This is the first week of teaching at Exeter, so I'm putting the finishing touches on my first few lectures and seminars of the year. Since both of the undergrad modules AND the MA mini-module I'm teaching this year are all brand new courses that I'm writing and teaching single-handedly, it's been a busy few weeks.... Continue Reading →
Reitia on the CREWS blog
I'm really pleased that Venetic and the goddess Reitia have been included on the CREWS project blog. Many thanks to Pippa Steele for writing this post, making such good use of my photos (and Anna's delicious cake). As Pippa points out, Venetic gives us lots of important and unparalleled evidence for how people learned to... Continue Reading →
Moving Romans
Around the time of the EU referendum, I wrote a review of Moving Romans: Migration to Rome in the Principate by Laurens E. Tacoma. Ancient migration has been very prominent in my work recently: the Greek in Italy project just hosted a conference on ancient migration and mobility in May this year, and this book helped... Continue Reading →
Join the Greek in Italy team – postdoc opportunity
The Greek in Italy project is advertising for a new fixed-term post doctoral research associate. I've worked on the project for the last three years, and it is a fantastic team to be a part of! You can find the details of the ad below. Please get in touch if you have any questions about the... Continue Reading →
Mauss, Oscan and translation problems
I mentioned over here that there were some mentions of Oscan in Marcel Mauss's The Gift, and also that there were some problems with some of the English translations of this essay. I thought I'd expand on this year, in case anyone happens to be reading The Gift and wants to know a bit more about... Continue Reading →
Ancient languages and John Wilkins’s Real Character
I mentioned that at Geoff Fest last week I gave a paper on the "reception" of Oscan - mainly consisting of mentions of Oscan in slightly unexpected contexts from the sixteenth century onwards. One of those instances was in An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, written by John Wilkins in 1668. Wilkins was a... Continue Reading →
Exchange in the Mediterranean
The new book Échanger en Méditerranée: Acteurs, pratiques et normes dans les mondes anciens turned up in my pigeon hole this week - and I'm thrilled to see it in physical form at last! I was also sent some beautifully produced physical off-prints of my chapter - I haven't seen one of them in ages, and they look... Continue Reading →
Sicily – Culture, Conquest and Battering Rams
Last week I enjoyed a nice afternoon off, checking out the British Museum's "Sicily: Culture and Conquest". I highly recommend it - the displays are fascinating, though somewhat crowded (as always). The exhibition focusses mainly on the Greek and Norman periods of Sicilian history, so go with that in mind if you're expecting lots of... Continue Reading →
Laurence Seminar 2016: Migration, Mobility and Language Contact
On the 27th and 28th May, the E Caucus and the Greek in Italy project are hosting the Laurence Seminar 2016, a yearly conference at the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge. This year, our theme is Migration, Mobility and Language Contact in Italy and the Western Mediterranean. Over the past decade, language contact has become a key... Continue Reading →
Venetic seminar week 2
This week at the Faculty of Classics, we held the second Venetic seminar (summed up by one attendee as "Close Encounters of the Venetic Kind"). We tackled a few more of the shorter inscriptions as a warm up, including one of the dedicatory styluses from Este - you can see a selection of these in... Continue Reading →