🐈‍⬛🎅On the fifth day before Christmas, we spotted one of the College cats wearing a curiously Christmassy hat...  #ChristmasCountdown

Poppit has made it onto the St Anne's Christmas Countdown!! She is thrilled.

Maccu. A Sicilian fava bean soup of which Prof. Leigh learned in Goliarda Sapienza's 'The Art of Joy'. The name is optimistically linked to Maccus, the gourmand of Atellane farce.

We are thinking today of all at Brown University, an institution with which the Classics School has many strong and loving ties. Last night's shooting has come as a terrible shock.

Poppit the Classics School dog is getting into the festive spirit and wishes all her fans the very best.

What do you do when it's the last week of term and one of your students arrives with a very substantial helmet?

Here are just some of the teaching and research staff in the St Anne's Classics School: Dr Andy Reyes, Prof. Matthew Leigh, Dr Francesca Beretta, and Graduate Development Scholar Eve Harrington.

We took the annual St Anne's Classics School photograph today. The sun was low but at least it made an appearance. As did Poppit the dog.

It was Junior Common Room puppy petting today, so Poppit the dog went through her full beauty routine last night. Here she is after her bath but before the hairbrush struck.

In the name of embodied research, first year St Anne's students Harvey (Pentheus), Alice (Cadmus), and Hannah (Tiresias) made their own translation of Bacchae 170-370 and performed it for a select audience (Prof. Leigh). We then discussed what this revelatory experience had taught us.

The new St Anne's Classics undergraduates are here and coming for their first meeting with tutors at 2.30 p.m. Our welfare assistant looks forward to assisting them in their studies.

Prof. Leigh was the guest of a very full meeting of Hull Classical Association yesterday evening as he lectured on Aeneid 2. Thank you for all the excellent questions and for a really happy and stimulating time.

Wonderful to see that St Anne's Classics alumna, Miriam Kamil, is now Assistant Professor of Classics at Stanford University. We hope very much to have her visit us again in the near future. classics.stanford.edu/people/miria...

Many congratulations to our former Gradual Development Scholar, Dr Laura Loporcaro, who has been awarded the Conington Prize for the best doctoral thesis in Classical Languages and Literature at Oxford University for 2021-2025. Laura currently hold a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ghent.

Great to see a St Anne's alumna entering on a distinguished career and with a first book to her name. classics.columbia.edu/martina-russo

Some faces from Oscata, the very isolated home village of the great Latinist Antonio La Penna. This week Prof. Leigh was honoured to address a conference in nearby Bisaccia dedicated to Prof. La Penna's famous essay on the paradoxical portrait. Many thanks to all those who made this event possible.

The Darwin-Dohrn Stazione Zoologica and Museum in Naples contains this 1837 sketch by Darwin of the gradual separation of species of coral. To a Classicist it looks rather like a stemma illustrating the manuscript tradition of an ancient work. Lachmann's edition of Lucretius was published in 1850.

Prof. Leigh is a regular in the slow lane at Oxford University's Rosenblatt Pool. It was a surprise this morning to share the water with double Olympic champion Adam Peaty. This was about as close as he will come to seeing the serpents cutting across the sea towards Laocoon.

Poppit the dog has just had her first ever visit to the groomer. Feel free to reassure her that her beauty is undiminished.

Many thanks to Dr Emily Hayes for a wonderful supper last night for new friends and old. Pictured: Dr Katz, Alec Tiller, Maximus Ankrah, Prof. Leigh. Alec and Maximus are visiting St Anne's from Virginia Military Institute. Maximus got his name after his father saw a certain Russell Crowe movie.

In 2022 Mackenzie Austin came to St Anne's from Durham 6th Form Centre to read History. A great friend to the Classics School and a stalwart of the Classical Reception Reading Group, he has just taken a First and will be heading to Durham University for his Masters.

In October 2022 Elise Stringfellow came to St Anne's from St Olave's School in South London to study Classics and English. She has just graduated with a First and will be staying in Oxford for her Master of Studies in Classics. Next term Elise will also be playing the wife in Plautus' Menaechmi.

Three years ago Isabella Hickman came to St Anne's from King Edward VI School for Girls in Handsworth to study Ancient and Modern History. She leaves us with a very fine degree and will be staying in Oxford to work at St Andrew's Church. We salute her.

Three years ago, Lucy Miller came to St Anne's from Newlands Girls School in Maidenhead to read for a degree in Classics and English. She leaves us with a First and a quite astounding mark for her dissertation on Wycliffe's translation of the Book of Hebrews. We have treasured her.

@whitstillman.bsky.social was at the UPP cinema in Oxford last night for a showing of his 1990 masterpiece Metropolitan. Prof. Leigh confesses to having seen the film at least 5 times and was delighted to find himself in a packed house of Stillman devotees.

Four years ago, Tilly Jackson-Long came to St Anne's from Haberdashers' School for Girls, Elstree, to read for a degree in Classics. A fine and imaginative scholar, Tilly has also developed high-level skills as a lighting technician and recently started work at the Oxford Playhouse.

Four years ago, Charlie Chadwick came to St Anne's from Hulme Grammar School in Oldham to read for a degree in Classics. He leaves us with a First and a funded place at Lincoln College, Oxford, to read for a Masters in Ancient History. We salute him.

Three years ago Leif Findlay came to St Anne's from Brighton College to read for a degree in Classics and English. Unaffectedly erudite and intellectual, Leif leaves with a fine degree and plans for a Masters in Film Studies. We are so proud of him.

Three years ago, Eleanor McNeill came to St Anne's from Aldenham School to read for a degree in Classics and English. She leaves us with a First and the Passmore-Edwards prize for the best marks in her subject across the university. We could not be more delighted with her achievements.

St Anne's Classics alumna Ash Bond is now a very successful and much admired writer for children. We are so proud of her. Vol. 2 in her Peregrine Quinn series came out earlier this year.

Professor Leigh today visited Barr's Hill School, Coventry. Serving a deprived neighbourhood with many migrant and refugee pupils, Barr's Hill has been assisted by Classics for All to introduce Classical Civilisation and some Latin. Teachers and pupils were amazing. www.barrshill.coventry.sch.uk

One last scene from the Classics School's leavers' drinks: Dr Emily Hayes, Dr Ed Bispham, Dr Holly Hunt, Dr Andy Reyes, Eve Harrington. That's four doctorates and a fifth very much on the way.

Some scenes from our end of year leavers' drinks. First up Prof. Leigh, Dr Beretta, Eleanor McNeill, Leif Fielding, Tilly Jackson-Long, and Elise Stringfellow.

Students coming for their termly report reading yesterday found a full house of Classics tutors waiting to greet them. Happily we only had very positive things to say to them. Poppit the dog is under the table, an essential member of the team.

Many thanks to Dr Francesca Beretta for organising last night's Classics School Lockdown Translations Unlocked event. We heard creative translations of Plautus, Ovid, Lucan, Rabelais, Huysmans, Pavese, Borges, Suskind, Ritsos, and Goldman. We were joined by VIP guests Michael Hall and Emily Hayes.

Rumour has it that Poppit had a very happy time at last Wednesday's St Anne's JCR welfare puppy petting session.

The weekly St Anne's Classical Reception Reading Group headed back to the 15th century this week as Leif Findlay introduced us to John Lydgate's 'Troy Book'. More challenging to read aloud than Margaret Atwood's 'Penelopiad' last week but an inspiring challenge.

Dr Franecsca Beretta, doctoral student Riccardo Paccagnella, and Prof. Matthew Leigh last night addressed a St Anne's Subject Family event on Performance. Those attending heard talks on the new Euripides papyrus, Kavya in the Sanskrit cosmopolis, and Actors and Orators in Quintilian.

Congratulations to former St Anne's Classics student Laura Plumley, who is off to the Cannes Film Festival as part of the cast and crew of one of 8 short films selected for the Straight 8 competition. 'Immodest' will also be showing at the BFI IMAX Straight 8 festival in London on May 24.

Congratulations to Uwade Akhere, former St Anne's Junior Year Abroad student in Classics, on the release of her second album. 'Florilegium' strikes us as a properly Latinate title.

Mario Vargas Llosa, whose death has just been announced, was one of the most engaging Weidenfeld Professors of Comparative Literature to visit St Anne's College. Anyone in search of entertainment this Easter holiday could start with 'Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter'.

Many congratulations to Dom Haddon, Alistair Anthony, Rosie Bell, and Sophie Bassano for getting to the end of the gruelling Honour Moderations in Classics! You have done yourselves and the Classics School proud.

Prof. Leigh drafted in some teaching assistants today. Poppit (bottom left, shaggy) and Angus (right, less shaggy) contributed much erudition to tutorials on Vergil and Ovid. They also took students for walks and wolfed down treats.

Tonight was the termly BNC-STA Classics Research Symposium. Many thanks to Scott Arcenas and Tom Gavin for very exciting papers on Stasis and Economic Growth in Classical Greece and on Koina and Cooperation between the Greek Poleis of Asia Minor.

It is tremendously exciting to see that our recent Graduate Development Scholar, Dr Laura Loporcaro, has just published her first monograph: 'Reading Quintilian' (OUP, 2025).

A highlight of every term at the Classics School is our Lockdown Translations Unlocked meeting. Tonight we shared our creative translations from Latin, French, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, and Korean. It was amazing to be joined by Jhumpa Lahiri, Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature.

Donald Trump beware! Prof. Leigh is a proud Canadian and he has just been to Oxford's UPP cinema to see the glorious 'Hundreds of Beavers'.

It is 20 years since the magical day when Michael Longley came to St Anne's at the invitation of the Classics Society to read from his verse and talk about what the ancient poets meant to him. He was a joy to meet and a most generous guest. We continue to share his poems and mourn his death.

The Classics School welcomes our Plumer Fellows for Hilary Term 2025: Claire and Scott Arcenas from the University of Montana. Dynamic young scholars of American intellectual history and political violence in the Greek polis, they are already old and treasured friends of the Classics School.

Prof. Leigh has just been off to Vienna for the weekend. Apparently the Habsburgs weren't the greatest collectors of antiquities, but the Kunsthistorisches Museum does contain both the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus and the extraordinary Gemma Augustea.