World Cup Latin

World Cup fever is sweeping the country, as the men’s England football team are set to compete in what will be their first World Cup Semi-final in most of this graduate body’s lifetime (but let’s not forget that the women’s team did the same as recently as 2015!). To mark the occasion, the Cambridge Classics … Continue reading →

The Classics Christmas Charts

As term draws to an end, as Cambridge receives its first wintry snowfall of the year and as Christmas draws ever nearer, how do Cambridge Classics postgrads keep themselves occupied? Without our weekly dose of seminars, teaching and Faculty yoga, what keeps us ticking? The answer, it turns out, is a bit of festive fun: … Continue reading →

Classically-Themed April Fools’ Jokes

If a Roman poet were to write a Fasti on the notable dates of the modern Western calendar, April Fools’ Day on April 1st would surely deserve a mention. As with many ancient festivals, this day – although not a public holiday – witnesses the disruption of social and cultural norms, as friends and media … Continue reading →

Some PhD Tips

Another academic year begins, and with it comes a new cohort of first year PhDs. The start of a doctorate can be both exciting and disorientating, so I thought I’d offer a few tips that I wish I’d read when I started out on my own PhD ‘journey’.  Everybody’s PhD experience is different, and there … Continue reading →

GIS Report: 12/6/2015: Theseus in Statius’ Thebaid and Metapoetics in Grattius’ Cynegeticon

GIS concluded this term with a pair of literary papers, both of which were trial-runs for conferences taking place this summer. First up was Henry Tang, talking on ‘Theseus in Statius Thebaid: A Symbol of Progression or Cyclic Sin?’ (which he presented again in Edinburgh last week at the Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in Ancient … Continue reading →

GIS Report: 22/05/2015: Blessedness in Sophocles and (Bi)lingual Pompeian Graffiti

GIS continued this week with a pair of speakers from Peterhouse. We kicked off with a presentation from Rob Thompson on ‘Paradigms of blessedness in Sophocles’, a study of how Sophocles’ tragedies explore the idea of the best possible human life (an idea captured in Greek by various different nouns, including εὐδαιμονία, εὐτυχία and ὀλβία). … Continue reading →

GIS Reports: 1/5/2015 and 8/5/2015

The start of a new term means the return of the Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar (GIS), chaired this term by Livvy Elder and myself. As undergraduates retreat to the library to revise, the postgraduate community here at Cambridge continues to flourish, and we’ve had a question-packed opening two weeks, summaries of which you can find below. … Continue reading →