"The footnotes are the roots and leaves at once of the text, which both anchor it to the world and ornament it [...] I must tend to them. I must nourish them, as root; and I must variously clip them and sing to them, as leaf, if the work itself is going to have any share of beauty."

I think alongside assigning books for students to read, we should also show them how great it is to be a reader.

A reminder that the deadline for submitting a PhD thesis to our 2026 Durham Prize in Classical Reception competition is 30th June! @durhamclassics.bsky.social www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

after the bird flu each spring gets a bit louder #haiku #senryu

Mark Ringer's book on Euripides was one of the introductory texts that opened my eyes to the richness of Euripidean tragedy, so it was a joy to review his new book, Aeschylus, Character and the Yoke of Necessity for BMCR. bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2026/2026.05...

My fiancé reading Leviathan Wakes to me after dinner: "a cloud of vapour the size of Olympus Mons." Me: I don't understand. Why. My fiancé: It's not a classical allusion, it's the tallest mountain in the solar system, located on Mars (the speaking character is Martian). The things you learn!

If you're a lecturer interested in pedagogy and in particular, helping working class students who might need a little extra advice to help them catch up with their privately schooled cohort, drop me a DM. Let's create something that will really benefit students.

Conference in progress - on Earth Day!

“All children ‘write.’ I suppose the real question is why do so many people give it up.” —Margaret Atwood

#Finland: You can now major in a language without prior knowledge To stir interest, Finnish universities are admitting beginners to language majors. yle.fi/a/74-20221229 #langsky

The Best Defense Against AI Cheating

"War loves hunting down young men." φιλεῖ γὰρ ἄνδρας πόλεμος ἀγρεύειν νέους. Sophocles, Fr. 554, from The Men of Scyros

My colleague gave this apt definition of philology: Giving a text or manuscript to a philologist is like giving a pig carcass to a butcher, you end up with a ham.

I understand the sentiment, but feel just the opposite. AI is saturating every surface of students’ lives. What we have to offer them is not small tweaks to their engagements w the technology, but rather spaces separate from it via which they can develop their own critical faculties.

|Akroterion Vol. 70 (2025) akroterion.journals.ac.za/pub/issue/vi... #openaccess @vanth.bsky.social

#CFP 4th International Classics Conference in Ghana (ICCG). Theme: Classics at the Crossroads - University of Ghana, Legon - 3–4 September 2026 - casa-kvsa.org.za/2026/03/cfp-... Due by May 15

'‘The Persians’ by Aeschylus Presented in Buenos Aires' www.thenationalherald.com/the-persians...

Are you a Woman in Classics (both terms broadly defined!)? If you’re not on this list, let me know and I’ll put you on! Are you a person interested in Classics? You should follow this list for all the amazing women on it!!! #ClassicsBluesky

This week I’m looking at forwarding, a key aspect of working with literatures patthomson.net/2026/03/30/f...

Wikipedia now has higher standards than all universities

Come on, lexicographers, just admit it when you've got no idea what a word actually means 😂 #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

NEW Later Stone Age (c. 3000–2000 BP) open-air site in South Africa's arid Karoo. Many new sites have been found in the semi-desert region, indicating it was a favoured locality, repeatedly occupied despite the harsh environment. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

Job alert! Our research focus area in Ancient Texts: Text, Context, and Reception has a vacancy for a postdoctoral research fellow position. Classics, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Semitic Languages... All are welcome! nwu.ci.hr/applicant/in...

Today I learnt that Milman Parry, who changed the way we read Homeric epithets such as 'swift-footed Achilles' and 'bright-eyed Athena', died at the young age of 33. I wonder what Homeric studies would look like today if he had more time on earth.

Louis L’Amour: “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” medium.com/go-into-the-... #writing #screenwriting

March 4-7 North-West University Potchefstroom, South Africa - Classical epic structures in non-epic literature from antiquity to the early modern period theology.nwu.ac.za/ancient-texts

Love is a way of taking in the whole world as seen through the eyes of the beloved.

"I developed a tolerance for what I did not understand, and then I gradually understood it. Once I did begin to understand, I felt an extraordinary desire to repeat the experience." So relevant to learning to read in a new language too. Students need to persevere even when they do not understand.

"Women could even make a living from their expertise in training hawks. In the mid-13th century, a woman named Ymayna was the keeper of the Earl of Richmond’s hawks and hounds at Richmond Castle. In exchange for her expertise, she and her family were permitted to hold land nearby."

Feb 5 online (4.30pm UK) JFF Project Euripides Byzantinus 'Euripides and the Middle Ages' seminar: Patrick Finglass (University of Bristol), Iphigenia in Aulis: Transmission and interpretation listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A... Teams email [email protected]

Artistic Director Michael Walling spoke to Culture Calling on why SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA uses ancient theatre to confront today’s #RefugeeCrisis and why shared space matters now more than ever.

Ice breaker activity at the first session of our academic induction programme? Type the name of your desk partner into ChatGPT and figure out what's true and what's not. Such an awful exercise - the organic conversations we had before the session were so much more interesting!

So grateful to @dgb-ancientstudies.bsky.social for shipping this all the way to South Africa! Still can't believe I was the lucky winner of their raffle in celebration of 200 volumes of Trends in Classics and 500 volumes of Mnemosyne Supplements.

An ode to those who have expressed their profound disappointment following an encounter with a thing crafted by another:

Aeschylus, Me, a Mario the father of Greek Kart player tragedy 🤝 Getting smoked by a turtle shell

The Minotaur https://botfrens.com/collections/69/contents/19644

Shelving one of the books that started it all in my new office. Officially appointed as an ancient Greek lecturer at the NWU. I'm grateful to have had the postdoc experience, but what a privilege and a blessing to have something more permanent!

Cate Blanchett to star in new production 'Electra / Persona' | London Theatre www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatre-news...

ψυχή, ἡ: soul, life ψυχοανακάλυπτος: soul-baring, revealing ψυχοκλέπτης: soul-thief ψυχοκτόνος:soul-killing ψυχοπλανής: soul-wandering ψυχοπότης: soul drinker (drinking of life, i.e. blood) ψῦχος, τό: cold ψυχρία: cold ψυχοκρασία: growing cold ψυχολογία: frigid talking ψυχρόσαρκος: with cold flesh

Aristotle with a Bust of Homer https://www.wikiart.org/en/rembrandt/aristotle-with-a-bust-of-homer-1653-0

La Medusa Lorenzo Lorenzetti, Anzabarago alabaster, 2025 www.lorenzolorenzetti.com #art #sculpture

Chuckled at something that must be a typo. Instead of Orestes politely telling Athena about his family origins, he "politically" tells her.

Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. Terry Tempest Williams

“When it comes to the question of method … You know the Hegel saying—the owl of Minerva flies at dusk. You can’t have ideas about things ahead of time.” —Fredric Jameson

Your day will be like... a drooping poppy, its head heavy with its own weight and from the spring rainfall. Iliad 8.306-8

Living in SA means that buying and importing classics-related books and resources is often prohibitively expensive. Every now and again I'm lucky enough to find a gem like this in a second-hand bookshop!

Second piece of 2026! For @theatlantic.com, I wrote about Kay Cicellis’s brilliant, brutal short story trilogy, The Way to Colonos, which consists of three modern retellings of Sophoclean tragedies. This one is for all the Greek mythology girlies. ❤️ Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

This becomes even trickier when you're writing across the centuries, from antiquity to the 21st century.