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Should I do a PhD in Classics?

  Should I do a PhD in Classics? I can imagine that there will be four groups of people reading this blog post. The first group of people will be new PhD students who are starting in September and are hoping that they haven’t made a terrible mistake after reading horror stories on social media. The second group will be those who haven’t yet applied and are wondering if they should do a PhD after hearing said horror stories. The third group will be PhD students deep into their projects, who are feeling immense fatigue after years of study, and are interested to learn if someone who’s finished the process thinks it was worth it. The fourth group of people will be those who have passed their PhDs and will want to compare their experiences with those of mine. I think it’s hard to get a balanced and moderate view on the experience of doing a Classics PhD. You tend to get two different takes. The overwhelming opinion spread online is that Classics PhDs are traumatic and horrendous experi
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  Should Latin and Greek Be Compulsory? In my conversations with fellow Classicists, I often hear people say that the discipline's privileging of Latin and Greek was an old issue which isn’t relevant anymore. As they say, it's true that Latin and Greek used to be given preference by people in positions of power back in the old days, but now we have Classical Civilisation, Ancient History, and Classical Studies. The field is more diverse in today's age and we’ve moved on. I'm sure you have all heard similar statements.  I think this perspective has developed partially because many Classicists like to think the discipline is on a trajectory of constant improvement and really dislike hearing any criticism which is too negative.  It's nice to think the world of Classics has moved on. It probably is true that Classicists are more open-minded about teaching literature in translation now than they were decades ago. However, has the privileging of Latin and Greek completely
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My Impressions of Lingua Latina

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     You may have never heard of Lingua Latina . It's a pretty obscure series, even among the world of Latin books. There are hugely popular books such as the Cambridge Latin Course , then the ones which are well-known in Latin enthusiast circles, like John Taylor's Latin Beyond GCSE. Lingua Latin doesn't have the same wide appeal as those titles, but it does have a dedicated fanbase. And when I say a dedicated fanbase, I mean dedicated. There are popular online who absolutely swear by this thing and promote it as much as humanly possible. Some even go as far to say that it's so good that it makes all other Latin books completely obsolete. So I thought, I better read it and see what I think!      Here are my impressions of the first part of Lingua Latina : Familia Romana !     For those who don't know the book, it's very different to the likes of the Cambridge Latin Course . It does not use the traditional grammar and exercises approach but prefers the &
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Why the Roehampton Classics Department is Important

Why the Roehampton Classics Department is Important      I have a long history with Roehampton University. I studied my Undergraduate in 2010-2013 and came back to do my PhD in 2017, which is currently ongoing. I'll have studied here for seven years by the end of my PhD! It's very sad for me to see the University's recent statement that they will drastically cut funds from the Arts and Humanities. I'm turning thirty next year and so Roehampton has been a part of my life on and off for a third of the time I have been alive. I think it can easily be forgotten that we students don't see University courses as just a ticket to a better paid job. Even my Undergraduate cohort talk about Roehampton Classics as an important part of their identity, despite it being a long time since they graduated. No matter the reason, department cuts is immensely sad for us students, including alumni.      I have studied at both a modern university (Roehampton) and a traditional one (Durha
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  PhD Funding Programmes Should Offer Four Year Studentships      PhD's are officially three years programmes in the UK, but it is now very common for students to take four years to finish their thesis. Most PhD students won't become lecturers but most want it to happen and the increased demands of the academic job market require that you give papers, organise conferences, write publications, and teach during your PhD. Doing all of these things will not guarantee you a job or make you stand out from the competition, it just means that you are meeting the bare minimum expected of you when you go on to apply for postdocs and early lecturing jobs. Like many others, I've done all of the above during my PhD, and it's undeniable that it has knocked a year out of my research time. I've spoken to lecturers and they've told me that my publication was "done correctly" if it took that much time out of my research. I will be taking a fourth year to finish up m
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Why Classics Isn’t For Everyone Classics is for everyone! It’s a phrase often used to defend the subject, and in fairness, it comes from a kindhearted place. People use it because they understand that there are obvious structural barriers if you want to make it into Classics, including but not limited to, class, education, gender, race and sexuality. Their response is that Classics is often presented in the public mind as an elitist subject, but in reality, it has appeal for everyone. I do agree that Classics is a subject which everyone can love, but I also believe that the expression ‘Classics is for everyone’ is also not really true because of how the subject currently exists in the education sector. And before I go any further, I’m talking specifically about the UK here. I’m aware that the situation is apparently better in countries such as Italy, just as one example. Unfortunately, I’m a typical dumb English man, so you’ll have to forgive my ignorance when it comes to the
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Universities are not Marxist The conspiracy theory that universities are hard-left institutions which indoctrinate their students into becoming hardened Marxists is prevalent in certain right-wing spheres. There are some embarrassing posts recently being made by TurningPointUK about lecturers trying to brainwash their students on campus and marking them down if they refuse to adopt their views. It reminded me about this long-standing theory, so here I am to demolish it. Let’s try to see if this theory has any merit and play fairly. It is true that most universities (at least in the UK, which is what I know most about personally) put on a show of being invested in diversity issues, such as LGBT rights, feminism, race and supporting more representation of traditionally excluded groups. Whether this is just rhetoric or something they actually deliver on is a matter of debate. It is also true that most lecturers I know are strongly in favour of remain and were against Brexit. N
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