00:35:01,230 about thinking about the discipline as a whole in terms of history, even something such as Egyptology and these these labels can be very useful. 382 00:35:01,230 --> 00:35:06,670 But again, we just have to be a bit more aware of what we actually need to say them. 383 00:35:06,670 --> 00:35:10,780 We've already, I think, dispelled some myths so far in this episode, 384 00:35:10,780 --> 00:35:19,130 but are there any other myths about classics or particularly perhaps about Oxford and your Oxford classics experiences that you'd like to dispel? 385 00:35:19,130 --> 00:35:26,120 For me, my experience at Oxford was really defining and a bunch of ways and my expectations, 386 00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:36,470 I suppose really many of the people that I met and got to know and became friends with were from a different kind of social strata than I was. 387 00:35:36,470 --> 00:35:42,410 And my learning was like, I approach things in a way that I suppose like naive and self-conscious, 388 00:35:42,410 --> 00:35:50,060 but was able to kind of make wonderful friends and find spots where I was able to fit in and really thrive and so that 389 00:35:50,060 --> 00:35:58,160 for me was was really defining, knowing that I could fit in in many different environments and areas instead of feeling excluded. 390 00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:02,210 So I found it an incredibly positive experience over time. 391 00:36:02,210 --> 00:36:09,440 And looking back now, I think I if I was approaching a similar experience now, I think I would be a lot more self conscious about it. 392 00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:17,840 But I certainly had a really great experience. I would like to add as well, actually, when I moved into my flat on my flatmates, 393 00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:24,050 they referred to me as Northern because I was north of Oxford, therefore I was northern and this was having done my undergrad in Liverpool. 394 00:36:24,050 --> 00:36:26,840 Very bizarre to me, this idea of being called Northern. 395 00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:33,050 But actually there's something I would I would say got better at a time when I first arrived, I didn't get very overwhelmed with this notion. 396 00:36:33,050 --> 00:36:35,650 And I thought to myself, wow am I really alone here? 397 00:36:35,650 --> 00:36:40,060 Is there anyone else from my background or is everybody here been learning Latin since the age of eight? 398 00:36:40,060 --> 00:36:43,880 I see after a while after talking to a lot of people, I did realise that while, of course, 399 00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:49,430 there are so many people with so many varied socioeconomic backgrounds, in terms of a regional perspective, 400 00:36:49,430 --> 00:36:53,930 I certainly was not the only person from the Midlands, but from the North, as you know, 401 00:36:53,930 --> 00:37:01,190 it was collectively referred to, which the Midlands most certainly is not, something that I think that it took me a while initially to get over. 402 00:37:01,190 --> 00:37:05,510 And this was the fear that I had going into it. But I thought, am I really going to be isolated? 403 00:37:05,510 --> 00:37:10,220 But I think that, you know, as we prove by doing this, that's certainly not the case. 404 00:37:10,220 --> 00:37:18,980 Yeah, I am. I had a similar experience of people telling me that I was from the North before I started Oxford during my DPhil and my master's. 405 00:37:18,980 --> 00:37:26,300 Actually, I was very self-conscious of my educational background and sort of, you know, being, state educated, all of this. 406 00:37:26,300 --> 00:37:27,680 Am I going to be the only person? 407 00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:35,870 And that's one myth about Oxford, even though, you know, you're not going to find that you do have the same background as everybody there. 408 00:37:35,870 --> 00:37:39,350 That doesn't mean that people aren't going to appreciate your background. 409 00:37:39,350 --> 00:37:43,640 People are going to be critical of your background or anything like that. 410 00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:48,470 And one myth that I would like to dispel about classics is that it's boring. 411 00:37:48,470 --> 00:37:57,170 It's not boring at all. It's super interesting. It's the most interesting subject ever, in my opinion, you know, and it is relatable. 412 00:37:57,170 --> 00:38:00,680 It is applicable to modern day. And you know what? 413 00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:07,730 even if it isn't just doing a subject that you love and that you find interesting, there's a lot to be said for that. 414 00:38:07,730 --> 00:38:13,340 You know, it's got all of us this far. And I know that not everybody has the same opportunities and things like that. 415 00:38:13,340 --> 00:38:20,360 But even the majority of people watch television, watch films, have the Internet, play games, things like this, 416 00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:29,480 to have more sort of opportunities for people to see classics in the media and also see people like us who study classics in the media. 417 00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:34,970 You know, different people are getting into it. Different people are looking at different things in the subjects. 418 00:38:34,970 --> 00:38:45,830 And I think to portray that to a wider audience of people would be so beneficial to get people interested in the subject because it is not boring. 419 00:38:45,830 --> 00:38:52,580 Well, you are all fantastic ambassadors for the subject, and I think your experiences speak for themselves in terms of where Classics has 420 00:38:52,580 --> 00:38:56,360 taken you and still has so many other places and directions in which to take you 421 00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:01,070 But you can tell even, you know, after the first time you encountered that subject, 422 00:39:01,070 --> 00:39:07,580 that your passion and enthusiasm for the subject has never, never dimmed, which is fantastic to hear. 423 00:39:07,580 --> 00:39:13,790 I mean something that was kind of on my mind in terms of when we're thinking about the Midlands as a region is something that always stuck with me. 424 00:39:13,790 --> 00:39:19,040 And I remember that was just before I went to university. So I decided I was going to do at least partially a degree in ancient history, 425 00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:22,400 which ended up being fully I remember mentioning this to people at the time. 426 00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:27,290 I was working part time in a retail store. And I remember I mentioned this to all of my colleagues who said, What are you doing? 427 00:39:27,290 --> 00:39:33,050 And I said, I'm going to go off to study ancient history. And after the initial question of what's that, which again, I still get to this day, 428 00:39:33,050 --> 00:39:36,930 which I think is bizarre, I explained it and then she sort of and I'll never forget what she said. 429 00:39:36,930 --> 00:39:41,840 And she sort of said, that's not what people from around here do, is it? And that was something that really stuck with me. 430 00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:49,160 And I thought about and I thought, no, actually, it's not none of as far as I'm aware, I was the only person from my school to go and do classics. 431 00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:55,940 None of my family my parents only went to university when I was much, much older, long after I was born. 432 00:39:55,940 --> 00:39:58,100 And no one in my family, when I think about the Midlands. 433 00:39:58,100 --> 00:40:02,120 It was always just very you grew up and you left school and you went into an industrial career. 434 00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,960 That was everything that my parents did. My grandparents, my great grandparents. You left school. 435 00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:10,880 You joined an industrial family that was an engineer, like a country of engineers. Just that's what you did. 436 00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:18,170 And to break that mould and to suggest something seemingly as bizarre as classics at university was very much taboo. 437 00:40:18,170 --> 00:40:20,750 And that's something, I think, that we have to work on. 438 00:40:20,750 --> 00:40:26,030 When we think about outreach, of course, it's going to depend on whether you're from the Northwest, the Northeast, the Midlands, the South, 439 00:40:26,030 --> 00:40:28,460 etc. But in terms of the Midlands specifically, 440 00:40:28,460 --> 00:40:33,170 I think that that's something that needs to be addressed because it was certainly what I had at the time. 441 00:40:33,170 --> 00:40:37,880 It really just felt as if I was taking this massive leap, a massive gamble into the unknown. 442 00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:46,040 And I now realise that that's just not the case. You know, Classics is a very valuable and very large, sprawling discipline that just so much worth in it. 443 00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:51,330 And yet it was something that when I dared to say that I was doing that, I wanted my school to introduce an A level. 444 00:40:51,330 --> 00:40:56,960 It was shut down as the most ludicrous thing I could possibly have said, because that's not what we do. 445 00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:04,760 And again, I think that that's just not true. Alexander, that really resonates for me just often. 446 00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:09,860 I've had a friend refer to it as like the tyranny of low expectations from people around you. 447 00:41:09,860 --> 00:41:16,490 I was I was a silver service waitress. At the Molyneux football ground for the Wolves team in all of my teenage years. 448 00:41:16,490 --> 00:41:25,880 And I remember a someone who was eating at the restaurant asking what I was going to do, and I said, oh, I'm going to go to Oxford. 449 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:32,120 And they smiled and said, Oh, Oxford Brookes, which is a perfectly wonderful university but is not Oxford. 450 00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:33,560 And it was just like, you know, 451 00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:39,230 they just corrected me because they couldn't possibly have expected somebody who looked and sounded like me to be going off and studying Oxford. 452 00:41:39,230 --> 00:41:43,640 And so I think you're so right that we just need to kind of open people's apertures and 453 00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:48,570 expectations for what people from the Midlands can accomplish because we can do anything. 454 00:41:48,570 --> 00:41:54,420 Well, I think that's a fantastic note on which to end, that's a message for everyone listening to this, 455 00:41:54,420 --> 00:41:59,220 to Bertie, Ellie and Alexander, I just I say a huge thank you for your time on the podcast today. 456 00:41:59,220 --> 00:42:03,678 It's been absolutely brilliant to talk to you. And thank you, everybody, for joining and listening.