From Manchester to Bristol, a round-up of the coolest classics-inspired events this month. Plus, details of the next online gathering of The Chorus, our network for young classicists.
Golden Mummies of Egypt
Manchester Museum
Open from 18 February 2023
After a hugely successful tour across the USA and China, this stunning exhibition offers unparalleled access to the museum’s world-class Egypt and Sudan collections.
Featuring more than 100 objects and eight mummies, Golden Mummies of Egypt presents a rich perspective on beliefs about the afterlife during an era when Egypt was part of the Greek and Roman worlds.
Tragedy’s Props
A talk by Dr Rosie Wyles
Badminton School, Bristol
8 March 2023, 7pm
This talk by Dr Rosie Wyles (Kent) will explore the impact of props on the tragic stage. It considers how playwrights loaded these objects with meaning within their productions to create dramatic effects. Moreover, the symbolism of the objects outside the theatre is taken into account to reflect on the potential implications of this theatrical manipulation for Athenian civic identity. Examples will be taken from Bacchae, Medea, Oedipus Tyrannus and Ajax.
Costanza Casati in Conversation
Waterstones, Liverpool (see other locations)
10 March 2023, 6.30-8pm
Join us for a wonderful evening with author Costanza Casati as we celebrate the release of her fantastic new novel, Clytemnestra, a passionate and fierce retelling of an Ancient Greek legend.
Huntress. Warrior. Mother. Murderess. Queen.
A blazing novel set in the world of Ancient Greece and told through the eyes of its greatest female protagonist, this is a thrilling tale of power and prophecies, of hatred, love, and of an unforgettable Queen who fiercely dealt out death to those who wronged her.
Stone Blind
A talk by Natalie Haynes
Shrewsbury School
17 March 2023, 2:15-4pm
From the classicist and author of A Thousand Ships and Pandora's Jar comes another bravura reimagining of Greek myth as the story of Medusa is transformed into a powerful meditation on mortality, betrayal and the cruel limits of beauty: Stone Blind.
So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our teeth, our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters.
This is the story of how a young woman became a monster. And how she was never really a monster at all.
Studying Ancient Egypt and the Middle East at University
An Online Conference for Sixth Formers
March 18 2023, 10am-1pm
Ancient Egypt and the Middle East bequeathed to posterity some of the most fascinating remains from all of the ancient world.
But since these subjects are not offered at A level, few sixth-formers are aware that they exist as University subjects.
The purpose of this one-day conference is to give sixth formers an opportunity to explore what it is like to study ancient Egypt and the Middle East at British Universities: to see what makes the subject area so intellectually and culturally exciting, learn about the various degree courses, and understand what admissions tutors are looking for.
London Classicists of Colour: Classics & Accessibility (age 16+)
The Chorus
Zoom - online only
21 March 2023, 6pm
We are delighted to welcome the London Classicists of Colour as our next guest speaker at The Forum.
London Classicists of Colour is a society led by students based at UCL focusing on decolonising the classical curriculum and spreading awareness about the colonial roots of classics.
At this meeting, you will have the opportunity to:
- hear from the London Classicists of Colour and learn more about the aims and activities of the society
- participate in the Q&A and share your personal experiences of studying classics
- think about decolonising activities that you could initiate at your school, university, or in everyday life
Reading Homer with Virginia Woolf
A talk by Barbara Graziosi
Goldsmiths, University of London
16 March 2023, 6pm (in person and online)
The last talk of this academic year in our series on the social, political and cultural relevance of the classics to our times.
Based on Virginia Stephen’s notes on the Odyssey, Barbara Graziosi offers a new reading of chance, fate, and marriage in the Homeric poem and in Stephen’s first novel, The Voyage Out, written shortly before she married Leonard Woolf and became known as Virginia Woolf.
Islanders: The Making of the Mediterranean
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
24 February – 4 June 2023
Bringing together extraordinary antiquities, Islanders: The Making of the Mediterranean takes visitors on a 4,000-year journey from life in the ancient Mediterranean to today.
Many of the more than 200 objects from three of the largest Mediterranean islands, Cyprus, Crete and Sardinia will be seen in the UK for the first time. They help us understand the ways these island cultures reflected, and even shaped the larger Mediterranean world with its migrations and movement of peoples. And they reveal how islanders lived every day, their communities, memories, myths, art and creativity.
Ongoing events
- Burnt City, Punchdrunk
One Cartridge Place, London
- Phaedra
National Theatre, London
Now booking until 8 April 2023
- Medea
Soho Place, London
Now booking until 22 April 2023
- Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Now booking until 30 July 2023
Kitty is currently doing an MPhil in Classics at Cambridge. She is focusing on travel narratives and cultural identity in Roman Greece, particularly in the work of Pausanias, Apuleius and the extant Greek novelists. She is an active member of The Chorus and sits on the student steering committee.