Edinburgh – Tribune of the Plebs

FINDING MY VOICE AND HELPING OTHERS FIND THEIRS

Collection: University of Edinburgh; Persons: N/A; Event: N/A; Place: McEwan Hall; Edinburgh; Scotland; UK; Category: University Buildings; Description: Details from the ceiling spaceof the McEwan Hall during the 2016 refurbishment of the building.

By Dr. Alex Imrie

My route into Classics is one that has been deemed ‘non-traditional’ by some. I never had the chance to try ancient languages or Classical Studies at school; and beyond a unit on the Romans in Primary 5 and a couple weeks on the Egyptians in secondary school, I didn’t get to study any ancient history either. My interest in antiquity was nevertheless present from an early age, spurred by two distinct inspirations: watching films like Jason and the Argonauts and Spartacus with my parents, and the fact that my grandfather became a porter with the National Museum of Scotland in my hometown of Edinburgh in the years before his death. I spent nearly every weekend of my early years in the museum, finding out about some object or another.

Despite this interest, I didn’t know about the existence of Classics as a distinct discipline until I reached university. I had arrived as a student enrolled in French (the subject I’d been best at in school) although, beyond a vague notion of becoming a translator, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to get out of my university experience. I was the first in my working-class family to stay on at school and thus I had no frame of reference regarding what to expect in higher education.

I remember the moment which set me on the path to becoming a professional classicist vividly, when I chose Ancient History as an elective course in my first year. Looking back, I am relieved that I went with my instinct and subject passion rather than doing what so many first-gen and marginalised students do, which is to try to craft a degree on what they are told is ‘useful’. Within the space of a year, I’d changed my Honours specialisation to Ancient History and never looked back, graduating in my new degree subject in 2007.

By the time I’d graduated, I knew categorically that this was the discipline in which I wanted a career. There followed a couple years working in retail (selling kilts, no less!) to support my wife through the final year of her medical degree and to raise money for me to commence postgraduate study. I started a Masters by Research programme in 2009, since I was aware already that I wanted to apply for a doctorate, but was terrified at the prospect of writing to such a volume. The MScR programme I undertook was fantastic for proving to myself that I did have ideas and that I could write to scale, but it also gave me the flexibility to start a steep learning curve with the ancient languages.

After completing the Masters, I was lucky enough to secure funding to support my moving on to the PhD immediately. The years of my doctorate were some of the most challenging and yet rewarding that I have ever experienced. If I lacked a frame of reference for my undergraduate degree, it’s fair to say that for a sizeable portion of the PhD I felt similarly out of place: impostor syndrome, which has stalked me for many years, was at its most brutal during this period. With the love and support of friends, family, excellent colleagues and stalwart advisors, however, I endured. Graduating in my doctoral robes remains one of the proudest moments of my life, showing that a boy who had grown up watching Spartacus and playing Rome: Total War could have a voice in a discipline that seems to many as being designed to be impenetrable to those with a just such a background as mine (and many others even more so).

It is in part that realisation which has informed much of my work and professional effort since graduating in 2015. In my research, I endeavour to use language in as simple a way as I can, so that my work is accessible to people regardless of how long they have been submerged in classical scholarship. It pains me to see interested people turned off by writing that is unnecessarily complex or wilfully pretentious. My research concerns the history of the Severan Dynasty: one of the most dysfunctional families to ever occupy the Roman imperial throne (and that is saying something!) If I cannot render this period exciting and accessible to anyone who might want to know about it, then I’m failing as an academic.

I am similarly motivated when it comes to teaching. I was fortunate enough to be taught by several lecturers who are excellent at their craft, and so I aspire to engender the same level of engagement I felt as a student in their classes. Classics is a subject which should inspire and challenge in equal measure. It is full of enthralling stories but would probably have been utterly horrendous to have lived through for many. The ancient world is simultaneously familiar and completely alien on a human level. The discipline is valuable in that it offers (among other things) a lens and filter to discuss subjects and issues which have real contemporary relevance, and yet the discipline itself is plagued by its own historical inequities and more recent misappropriations, both of which require to be challenged openly and robustly. For these reasons and more, the subject is a privilege to teach and a responsibility I take very seriously.

Dovetailing some of these themes together, some of my most important work over the last three years has been in the field of Classics outreach. In Scotland, Classics in schools imploded in the 1980s, and was at real risk of disappearing from the curricular map altogether, were it not for the stubborn ingenuity of teachers keeping the subject alive in a handful of state centres. In late 2017, I took up the position of National Outreach Co-ordinator with the Classical Association of Scotland, in partnership with the charity Classics for All. Since then, we have successfully brought Latin or Classical Studies to around 50 schools nationwide, with others preparing themselves to join our growing network. With each passing month, we are proving that there is an appetite out there for the ancient world, be it spurred by Percy Jackson and Horrible Histories, or simply by the enduring draw of subjects like classical mythology.

We have also been active with initiatives designed to render the ancient past accessible to as wide an audience as possible: running free online sessions through the COVID lockdown period, and offering friendly and accessible summer language programmes designed to fit in with work, childcare and other life responsibilities. I want our global Classics community to be more than simply those who win the crapshoot of securing permanent positions in self-styled ‘elite’ universities.

For me, this is something of a mission, bringing my personal and professional journeys within Classics almost full circle: offering young learners at primary and secondary levels an opportunity to engage with the subject I was denied the chance to experience as a child, in the hope of enthusing a new generation of classicists in Scotland who don’t feel ‘other’ or out of place if they decide that they want to pursue the subject further. We are still at the start of a very long road if we are to see Classics become a legitimate subject option for the majority of Scotland’s pupils but, in spite of the difficulties and issues we face, I remain dedicated to the cause and remind myself that Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all…

It’s all Greek to Me: Life at Uni for a Tick-Box

*Image credit: The Scream 1895/Edvard Munch*

By Molly McDowell

Arriving at university was for me, as for everyone else, a very overwhelming experience. New city, new flatmates, new responsibilities, new friends, new experiences (so many Big Cheese nights), the list goes on.

No one really quite knows what they sign up for in terms of their degree until the first week but I had the added pressure of having picked a subject I knew only from reading fiction books as a young teen (take three guesses as to which American demi-god had inspired me…). Now, this was slightly more stressful than what I imagine the average uni experience for many other people looked like, who already knew the basics about the subject they chose.

However, I didn’t really notice how much I didn’t know in comparison to my peers until quite far into first semester. I took Latin 1A with a bunch of other beginners (I met my best friends and flatmates in this course) so we all knew nothing pretty much; all in the same boat. My other 2 modules were both ‘world’ courses, Greek and Roman World 1A. This is where I suddenly noticed a difference.

Unlike most of my peers, I didn’t go to private school. I should preface this with that this is not a criticism of people who do come from this background, it is just not my personal experience. I had not read the Iliad and the Odyssey (still haven’t finished the second, I’ll be honest). I didn’t have basic foundational knowledge of anything Classics related really- if it hadn’t been in Horrible Histories or Percy Jackson I was stumped.

At no point in the uni application process had it occurred to me what my teachers had warned me about would be correct- that I would be competing with people who had been learning this since they were 11. The only time this was brought up to me was almost a joke: a teacher was trying to tempt me into Oxbridge application and when I said I wanted to apply for Classics replied, ‘well you’ll be a great tick-box for them!’. This was meant in the greatest sincerity I’m sure but it didn’t affect my desire to do the subject or my lack of motivation to go through the Oxford application process (sorry Miss Bryden!), in fact I did not think about this at all until approximately two years later.

This makes it sound much more dramatic than it was, like I suddenly had an epiphany and everything stopped around me as though I was in the movies. Obviously this didn’t happen and it wasn’t that big a deal, which is precisely the point. Whilst I was aware sometimes of my knowledge deficit (not always helped by some lecturers’ implicit assumptions that if they referenced Homer, for example, we would all understand), very rarely was I actively at a genuine disadvantage in first year. You do manage to catch up pretty quickly even if, like me, you did very little of the supposedly compulsory lecture reading (not recommended!).

Don’t panic! Whilst people with private school backgrounds may seem to have this amazingly in-depth knowledge of all these stories/concepts/events you’ve never heard of, it actually matters very little in the long run. You will all be equals by the time you get to honours when you start to specialise. Although, keeping up with the language courses are another matter altogether…

Imposter Syndrome?

By Tristan Craig

At the high school I attended, Classical Studies was certainly not on the curriculum. In fact – and I’m somewhat ashamed to admit this – I didn’t actually take History beyond my first year; the allure of igneous rock and a week in the Swiss alps (via a 56-hour round coach trip) was seemingly too great, so I opted for Geography. Although I had some experience studying the likes of Socrates and Plato against the backdrop of The Truman Show during Higher Philosophy, I had no framing beyond that. The term ‘Classics’ hadn’t entered my vocabulary. It wouldn’t be until I began studying on the university’s Access Programme in 2018 that I would have my first real exposure to the ancient world, or least the Graeco-Roman one, and a brief introduction to the writing of Herodotus, Suetonius and Virgil. It was enough to convince me that a degree in Ancient and Medieval History was the route I wanted to go down and the rest, as they say, is history.

However, soon after entering this new world of academia and ancient history, I became closely acquainted with the term “imposter syndrome”. As an undergraduate student in their late twenties with limited exposure to history as a discipline, beyond Eyewitness Guides and the Horrible Histories books, I found myself trying to navigate a world that was rich and fascinating, but one that was entirely new to me. In fact, I was more concerned about being “outed” as a fraud, as someone unworthy of their place on their degree programme, than I was actually coping with the workload itself. I’m a first-generation university student who’s worked as everything from stockroom assistant, to barista, to florist and at times I found myself asking: is Classics really for me? I could put together a perfectly adequate thistle buttonhole, but I didn’t know my sestertius from my Septimius Severus.

Thankfully, it didn’t take me too long to find the answer to that question. Yes, Classics is for me. It’s for anyone. There is no one way to be a Classical Studies student, just as there is no right time to go to university. I’m a man of material culture, of coins and curios, and it’s the study of tangible ‘things’ that excites me more than anything else – more so than the linguistic and literary focus of straight Classics (Tacitus’ Agricola notwithstanding) – but that wasn’t an overnight realisation. I used to envy students who had it all mapped out before they had even begun high school and a degree by the age of 22. However, life isn’t always as linear as that, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As a 29-year-old trans man, I’m still very much on my Odyssean journey of self-realisation, but I’m grateful to have found my little nook, in sculptures, seals and, indeed, sestertii.

So my advice? Don’t let yourself hold you back. There’s a lot we can’t change regarding our circumstances, and we all have very different backgrounds and very different levels of prior knowledge, but that does not equate to your worth. If we’re going to ensure that the study of the classical world not only survives for years to come but really thrives, in a way that is both relevant and meaningful, it’s us that needs to make that happen. And I want to be a part of that.

A Somewhat-Definitive Guide to Studying YOUR Definition of Classics at University

By Mia Nicole Davies

A significant amount of the discourse I engage in (if one of my lecturers reads this, I have probably stalked you on Twitter) surrounds the definition and inclusivity of Classics both in terms of its scholarly areas of focus and those who study it. Being a multiply-marginalised person with academic interests that are often on the fringes of standard Classics, I have been questioning and challenging my place in the field since I started dipping my toes in it. I am, technically speaking, not actually a Classics student: I actually study a History degree, but I think studying Classics from this angle has given me an invaluable perspective on the discipline and how it’s structured at the university level.

As a first year History student, the most important courses I took were in Islamic History, the first half of which is an indispensable part of the Late Antique landscape. As these were courses about history, I was allowed and encouraged to take them, but at the University of Edinburgh they official belong to the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies section of the School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures, meaning that even though their subject matter is at the very least relevant to Classics or the Antique period, this classification could potentially be a barrier to first- or second-year students reading a Classics degree depending on required courses, administrative rules, and other factors out of our control. On the contrary, most if not all sub-honours university courses regarding Classical civilisations are open to students pursuing History degrees. Once in your honours years, the classification of courses into certain administrative areas is more relevant (and sometimes more frustrating) than ever. For example, as a History student, I am taking a course on Iranian history this term, again offered through IMES as an approved outside course for us. The Persian Empire from the Achaemenids to Sasanians was one of the strongest key players of the Classical Mediterranean and extremely interconnected with the Hellenistic world – indeed, even knowing this going into the course I did not expect to be reading so much Herodotus. However, a student studying an Ancient History degree (which falls under Classics’ jurisdiction) at my university would not be allowed to take this course, as it doesn’t fall under the university’s jurisdiction of ‘Ancient History’. There are, luckily, some wonderful honours Classics options that do discuss the Near East and related areas, but I personally would love to see more of them and offered earlier and more enthusiastically.

Furthermore, the unfortunate truth is that when thinking about whether you want to enter the Classics academia space, and where you want to do that, your personal background is something you need to consider. As a disabled and queer person of colour, who has often been the only (or one of precious few) visibly Muslim student in my courses, my identity and perspective is not always welcomed or given the platform it deserves. I have loved my experience studying at the University of Edinburgh and am pleased to say that I haven’t really felt marginalised by Classics staff or students in my time here – I have generally found my tutors and lecturers to be themselves educated about and openly against the insidious underbelly of the discipline, and my efforts to create a supportive, accessible community for disabled students in pre-modern studies have been very warmly welcomed by staff as well as the students in Classics Society and the Classics courses I’ve taken. There needs to be progress across the whole discipline, but I find the University of Edinburgh to be engaged with that progress and am hopeful about the future of Classics here.

I’m likely biased, but I truly do believe that a well-rounded education in Classics should include some knowledge about the Eastern Mediterranean taught through a lens that isn’t Greco- or Italo-centric. I would encourage prospective university students to explore the various course options for all the different degrees offered within the Classics and History disciplines to find what path best allows you to explore your interests. The Scottish system allows us to take quite a few electives in our first two years at university, so even if you know for sure that you’d like to stick to more ‘traditional’ Classics courses later in your university career, it’s a great way to round out your education and explore new ways of looking at the field earlier on. While personal tutors in Classics may not be aware of or actively pushing their students to take these, I would highly recommend looking into courses on religious history, non-western ‘area studies’ courses dealing with earlier periods, or even social science courses that discuss topics such as gender, sexuality, race, and disability – reception is an important and interesting area of Classics and having a diverse and inclusive background is such an asset. There are amazing scholars researching these topics within the context of the entire Classical world, so whether you think Classics ended in 476 or prefer to test the limits of periodisation with Byzantium’s longevity, you can engage with your learning in a valuable and increasingly necessary way.