It’s been another strange and challenging year, but thanks to support from the national Classical Association, we’ve been able to move online in 2020-21 and not only hold a lecture programme but also keep in touch with members, reach new audiences and grow our Classics community virtually! Our webinars started with Polly Low’s excellent talk … Continue reading A year together – online

Last Thursday, Dr Peter Liddel concluded our 2020-21 lecture programme with a really interesting and accessible talk that uncovered the stories of the ancient Athenian inscriptions that can be found in private collections or on display in the UK, an insight into the work of the ongoing AHRC-funded project on Attic Inscriptions. The project is … Continue reading From pot-planters to fireplaces: the many lives of ancient inscriptions

Classics Ambassador Esmé writes about one of the most haunting, complex and well-known figures in Greek mythology, literature and culture - Medea, priestess of Hecate, granddaughter of Helios, sorceress of Colchis. Gender roles, still widespread today, were even more prominent in ancient Greece. Women were expected to marry from a young age, bear children and … Continue reading Medea: Misfit, Mother, Murderer

In the LSA CA’s penultimate lecture of its 2020-21 season, we were delighted to welcome Professor Helen King, a leading expert in Greek and Roman medicine, for a fascinating webinar about some of the intriguing procedures surrounding physical and mental health in ancient medicine. She covered a vast range of topics from fumigation of the … Continue reading Beetles, Rats, Humors and a Doctor in Disguise- Ancient Approaches to Medicine

Almost five years since his first appearance for the LSA CA, we were thrilled to welcome back bestselling author Ben Kane to the branch last Thursday evening for a fantastic webinar based on his latest series, Clash of Empires, as Classics Ambassador Imogen H writes: Many of us have an interest in and awareness of … Continue reading Clash of Empires

Over the rocky course of the pandemic, many of us have turned to books for solace, inspiration and entertainment. We have revisited old favourites, sought comforting distractions, digested challenging ideas, found fictional friends, tackled different genres and, perhaps for the first time, delved into the wealth of literature that explores, celebrates, confronts and reimagines events … Continue reading LSA CA Book Club Recommends…

On Thursday 7th January, we welcomed Professor Michael Scott virtually to the LSA CA for his seventh annual Presidential Lecture, in which he shed light on the inner workings of Athenian democracy. Professor Scott's TV documentaries, books, public lectures and outreach work have brought the ancient world to whole new audiences and in 2020, despite … Continue reading How Democratic was Athenian Democracy?

Following Professor Llewelyn Morgan's webinar for the LSA CA on 12th November, Classics Ambassador Liv S takes us on an around-the-world cultural voyage in the company of the many named, multi faceted and paradoxical hero Hercules. For millennia, Hercules has been a familiar and popular mythical character, immediately recognisable whether in statues, on coins or vase … Continue reading Hercules: World Traveller

It's almost Halloween and Classics Ambassador Abigail F takes us on a ghostly trip to the ancient past where libations rather than pumpkins satiated the spirits of the dead. As with many spectacles and traditions of the modern age, much of what we celebrate and experience today derives from the myths and history of the … Continue reading Spooky Stories in Antiquity

Classics Ambassador Freyja H-W recounts our first online event of the 2020-21 season: Last Thursday, Professor Polly Low, Greek historian at the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University, joined us over Zoom to give a brilliant insight into the Spartan commemoration of the battle of Thermopylae. Though she unfortunately couldn’t be with … Continue reading Memory, Monuments and Mourning