Censorship, gender and power: Fordyce and Catullus 58

Helen Lovatt considers the relationship between bowdlerising a classical text and broader questions of censorship. Issues of free speech are still very much debated: recently the classicist Mary Beard was caught up in a twitter storm about no-platforming speakers at universities, in particular certain radical feminists whose views offend some in the transgender community. It …

Anything but an essay

Dr Lynn Fotheringham casts an eye over the inventive work currently going on in her Independent Second-Year Project module. The Independent Second-Year Project, or ISYP, is the Department’s flagship non-traditional assessment module, and a cornerstone of our employability programme. Students choose not only which area of the Classical world they want to explore and how …

Laughing at Poor People

Dr Helen Lovatt reflects on teaching Martial 12.32, a poem about the eviction of Vacerra. There is a lot of vitriol aimed at the poor these days: skivers, scum, slackers. It’s all their fault, apparently, that they don’t have enough to eat, or that they have to live on the streets and beg. They have …