A new book on fragmentary epigraphy (which includes a chapter written by me) is coming out today. Genres épigraphiques et langues d’attestation fragmentaire dans l’espace méditerranéen, edited by Emmanuel Dupraz and Wojciech Sowa, is a collection all about the many epigraphic languages of the ancient Mediterranean and the genres of text that are attested all across... Continue Reading →
Review: Communication and Materiality
Here's my "Classics for All" review of Communitcation and Materiality: Written and Unwritten Communication in pre-Modern Societies. If you'd like to read the book, or selected chapters from it, you can currently download it for free from the De Gruyter website. Mostly a very good read, which introduced me to a lot of sources I wasn't familiar with... Continue Reading →
“Oscan in Southern Italy and Sicily” is out this week
I'm very excited to announce the publication of my book Oscan in Southern Italy and Sicily. The editor very kindly dropped the first copy round to my house last night, and I'm really pleased with how it has turned out. This book started life as my PhD thesis (pictures of its journey from thesis to book... Continue Reading →
Umbrian in Tolstoy
My holiday reading this year was Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which I had been meaning to read for a while. For the first three hundred pages, it was a total escape from work - but then what should pop up in Part III but a reference to Umbrian: Alexei Alexandrovich ordered tea to be served in... Continue Reading →
Why Historians and Linguists Should Read the Ibis Trilogy
Historians and linguists of the world: you should be reading Amitav Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy - Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and the recently released Flood of Fire. (For those who have already started Flood of Fire, don't worry, there are no spoilers ahead.) I'm hoping the historians don't need too much convincing. Ghosh's trilogy... Continue Reading →
Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Worlds
I've just finished reading James Clackson's new book Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Worlds - a book I will undoubtedly be adding to all my undergraduate reading lists before next term starts. The book offers an accessible but thorough introduction to the languages of the ancient world and how they were used across time and space -... Continue Reading →
