Donald Trump, Aristotelian?

Trump’s recent comments suggest a return to ancient Greek physiological theory. Oliver Thomas investigates.   Think Trump, think hair, towers, The Apprentice, controversy,… but not Aristotle. However, last Friday Trump called into CNN to complain about Megyn Kelly’s aggressive questioning during the previous evening’s Republican debate. The topic of the questions had been Trump’s long …

Thucydides on student radio

Thucydides hit the airwaves of Radio 4 last week, but has also featured on the University of Nottingham student radio: James Gooderson describes his joint Independent Second-Year Project with Henry Boutflower. The term ‘marathon’ comes from the scene of a Greek victory over the Persians in 490 BCE. Herodotus tells of the Greek Pheidippides running …

The Night Raid

Helen Lovatt considers Caroline Lawrence’s The Night Raid and writing about the classical world for children.     Several people in my Independent Second Year Project group have decided to write for an audience of children. We have been discussing how this can make a difference to your writing in both style and content. For …

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 …

Singing the blues

Mark Bradley hunts for the ‘missing’ colours in the ancient world The ancient Greeks and Romans probably would have wondered what the fuss is about. They would have seen a dress that looked slightly different depending on the viewer’s angle. They might have thought it peculiar as fashion – more like a costume for comedy …

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 …