1 00:00:00,660 --> 00:00:05,040 Hello and welcome to Regional Classics, a podcast from the University of Oxford, 2 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:11,910 which reflects and celebrates the diverse voices of Oxford classicists past and present from different parts of the UK. 3 00:00:11,910 --> 00:00:19,350 All the while creating thought provoking conversations, breaking down barriers and showing that if you want to study the ancient world, 4 00:00:19,350 --> 00:00:26,640 any aspects politics, history, arts, science, literature, culture and much more then you can. 5 00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:32,380 Oxford classicists do not and need not come from only a narrow cross-section of society. 6 00:00:32,380 --> 00:00:38,140 And in this series of interviews, I'm speaking to current Oxford classicists from across the British Isles. 7 00:00:38,140 --> 00:00:45,340 Firstly, I'm joined by Leo Kershaw, a DPhil student researching decolonial approaches to receptions of Greek tragedy, 8 00:00:45,340 --> 00:00:50,590 especially Euripides Medea, as performed in South Africa since 1800. 9 00:00:50,590 --> 00:00:56,410 He's now studying at Balliol College and previously did his undergraduate degree at Lady Margaret Hall. 10 00:00:56,410 --> 00:00:59,800 Prior to that, he was brought up in Hertfordshire and North London, 11 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:04,960 and here he tells us about his own first experiences of learning about the ancient world. 12 00:01:04,960 --> 00:01:10,660 So I was homeschooled up until GCSEs, which I mostly taught myself, 13 00:01:10,660 --> 00:01:14,890 and we did most of the standard subjects English, history, maths, science, all of that. 14 00:01:14,890 --> 00:01:17,440 But in my spare time, I did a lot of reading. 15 00:01:17,440 --> 00:01:23,500 That was my main hobby, and that's where I really got into mythology and I would do little projects by myself on ancient Greek and Rome, 16 00:01:23,500 --> 00:01:29,320 where I would look up Latin sayings and try to figure out what they meant and how the English equated to the Latin. 17 00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:35,740 But I didn't have any formal teaching in classics, and I didn't have any Latin or Greek until I came to university. 18 00:01:35,740 --> 00:01:38,440 My sixth form didn't offer either language, 19 00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:44,830 although I was really lucky to have a great classical civilisation A-level teacher who taught me a little bit of Latin on the side, 20 00:01:44,830 --> 00:01:49,690 but nowhere near enough to apply for a course here for which I'd already have either language. 21 00:01:49,690 --> 00:01:55,420 And how do you think that having taught yourself, GCSEs, which is a fantastic achievement and being home, 22 00:01:55,420 --> 00:02:01,510 educated, prepared you as well for Oxford, both the course and also the style of studying at university? 23 00:02:01,510 --> 00:02:06,070 I think it gave me a lot of drive. I was always very self-motivated. 24 00:02:06,070 --> 00:02:12,940 So transitioning to university wasn't too difficult on the academic side as I was very used to guiding my own studies. 25 00:02:12,940 --> 00:02:18,280 There is a step up from school, obviously, but for me, it wasn't a totally new thing. 26 00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:24,790 Not having information delivered to me and being told, Here, go read this and then figure out how to write an essay on that, 27 00:02:24,790 --> 00:02:30,490 and that was something I was quite used to and adapted to quite comfortably. And it's one of the ways I really like working. 28 00:02:30,490 --> 00:02:36,910 So I think in a in a way that did help. Aimee Cousins is a second year classicist at Magdalen College, 29 00:02:36,910 --> 00:02:43,570 and here she talks about what it was like coming to Oxford from a state comprehensive school in King's Lynn in West Norfolk. 30 00:02:43,570 --> 00:02:49,600 I think because I also did like the classics bridging programme like a month before term started. 31 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:55,090 So like September of 2020, I got to grips a bit with the city and like where things are, 32 00:02:55,090 --> 00:02:57,950 you know how long it takes to get from A to B and that type of thing. 33 00:02:57,950 --> 00:03:05,080 So I think when I came in October, it was mostly just getting to know my college, which I really enjoyed. 34 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:10,150 Magdalen has the deer park and it gets really big and pretty, so it's been nice. 35 00:03:10,150 --> 00:03:15,580 I think doing classics like you don't feel like you're immediately kind of in the deep end. 36 00:03:15,580 --> 00:03:22,390 Obviously, it's intense with the language lessons every day, but you still it still kind of feels like you're being eased into it a bit. 37 00:03:22,390 --> 00:03:26,890 So it's not too bad like I really enjoyed my first term. 38 00:03:26,890 --> 00:03:33,520 Yeah, I think that it was kind of a really good way to get into the course. 39 00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:38,380 Alice Main is a classical archaeology and ancient history student at Lincoln College. 40 00:03:38,380 --> 00:03:45,760 And she's originally from the Isle of Man, situated in the Irish Sea, equidistant between England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. 41 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:53,040 Here, she tells us more about coming from the Isle of Man and the sorts of opportunities that she had to engage with the ancient world. 42 00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:57,120 Well, I wouldn't say that we studied classics at all. 43 00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:07,380 It's not really offered on the island. Most of what I did was teither myself or with my pet, sort of with my parents going on trips to England, 44 00:04:07,380 --> 00:04:13,700 to look at hill forts and Hadrian's Wall and things like that of the island and. 45 00:04:13,700 --> 00:04:19,730 We do have an awful lot of our archaeology of the island, but it's not classical archaeology. 46 00:04:19,730 --> 00:04:23,930 It's more Iron Age Neolithic sort of thing, which is very interesting. 47 00:04:23,930 --> 00:04:27,140 So that was another very enjoyable aspect to my childhood, 48 00:04:27,140 --> 00:04:33,680 sort of wandering around all these different ship burials and things I wish I actually started doing again over lockdown. 49 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:38,630 Coming back to my school. We mainly did 20th century history. 50 00:04:38,630 --> 00:04:45,500 So my only real interaction with classics was probably through my extended project, 51 00:04:45,500 --> 00:04:51,890 which is a five thousand word essay on a subject of your choice - you have to do your own research 52 00:04:51,890 --> 00:04:57,350 and think of your own question and you're sort of sent away with with help from a teacher. 53 00:04:57,350 --> 00:05:04,860 And you have to write this essay. So I decided to do Roman Britain because at that time, that was what I had the most experience of. 54 00:05:04,860 --> 00:05:12,200 If you could call it experience with my own, nosing around or guidebooks and websites meant so much. 55 00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:16,370 And how do you think that your background has impacted your studies at Oxford so far? 56 00:05:16,370 --> 00:05:21,240 Lots of people haven't heard of the Isle, let's put it that way, which I wouldn't hold it against them. 57 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:27,340 It is quite small, but my tutors and the lectures that I interact with have really been wonderful. 58 00:05:27,340 --> 00:05:33,290 I don't feel I can say it now with hindsight that all of the worries I had about not fitting 59 00:05:33,290 --> 00:05:39,230 in because of something I haven't done classics Greek and Latin are pretty much unfounded, 60 00:05:39,230 --> 00:05:46,060 I would say. Here's Amy talking further about her educational background: for GCSE 61 00:05:46,060 --> 00:05:51,040 My school was like, obviously really good because I was able to do Latin and ancient history, 62 00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:58,300 but for my A-levels, because I was the only one who wanted to do anything like that, it obviously didn't run. 63 00:05:58,300 --> 00:06:05,500 And the nearest schools to me that, like offered A-levels in classics were like 40-50 miles away. 64 00:06:05,500 --> 00:06:09,470 So there was no chance that I was going to be able to do it for A-levels. 65 00:06:09,470 --> 00:06:13,270 So I kind of had to choose other things that I like. 66 00:06:13,270 --> 00:06:15,850 I did maths, which I did not enjoy, 67 00:06:15,850 --> 00:06:21,730 but it was just like basically a filler subject because I was good at it and I couldn't do what I actually wanted to do, 68 00:06:21,730 --> 00:06:26,740 I kind of had to like, keep up in my own time. And like, I didn't really mind that I was just reading stuff that I enjoyed. 69 00:06:26,740 --> 00:06:30,490 But like, I think it would have been better, obviously, if I'd have been able to do it at school. 70 00:06:30,490 --> 00:06:36,530 I just like it wasn't really, I suppose, geographically possible. 71 00:06:36,530 --> 00:06:42,330 And any barriers, I think I was intimidated by the fact that I didn't have Latin or Greek, 72 00:06:42,330 --> 00:06:49,050 I had a small taste of ancient Greek when I came to a summer school hosted in Oxford called Uniq, 73 00:06:49,050 --> 00:06:53,910 which is aimed at state school students that have given me about five five hours worth of Greek. 74 00:06:53,910 --> 00:06:58,950 But it was nerve-racking, and I didn't have a modern foreign language for A-level either. 75 00:06:58,950 --> 00:07:04,200 I dropped French GCSE, so that was probably the most challenging aspect. 76 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:11,700 I also found applying quite daunting because I have anxiety and the idea of having interviews, it's terrifying. 77 00:07:11,700 --> 00:07:17,880 But everyone in my interviews is actually really friendly, and I think there's quite there's kind of a myth surrounding Oxford interview that 78 00:07:17,880 --> 00:07:22,020 interviewers are there to intimidate you and ask you impossible questions. 79 00:07:22,020 --> 00:07:25,620 And at least I found that that wasn't the case at all. They were just trying to. 80 00:07:25,620 --> 00:07:27,720 They tried to make me comfortable, first of all. 81 00:07:27,720 --> 00:07:32,360 And they just wanted to have a conversation with me and see how I would volley with them back and forth. 82 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:39,280 So, yeah, I think all of my preconceptions about how intimidating people kind of shattered when I actually did apply. 83 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:46,690 Translations of ancient texts of the primary sources are such a great way and a great way to say into the past and understanding 84 00:07:46,690 --> 00:07:54,400 that literature which otherwise isn't necessarily accessible to us if we've not studied Latin or Greek or had those opportunities. 85 00:07:54,400 --> 00:08:01,450 And yeah, I think sometimes it is forgotten about or there's almost a perceived view that reading in translation isn't the real deal, 86 00:08:01,450 --> 00:08:06,260 it's not the real thing. So it's not worthwhile. But what would you say to that? 87 00:08:06,260 --> 00:08:11,020 Oh, I think it's ridiculous and say, Oh, well, it isn't. 88 00:08:11,020 --> 00:08:12,160 It is ridiculous. 89 00:08:12,160 --> 00:08:21,330 You probably get some extra depth in reading from the original text, but I wouldn't know, because that's not something I'm able to do at the moment. 90 00:08:21,330 --> 00:08:25,720 And I say, probably I don't need anything really wrong with reading texts and translation. 91 00:08:25,720 --> 00:08:32,620 I mean, if you have a good commentary, which often comes very helpfully with translations, it would be quite difficult to go wrong. 92 00:08:32,620 --> 00:08:38,890 If you can call, it goes wrong, you're just at the end of the day, you're just interpreting the information someone else is giving you. 93 00:08:38,890 --> 00:08:40,690 I think at the time, 94 00:08:40,690 --> 00:08:47,920 it's probably the only interaction I had with texts and translation was probably the Iliad and the Odyssey more specifically here. 95 00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:56,590 Robert Fagles' Edition I really loved and then coming up to Oxford and encountering Herodotus and Thucydides. 96 00:08:56,590 --> 00:09:04,570 So, yeah, I think it would be you discounting a whole swathes of people who maybe don't have access to learning languages by, 97 00:09:04,570 --> 00:09:09,370 say, by just rejecting the idea of text and translation. separately? 98 00:09:09,370 --> 00:09:17,440 Aimee answered the same question. I think that there's something to kind of reading the original text. 99 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:24,310 You can never really get away from like it doing your own translation is as close to the original text as you can get. 100 00:09:24,310 --> 00:09:32,320 Whereas if you if you're reading someone else's translation, then you're already kind of one step back from how the kind of author intended it to be. 101 00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:38,050 So if you can read it yourself, you're really getting like as much of the richness as you can. 102 00:09:38,050 --> 00:09:44,650 And obviously you can go back over it and every time you'll like, notice new things or like pick up on different kinds of nuances. 103 00:09:44,650 --> 00:09:54,940 And so I feel like kind of it's like a skill that is so kind of integral to me that I feel like it should kind of it 104 00:09:54,940 --> 00:10:01,030 should be on offer for more people like anyone who's kind of interested in classics should have the opportunity to do it, 105 00:10:01,030 --> 00:10:07,660 rather than it being kind of focussed in specific pockets of the country or in specific kinds of schools. 106 00:10:07,660 --> 00:10:12,970 I feel like it should definitely be like a lot more widely available. 107 00:10:12,970 --> 00:10:18,040 I asked Leo to tell me one thing that he'd really loved about doing his classics degrees. 108 00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:24,160 I love the chance to learn both ancient languages from scratch - Greek and Latin. 109 00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:29,650 I didn't have much experience in languages at school, but then coming to university, 110 00:10:29,650 --> 00:10:34,660 I realised that I really do love learning new languages and being able to learn Greek 111 00:10:34,660 --> 00:10:38,590 and then Latin from scratch really encourage me to pick up more languages myself. 112 00:10:38,590 --> 00:10:44,590 So I'm currently studying modern Greek Italian. I've gone back to French and I'm teaching myself Afrikaans at the moment. 113 00:10:44,590 --> 00:10:50,760 Absolutely love that classics have given me a skill to be able to go off and study language by myself. 114 00:10:50,760 --> 00:10:56,620 So that's definitely one thing kind of a nerdy answer, but that's one thing that I love about this degree. 115 00:10:56,620 --> 00:11:01,360 And what was the second part of the question? Well, the second part was about your more relaxed experience, 116 00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:05,020 but I just want to pick up actually on what you said about building skills and 117 00:11:05,020 --> 00:11:09,310 certainly that familiarity with languages and being able to apply it to different, 118 00:11:09,310 --> 00:11:16,500 including modern languages. And what are the other skills that you think your degree has given you so far? 119 00:11:16,500 --> 00:11:22,770 So many, because we get a taste in so many different humanities disciplines, I think we pick up skills from all of them, 120 00:11:22,770 --> 00:11:32,790 the kind of history and archaeological approaches to the given me and analytical skills that I have a taste at a level when I was doing history, 121 00:11:32,790 --> 00:11:37,050 but really has deepened here at Oxford. Philosophy 122 00:11:37,050 --> 00:11:38,580 I found so challenging, 123 00:11:38,580 --> 00:11:46,470 but it really made me think about how we define things and how we explain things and how nuance can make such a big difference in interpreting. 124 00:11:46,470 --> 00:11:50,010 That's been a brain exercise that I never experienced before, 125 00:11:50,010 --> 00:11:55,950 and I didn't take any philosophy after the compulsory one because I found it so kind of overwhelming. 126 00:11:55,950 --> 00:12:00,840 But it is something that I think has affected how I approach every other aspect of my studies. 127 00:12:00,840 --> 00:12:08,73 And since we write so many essay for on average, you write about two a week and each essay 2000 words. 128 00:12:08,730 --> 00:12:16,110 So I really gained the ability to organise my thoughts and put together coherent arguments and check for evidence, 129 00:12:16,110 --> 00:12:23,400 check the facts yet for interpretation. I think it really has strengthened my writing abilities an awful lot since I left school. 130 00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:27,240 I feel like you've really kind of build a whole different range of skills. 131 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:31,200 You're learning a language and you're also doing like we do a philosophy module. 132 00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:36,270 So looking at that type of thing, and so you're doing some critical thinking and you know, through your essays, 133 00:12:36,270 --> 00:12:40,980 you're reading all these different sources and taking in a lot of the information at quite like a fast pace. 134 00:12:40,980 --> 00:12:44,130 And so you're building skills related to that. 135 00:12:44,130 --> 00:12:49,740 When you look at the literature, there's like obviously like literary analysis and then you do like commentaries. 136 00:12:49,740 --> 00:12:55,380 There's a lot going on, you can look at like material culture, so you can develop archaeological skills as well. 137 00:12:55,380 --> 00:12:58,110 So like, I don't know, it's just a good all round subject. 138 00:12:58,110 --> 00:13:10,830 I think, well, the generic ones with all Oxford courses, because this time management essay writing all of those useful things we'll say using computers. 139 00:13:10,830 --> 00:13:15,900 It's made me a better typist in the basic sense, but probably on a more serious note. 140 00:13:15,900 --> 00:13:23,820 Archaeology is brilliant for observational skills, so sort of looking at objects and interpreting what's in front of you. 141 00:13:23,820 --> 00:13:29,460 And also with the ancient history aspect, analysing texts as well, 142 00:13:29,460 --> 00:13:37,410 which is always useful skill to have if you want to go to any sort of humanities based professions like law, journalism. 143 00:13:37,410 --> 00:13:45,000 But archaeology can be quite useful for other sort of more creative things like art and maybe even going into the sciences. 144 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:54,420 Perhaps because I'm encountering science based methods a bit more because as all people are probably prone to, ancient sources, 145 00:13:54,420 --> 00:13:57,360 are very prone to exaggeration. 146 00:13:57,360 --> 00:14:05,010 Sometimes archaeological sources aren't always what you expect them to be or aren't as helpful as you expect them to be. 147 00:14:05,010 --> 00:14:09,540 So to use an example, completely away from written sources, this is very much archaeology. 148 00:14:09,540 --> 00:14:20,970 I've recently been doing a lecture on Homeric archaeology looking at the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces, and there are some working theories. 149 00:14:20,970 --> 00:14:27,690 It could be fire damage or earthquakes or attacks by another civilisation. 150 00:14:27,690 --> 00:14:32,070 But unfortunately, when you look at the archaeological record at the destruction horizons, 151 00:14:32,070 --> 00:14:38,040 which is what you call a sort of an element of a palace or an area that's been destroyed 152 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:44,550 in the archaeological record, an earthquake and attack by something else someone, 153 00:14:44,550 --> 00:14:48,960 someone or something else and a fire all look very similar. 154 00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:54,600 So you have to be quite careful if you're making assumptions using archaeology. 155 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:57,150 Yes, that's really interesting how neither, as you say, 156 00:14:57,150 --> 00:15:06,000 discipline can necessarily be foolproof and that the combination of the two is in some ways perhaps the safest method of of historical investigation. 157 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:13,920 Classics, as we know, is a broad subject, and here Leo tells us just some of the areas that he's covered across multiple degrees at Oxford. 158 00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:19,320 For my undergraduate course, I took all of the compulsory modules that everyone who does the classics course does. 159 00:15:19,320 --> 00:15:29,460 But beyond that, I chose to specialise quite heavily in Greek tragedy and the reception of other Greek drama and Greek mythology for my undergrad. 160 00:15:29,460 --> 00:15:34,390 I did my reception paper on. Actually, that was on and not in Greek tragedy at all. 161 00:15:34,390 --> 00:15:40,440 It was on Ovidian myth of gender transformation and its reception in modern poetry. 162 00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:48,660 One of my favourite aspects is looking at a collection of spoken poems by the non-binary rapper and poet Kae Tempest, 163 00:15:48,660 --> 00:15:56,730 and I found that so fascinating as they have taken these myths that are told by a Roman poet and make and situated them in the modern day. 164 00:15:56,730 --> 00:15:57,510 But beyond that, 165 00:15:57,510 --> 00:16:07,410 I've done lots of work looking at how greek tragedy has been received since the romantic period so late 18th early 19th century onwards, 166 00:16:07,410 --> 00:16:13,770 and that led me to do my master's in reception pretty much of Greek tragedy, Greek satyr play. 167 00:16:13,770 --> 00:16:21,990 And that has led to me starting a Ph.D. on the reception of Euripides Medea, a great tragedy in South Africa over the last 200 years. 168 00:16:21,990 --> 00:16:26,190 So there's definitely a strong continuation from what I did back at A-level at undergrad. 169 00:16:26,190 --> 00:16:33,480 So what I'm doing now? How else do you feel that the ancient past has informed your understanding of the modern world? 170 00:16:33,480 --> 00:16:36,420 I mean, we see it in all sorts of aspects of society. 171 00:16:36,420 --> 00:16:44,280 I'm hesitant to say that we've seen it in like the founding of democracy structures and everything like that because, well, that's true. 172 00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:50,280 It's kind of leads into the idea that with the foundation of so-called Western civilisation. 173 00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:56,710 I don't think that's really the case. I think has a global influence, both positively and negatively. 174 00:16:56,710 --> 00:17:04,830 We don't put too much emphasis on the positives that overlook the negative impact it's had on colonialism and upholding imperialist legacies. 175 00:17:04,830 --> 00:17:12,630 But I do think that classics has an important role in helping unpick all of that and all these kind of discussions, 176 00:17:12,630 --> 00:17:20,010 especially recently with so much attention brought to, you know, Black Lives Matter and kind of international scene. 177 00:17:20,010 --> 00:17:26,100 I think that's enabled us to become very introspective and look at how our disciplines interact with that. 178 00:17:26,100 --> 00:17:34,210 And I think there's a lot it can teach us about its role in that history and how we can advance from that. 179 00:17:34,210 --> 00:17:40,110 I think it's an excellent answer. I think you've got really there to the heart of the problem in terms of trying to use the past, 180 00:17:40,110 --> 00:17:44,190 but in the correct way, but use it as a lens to view how the party's been received. 181 00:17:44,190 --> 00:17:49,260 It's constantly evolving. Isn't that I think how we view classics now is in that sentence. 182 00:17:49,260 --> 00:17:50,820 We cannot escape ancient history. 183 00:17:50,820 --> 00:17:56,910 We cannot escape how the past is affected us and how we can hope for the use that to learn and to and to build in the future. 184 00:17:56,910 --> 00:18:00,600 But it's a very complex and nuanced thing, which, as as you said, 185 00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:04,860 I don't know if you think there anymore of sort of pressing issues that face the discipline today. 186 00:18:04,860 --> 00:18:11,790 And there are some places in which it's harder to study classics or a version of it because of how it's sort of perceived politically. 187 00:18:11,790 --> 00:18:16,050 How do you think we can assure you enjoy classics in the future? Yeah, for sure. 188 00:18:16,050 --> 00:18:20,940 I think that's actually one reason why I chose to study the reception of media in South Africa, 189 00:18:20,940 --> 00:18:26,790 because that has such an inherent link to colonialism and white supremacism. 190 00:18:26,790 --> 00:18:36,570 And over the last 30 or 40 years, we've really seen a change for the better, and it's become a lot more integrated, diverse and multicultural. 191 00:18:36,570 --> 00:18:42,060 And I think it's a really exciting moment for how class is being approached internationally. 192 00:18:42,060 --> 00:18:49,690 And we see voices who are previously subjugated, reclaiming the classics and turning into something that is empowering. 193 00:18:49,690 --> 00:18:58,350 And I think that's so exciting and that's what I'd really like to see happen more with classics and onto a different and also complex question here. 194 00:18:58,350 --> 00:19:03,330 As Aimee discusses how one barrier to studying classics can be the name itself. 195 00:19:03,330 --> 00:19:06,930 I mean, every time I've kind of said that like, Oh, I'm doing classics, 196 00:19:06,930 --> 00:19:11,160 people always think, I mean, like Charles Dickens and like the Bronte sisters and stuff. 197 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:18,270 So I don't know. For outsiders, it's maybe people who don't really know what it is in the first place. 198 00:19:18,270 --> 00:19:25,230 It's a bit confusing, but I feel like it doesn't necessarily completely kind of encompass the whole discipline anymore. 199 00:19:25,230 --> 00:19:32,850 Like I've heard the name ancient Mediterranean studies mentioned around and like I, I'm not really kind. 200 00:19:32,850 --> 00:19:36,120 I feel like I'm not really in the position to kind of make a judgement on it, 201 00:19:36,120 --> 00:19:44,840 but I feel like classics is perhaps not exactly the right way to describe it any more because it is a bit broader than just. 202 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:51,460 I feel like it focuses more on text and it is, you see, a lot broader than just the texts. 203 00:19:51,460 --> 00:19:58,650 You know, there's a lot more to it. Than just some, just some plays and poetry, you know? 204 00:19:58,650 --> 00:20:03,090 Throughout the regional Classics podcast, we have, of course, been breaking down myths and barriers. 205 00:20:03,090 --> 00:20:08,220 So here are a couple of more myth busting examples for you. 206 00:20:08,220 --> 00:20:17,520 Are there any other myths Alice that you think could be dispelled, about classics or about Oxford or about your experience so far? 207 00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:26,250 I went to a comprehensive school, although we don't really have the same school system on the island, grammar schools and things like that. 208 00:20:26,250 --> 00:20:33,030 So I was rather nervous when I came here that everyone probably went to some selective 209 00:20:33,030 --> 00:20:36,990 or private school and which there's nothing wrong with that thinking wrong. 210 00:20:36,990 --> 00:20:44,580 But I wasn't expecting Oxford to be as educational, say, educationally diverse as it is. 211 00:20:44,580 --> 00:20:48,840 Yeah, I think the idea that Classics is an elite subject, 212 00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:54,810 there are elements which makes it easier for people who have come from privileged backgrounds to apply for it to study. 213 00:20:54,810 --> 00:21:02,490 But I don't think Classics itself is inherently elite. It's just as possible for someone to come and study Classics who hasn't studied it before, 214 00:21:02,490 --> 00:21:06,130 who hasn't been to our private school, who doesn't know any ancient language. 215 00:21:06,130 --> 00:21:12,720 And there are so many aspects of Classics that can appeal to people who haven't had any formal training in it. 216 00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:17,670 Classics is still kind of all over the place from, I think, fairly recently. 217 00:21:17,670 --> 00:21:24,420 Lizzo released a music video to her song rumours, which is it's kind of like Disney's Hercules, except with Lizzo and other artists. 218 00:21:24,420 --> 00:21:29,220 And they embody pottery from ancient Greece and Greek goddess as a muse. 219 00:21:29,220 --> 00:21:35,580 And I think that's such a cool way to kind of continue classics and make it more appealing to a modern audience. 220 00:21:35,580 --> 00:21:37,590 And even if it's someone who you know, 221 00:21:37,590 --> 00:21:47,400 isn't herself a classicist and we see all sorts of books coming out recently like Madeline Miller's Circe and son of Achilles Pat Barker, 222 00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:51,690 all these books that are inspired by mythology and are catered towards a modern audience, 223 00:21:51,690 --> 00:21:59,580 the teen audience, the young adult audience, and whatever way you became interested in classics inspired I'd like for me, 224 00:21:59,580 --> 00:22:05,580 it was a kid's mythology and historical fiction books, and that's just as valid as someone who's been studying Latin since. 225 00:22:05,580 --> 00:22:08,660 They were in year seven. Certainly. 226 00:22:08,660 --> 00:22:14,390 And is there anything else that you would say, perhaps to your former self or to a student in a similar position, 227 00:22:14,390 --> 00:22:18,410 either from home educated or at a state school not able to access classics? 228 00:22:18,410 --> 00:22:26,780 Some advice that you would give them looking back? I would just say that if this is something that you want to go for it, 229 00:22:26,780 --> 00:22:32,300 you don't necessarily or in any way have a disadvantage because of what background you're coming from. 230 00:22:32,300 --> 00:22:38,460 If you've got the enthusiasm and the willingness to put the effort in and to learn you've got just a good chance that his chances, 231 00:22:38,460 --> 00:22:46,460 any of getting in and having a brilliant time here, Oxford and on that note, this episode draws to a close. 232 00:22:46,460 --> 00:22:48,290 And I want to say thank you to Leo, 233 00:22:48,290 --> 00:22:55,990 Alice and Aimee for all of their contributions and their time in taking part in this episode of the Regional Classics podcast. 234 00:22:55,990 --> 00:23:01,930 Thank you too for listening, and you can find out more information about classics at Oxford on our website, 235 00:23:01,930 --> 00:23:07,030 as well as looking through all the previous episodes of this podcast available on Oxford Podcasts, 236 00:23:07,030 --> 00:23:11,440 via the Classics at Oxford website and on Apple Podcasts too.