Thursday 16th September 2021

Turning Art into History – The Case of Classical Athens

Professor Robin Osborne, Fellow and Professor of Ancient History at King’s College Cambridge, delivered the first lecture to take place at AKS Lytham in person since the beginning of the pandemic and it was a delight to hear him so knowledgeably and eloquently trace the development of Athenian art from the Archaic to the Classical age, and put forward a compelling argument for the reasons behind this fascinating transition.

Thursday 14th October 2021

Hadrian’s Wall: Strategic Masterstroke or Monumental Folly?

A former assistant editor at The Scotsman, Douglas Jackson is a much loved historical novelist who hails from Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders and is most famous for his series of books featuring the Roman tribune Gaius Valerius Verrens. In his gripping lecture in October 2021, he argued that Hadrian’s Wall was far less of a success than we might think…

Thursday 18th November 2021

Old Stories for Modern Times

Writer, journalist and Classicist Charlotte Higgins, a past winner of the Classical Association prize, shared with us why, in her view, Greek Myth (the title of her most recent book) persists! To round off her lecture, Charlotte read to us a passage from the opening of her book, where the Fates are used as a framing device for the stories within through their weaving of the lives of characters. Higgins included the traditional invocation to the Muses found in Greek epic poetry, matching the ancient tradition, but by bringing to the fore female characters such as Penelope, Athena, Medusa and so on, she has made this retelling of the Greek myths truly her own.

Thursday 13th January 2022 

An Island Without an Anchor: Delos and the Ancient World

Returning for his eighth annual Presidential Lecture, Professor Scott focused upon the fascinating city of Delos, one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. Michael is Professor in Classics and Director of the Institute of Engagement at the University of Warwick, a National Teaching Fellow, an Honorary Citizen of Delphi, a first-class speaker, presenter, author and broadcaster, and a fantastic ambassador for Classics. In 2021, he was the winner of the prestigious Classical Association Prize.

Thursday 10th February 2022 

Knossos – Lost Women of the Ancient World and the Men Who Rewrote Their Stories

Dr Ramirez is a cultural historian, broadcaster and author based at the University of Oxford and renowned for her many TV programmes on art and cultural history, most recently the Raiders of the Lost Past on BBC Two. Nina’s lecture to the Association focused on one of her TV trips when she talked to us about the women of Knossos, on Crete – revealing the real stories behind the myth of the Minotaur and behind the infamous unearthing and presentation of this fascinating site.

Thursday 3rd March 2022

The Gods in Greek Tragedy

Prof. Chris Carey, in 2003, took up the Chair of Greek at University College London where he is now Emeritus Professor of Greek and he has published widely on Greek literature, particularly Athenian law, Herodotus and Greek drama, whilst his passion for Greek lyric began with his PhD on the poet Pindar. Most recently he has written on ‘Drama and Democracy’ and in his talk for the Association he took us back to the Athenian stage and to the gods who were intrinsic to the staging, ritual and storytelling of this ancient art form.

Thursday 28th April 2022

Last Supper in Pompeii

Dr Paul Roberts is an archaeologist and Classicist and the current Sackler Keeper of the Department of Antiquities at the world renowned Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Formerly, he was Roman Curator (1994-2007) and Senior Roman Curator (2007-2015) in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum, London, where he curated the hugely popular exhibition Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum (2013). Dr Roberts’s fascinating talk took us through the streets, sights, smells and culinary delights of Pompeii.