Coming Soon: Theatre with a Classical Connection…
January 7, 2015
Lynn Fotheringham has been searching out theatrical productions with a classical connection over the next few months, in Nottingham, nearby cities and London. Sheffield, 13th February only, 13.00: Phaedra’s Love, semi-staged reading as part of a season of the complete works of Sarah Kane, whose reputation for writing plays with lots of on-stage violence suggests …
The Power of (Moving) Pictures
November 23, 2014
Esther Eidinow reports on the first seminar of the Teaching and Learning Ancient Religion Network (TLAR), and the power of Panoply… Sonya Nevin is working magic. It’s a cold, wet evening, and 15 people, seated around a table in a room in Senate House, London (kindly sponsored by the ICS), are staring up at a …
A Herculean Achievement: The Twelve Labours of… Vladimir Putin
October 12, 2014
Esther Eidinow reports on an intriguing use of ancient Greek myth… Herakles, Hercules, Melqart… Putin: a celebration of the Russian leader’s achievements put Greek myth back on the map last week. An exhibition of pictures, organised by a Facebook group of Putin’s supporters, showed the President engaged in Herakles’ different tasks—each repurposed to represent a …
Thinking about Thinking about Ancient Greek Religion (2)
August 31, 2014
In January 2014, the Ancient Religions and Cognition (ARCog) project held its second workshop: on Transmission. Esther Eidinow gives an overview of the meeting, during which participants explored the theme of religious transmission using cognitive theorizing to think about ancient evidence, and vice versa. You can find out more about the project and the workshop, …
Simaetha’s letter
June 7, 2014
Strange things happen during the marking period… In between thinking about the first year literature course and whether I should have included more Hellenistic poetry, and looking at m’learned colleague Esther Eidinow’s ancient solutions to modern problems on this blog, I somehow came up with this: an appeal for a modern solution to an ancient …
Thinking about Thinking about Ancient Religion
April 12, 2014
In July 2013, the Ancient Religions and Cognition (ARCog) project held its first workshop. Esther Eidinow tells us how, over the course of two days, participants explored the theme of religious authority, using cognitive theorizing to think about ancient evidence, and vice versa. You can find out more about the project and the workshop, and …
(Ancient) Advice Column 1: The Football Fan
February 28, 2014
Esther Eidinow begins a new advice column: what should you do if your team has offended the gods? The subject line read ‘Question About Removing a Curse’. I teach a module on Ancient Greek magic and religion—but the sender was not one of my students. If this was a phishing attempt, it was novel. I …