I’m back – what a year!

Today is my first day back from maternity leave – and I think it’s fair to say that this year hasn’t gone at all how I’d expected! That is probably how most people feel about having a baby, but the added factor of the 2020 pandemic has made this a very strange year for many of us. I’m really grateful to all my colleagues and friends for keeping in touch, and I’m hoping I can get back to my research project as smoothly as possible, in the circumstances. I’m working from home for the moment, as most of us are, but it’s still great to be back at my desk.

In the mean time, I was really glad to see that lots of you have been enjoying learning Oscan using the SALAVS programme on this website. I’m hoping to update the course with a few more lessons at some point before Christmas.

I’m very pleased to say that the edited volume Migration, Mobility and Language Contact in and around the Ancient Mediterranean was released by Cambridge University Press earlier in the year. This volume came out of one of the workshops organised by the Greek in Italy Project, and we are very proud of it. It is dedicated to Prof. Geoff Horrocks, who has been such an inspiration to us all.

And finally, a small plug for some excellent online seminars by some of my Exeter colleagues. The Digital Classicist London seminar has featured Claire Holleran’s work on migration in Roman Spain, and later today Charlotte Tupman will be speaking on applying machine learning to the study of inscribing texts. The talks will be archived on YouTube indefinitely, so you can watch them whenever you like.