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AGM 2024 Labour and Rest

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The Women’s Classical Committee UK is pleased to announce its 2023 Annual General Meeting, ‘Labour and Rest‘, on Friday 3th May 2024. The AGM will be held in a hybrid format: please visit the TicketSource website. If you select to attend via Zoom, you will receive details closer to the date.

People of any gender expression or identity who support the WCC UK’s aims are welcome to attend this event. Further details are available here. Around the website you can also find more information on the Women’s Classical Committee UK, including our aims and activities and how to join.

Location

The event will be a hybrid, in person and over Zoom. The event will be held at Durham University.

Schedule

10:15: Welcome and housekeeping
10.30: Business meeting
11:30: Coffee break in local coffee shop or at home
12:00: Spotlight talks
13:15: Lunch (Akursu Turkish Restaurant)
14:30: Keynote: Professor Edith Hall (Durham): “Behind every working woman is an enormous pile of unwashed laundry”: A Cultural History of Dirty Clothes
15:30: Get to know the WCC – discussion on further directions (LT)
15:50: Wrap up and close

Mid-career event 2024

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The Women’s Classical Committee UK is organising an event aimed at mid-career scholars, to be held on Friday 19th January 2024 on Zoom between 10am and 1pm. We are delighted that Dr Ellen Adams, King’s College London, will be our keynote speaker.
 
The Women’s Classical Committee UK run a mid-career event annually to help colleagues discuss the issues and challenges that face academics, particularly women, at mid-career. Topics to be discussed may include decisions about whether and when to move institutions, questions around disciplinarity/interdisciplinarity and collaboration in research, expectations about international mobility and balancing this with family/caring duties, managing institutional expectations (which may be gendered) around types and levels of administrative service, taking on leadership positions, ways of supporting precarious colleagues, and strategies to tackle unconscious bias in the workplace. Those who register their intent to attend will be invited to fill in an online questionnaire, the results of which will inform the precise choice of topics for discussion sessions. We envisage that the day’s discussions will help to set priorities for resource development and future campaigns by the Women’s Classical Committee UK.
 
The WCC UK recognises that the term ‘mid-career’ is open to a range of interpretations, but also that different challenges face women in classics in different situations and career stages. This event is aimed primarily at women who self-define as having reached mid-career; markers of this may include being eight or more years after the award of their PhD, holding an open-ended contract, and having an established publication profile. If the event is oversubscribed then we will give priority to women in this situation, but we welcome applications to register from anyone of any gender who feels they would benefit from attending.
 
Registration Options
 
The event is capped at 15 attendees; we will be prioritising WCC UK members and non-members based in the UK should this event be oversubscribed. Free registration is available to all via Ticket Source; if the event reaches capacity, WCC UK members will be given priority. Donations in support of the WCC UK and its activities are welcome.  

Child-friendly policy
 
The Women’s Classical Committee is committed to making our events as inclusive as possible, and recognises that the financial and practical challenges of childcare often impede people from participating in workshops and conferences. We welcome the virtual attendance of children at this event.
 

2024 Steering Committee Elections

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We’re calling for nominations to join the Steering Committee of the Women’s Classical Committee UK. You can nominate someone else – but self-nominations are also warmly encouraged! If you’d like to shape our agenda, or if you have a perspective that ought to be heard, please do put your name forward!

The Steering Committee runs the WCC UK, including organizing events, workshops, and future development of the WCC UK. Committee members serve for four years, with the option to renew for a further four-year term. The Steering Committee wishes to encourage a diverse organization comprised of representatives from any background, location, or career level.

People of any gender expression or identity who support the WCC UK’s aims are welcome to become members and to put themselves forward for office; our aims can be found at https://wcc-uk.blogs.sas.ac.uk

Nominees must be members of the WCC UK – but you can become a member when you’re elected, if you’re not a member already.

If you’re interested, you should submit your name (or somebody else’s) to Cora Beth Fraser, WCC Co-Chair, by Friday 22nd December 2023. Her e-mail address is CoraBeth.Fraser [at] open.ac.uk.

Next steps

Each nominee will be asked in January 2024 to send in a short CV (1 page) and an election statement. These will be made available on the WCC UK website for members to review prior to voting. If you’re nominated by somebody else, the Co-Chair will contact you for permission to place your candidacy on the ticket.

Voting will open on Monday 4th March and run until Friday 15th March 2024. The elected members will be announced in late March and will assume office at the AGM in April 2024.

If you have any questions about the Steering Committee or the process of elections, please e-mail us at womensclassicalcommittee [at] gmail.com.

Letter to UKRI regarding suspension of EDI advisory board

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Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser

Chief Executive, UKRI

14 November 2023

Dear Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser,

 As organisations devoted to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion within the field of Classics in the UK, the Women’s Classical Committee and the Council of University Classics Departments EDI Committee write to express our deep concern at the decision of UKRI to suspend its EDI advisory board as of October 30th 2023, following criticism of two of its members by the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. 

This decision is deeply concerning on several grounds: not only the public criticism, and misrepresentation, of two named individuals without regard for due process or the welfare of the academics concerned, but also the wider implications for academic freedom – including the freedom to award research funding and carry out research without political interference, and the right to freedom of expression. Furthermore, the suspension of the entire advisory board based on critique against two of its members is an unjustifiable move and alarmingly calls into question UKRI’s commitment to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion within UK academic research.

We ask you to immediately reinstate the EDI advisory board and reaffirm your commitment to both advancing EDI in UK academia and protecting academic freedom.

Yours,

Women’s Classical Committee UK

AGM 2023: Announcement and CfP

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The Women’s Classical Committee UK is pleased to announce its 2023 Annual General Meeting, ‘Resistance‘, on Friday 5th May 2023. The AGM will be held in a hybrid format: please register for the event on Eventbrite. If you select to attend via Zoom, you will receive details closer to the date.

People of any gender expression or identity who support the WCC UK’s aims are welcome to attend this event. Further details are available here. Around the website you can also find more information on the Women’s Classical Committee UK, including our aims and activities and how to join.

Location

The event will be a hybrid, in person and over Zoom. We will meet at 70 Oxford Street, Manchester Metropolitan University. You may know this as the ‘Cornerhouse’ cinema’, which was a staple of Manchester’s creative and independent arts and arthouse cinema scene in the 1980s-2010s. 

The building is distinctive and just a few minutes’ walk from Manchester Oxford Road station (or a short taxi/tram ride from Manchester Piccadilly Station). 

Schedule

9.30am: Welcome and housekeeping

10am: Business meeting

11am: Coffee break in local coffee shop or at home

11.30am: Keynote panel discussion – Resistance. This will include a group discussion

1pm: Lunch in local eatery or at gine

2pm: Spotlight talks

Adam Aderman (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘Psychology and trauma in the Roman Empire’ 

Benjamin Wilck (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): ‘How to use a definition in scientific proof: Euclid’s model’

Ville Vuolanto (University of Tampere and Manchester Centre for Youth Studies): ‘Martha, a seller of fish in Roman Egypt’

Francesca Fulminante (University of Bristol): ‘Gender stereotypes in antiquity’

3pm: Coffee break in local coffee shop or at home

3.30pm: Get to know the WCC – discussion on further directions

4.30pm: Wrap up and close

Spotlight talks – call for papers

We are reserving time during the day’s schedule for a series of short (five-minute) spotlight talks by delegates. Through this session, we hope to provide a chance for delegates to share projects, experiences or research connected to the WCC UK’s aims. We are particularly interested in talks that address the AGM’s theme of resistance; that highlight new, feminist, intersectional and gender-informed work in Classics, ancient history, classical reception or pedagogy (inside and outside the university sector); and that feature new work by postgraduate students and early career researchers. If you would like more information or to volunteer to give one of these talks, please e-mail Liz Gloyn (totelinlm at cardiff.ac.uk). The deadline for expressing interest was noon on Wednesday 19th April.

Please feel free to pass on this CFP to anyone you think may be interested in participating or saving the date.

Child-friendly policy

The Women’s Classical Committee UK is committed to making our events as inclusive as possible, and recognises that the financial and practical challenges of childcare often impede people from participating in workshops and conferences. Anyone who needs to bring a dependent child or children with them in order to participate in one of our events is usually welcome to do so, but we ask you to inform us of this in advance so that we can take them into account in our event planning and risk assessment. The safety and well-being of any children brought to our events remain at all times the responsibility of the parent or carer. While we do our best to ensure that rest and changing facilities are available for those who may need them, this will depend on the individual venue we are using. Again, please contact us in advance to discuss your needs, and we will do our best to accommodate them.

Open Letter to James Wharton, Chair, Office for Students; Professor Jean-Noël Ezingeard, Vice-Chancellor, University of Roehampton London; Michelle Donelan, Minister of State for Higher and Further Education

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Statement of Solidarity: UK Classics representative bodies deplore attacks on Arts and Humanities across Higher Education institutions

As a united group comprising Chairs and Presidents of the primary representative bodies for Classics professionals in the UK – the Council of University Classical Departments, the Classical Association,  the Institute of Classical Studies, the Women’s Classical Committee UK, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, and the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies – we wish to express our solidarity with all those affected by the deeply worrying programme of closures and redundancies in the Arts and Humanities announced this month across institutions, including Bishop Grosseteste, De Montfort, Dundee, Roehampton, and Wolverhampton.

As institutions working in Classics, we deplore, and are angry at, attacks on Classics at Roehampton. The University’s decision to close Classics comes only months after a celebration of 21 years of Classics at Roehampton – two decades of pioneering research and teaching. The University’s research culture has historically stressed and rewarded the production of high-quality academic publications, and many areas of its School of Humanities and Social Sciences have been strong in this regard, notably Classics, which has led the way in terms of the institutional aims around practical humanities, applied research and innovation. 

Classics at Roehampton has been at the forefront of world-leading research in feminist and disability studies in Classics, and its closure would be damaging to the discipline as a whole. Roehampton has also been exemplary in creating teaching practices for neurodivergent students in Classics, and the loss of this Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion work sets back efforts in this area, which are of incalculable value to all students. Indeed, major publications are forthcoming from Roehampton Classicists around their projects on Classics and autistic children, involving partners such as English Heritage, Keats House, and Pupil Referral Units. Other important, ongoing, collaborations include the Acropolis Museum, Athens, and Heritage of London’s ‘Proud Places’; these are precisely the kinds of projects and partnerships through which Classics at Roehampton has fantastic potential to develop its already highly successful practical and employability training for students. 

Classics at Roehampton, since its inception, has championed employability; as a team it earned the Roehampton Teaching Fellowship for embedding employability into the classical programme, and its research and teaching staff have published around pedagogy and employability in Classics in high quality, peer-reviewed journals and held sessions on student employability at major national and international conferences. This work has blazed a trail, and has directly and positively impacted on the development of comparable initiatives at other institutions. Classics at Roehampton is in fact at the forefront of moving the subject, and by extension the institution, towards practical focused and employability training with potential for exceptional Graduate Outcomes. 

More broadly, the effects that these cuts would have on access to Higher Educationare potentially devastating. Classics and Ancient History in particular are far too often considered the preserve of Russell Group institutions with Classics or Greek & Latin departments, whose entrance criteria and history of systemic under-privileging of first-generation students, BAME students, and state-school-educated students are well-known; Roehampton Classics colleagues have in fact been instrumental in working with colleagues in such departments to make headway in terms of inclusion. Classics at Roehampton bucks this entry trend and is already significantly boosting and broadening access to these subjects: Roehampton’s Classics courses were ranked fifth in the UK in the 2020 Guardian league table, one of only two non-Russell Group universities in the top ten for the subject, with exceptionally high scores for teaching satisfaction (96%), on a par with Durham and St. Andrews. In the most recent NSS survey, Classics received a score of 100%, showing colleagues’ outstanding level of successful teaching. 

Roehampton has great experience in teaching students who have had little previous formal education in Classics, and who have entered university from less privileged backgrounds. Many of them are the first in their family to go to university. Roehampton Classics is a partner in a growing number of non-RG institutions offering this subject to diverse student bodies, the Post92Classics Network, who are collectively at the heart of invigorating the shape of the discipline for future generations in a changing world; indeed Roehampton Classics is very much a leading light in this regard.

As with Arts and Humanities subjects more broadly, Classics encourages and develops appreciation of cultural, religious and linguistic diversity, while broadening students’ horizons to a global range of philosophical and intellectual outlooks that have influenced modern thought; it teaches critical thinking and analysis of complex source material in a range of languages, and requires students to view humanity through a critical lens, with empathy. Classics in such educational contexts has the transformative power to engage students in discussion around a wide range of cultures, religions, ethnicities, genders, sexualities and disabilities, across huge spans of space and time. These are not soft skills, nor are they fringe topics. They are vital skills and perspectives for modern life, and indeed the cornerstone of good training both for social and civic participation, and for employability.

Studying the Arts and Humanities can be transformative for students: over their time at Roehampton, students expand their cultural horizons, and build their employable and creative skills. Further, they become active, empowered citizens. The University’s stated rationale for its decision to close these subjects is in fact at odds with the likely outcome of this action. The University’s objective in terms of sustainability of programmes in growing fields, especially those with emerging markets of future economy and society, is one which Classics is extremely well positioned to achieve and at which to excel. There is potential here for multidisciplinary work to develop and further embed employability into its teaching, as evidenced by recent programme revalidations, particularly in areas of institutional strategic importance such as Roehampton’s BA in Liberal Arts and its MAs in Cultural Heritage and Environmental Studies. 

The loss of any Classics provision will undoubtedly hurt the Classics community as a whole, but the loss of Roehampton in particular would diminish our field, and its potential loss is symptomatic of the damage caused by competition for its own sake, that has been actively encouraged by successive governments. Higher Education departments need time, space, collaboration and long-term team-building to provide an excellent education and student experience. Roehampton Classics has built up such a team and collaborations both national and international, including for example major international AHRC, ERC, DFG, Loeb Foundation and Leverhulme Trust grants. The loss of Classics at Roehampton would leave a massive hole. University management and government higher education policy are together destroying a long-cherished site, like Erysichthon cutting down the grove of Demeter. Such willful destruction of Arts and Humanities in UK Higher Education cannot be allowed to stand. 

Signatories:

CUCD, Council of University Classics Departments, Chair: Prof Helen Lovatt 

WCC UK, Women’s Classical Committee UK, Co-Chairs: Dr April Pudsey & Dr Ulriika Vihervalli, Administrator: Prof Laurence Totelin

ICS, Institute of Classical Studies, Director: Prof Katherine Harloe

SPHS, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, President: Prof Paul Cartledge 

SPRS, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, President: Prof Roy Gibson

CA, Classical Association, Chair of Council: Prof Douglas Cairns

Post92Classics Network, Chair: Dr April Pudsey

A tribute to Elizabeth Warren

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Elizabeth Schafer is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway. Her work focuses on Shakespeare in production; women’s theatre work; Australian drama and theatre; and Caroline playwright Richard Brome. In this guest post, she pays tribute to her secondary school teacher and the influence that she had on Prof. Schafer’s own personal and professional journey. 

Elizabeth Warren, who died late last year, was an extraordinary Woman in Classics, with a particular passion for teaching Greek. From 1969 onwards, Elizabeth taught Greek, Latin, Ancient History and Classical Civilisation in a wide range of educational contexts including Bristol University and the Joint Association of Classical Teachers (JACT) Greek summer courses at Bryanston school, Blandford Forum.

I first met Elizabeth when she joined the staff of King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham, in the mid 1970s. She looked like no other teacher I’d ever met: tall, willowy, with Pre-Raphaelite yellow hair and phenomenal reserves of energy. As my Latin and Greek teacher she helped me navigate Catullus, Virgil, Livy, Homer and Thucydides, but she was also my form teacher for one year, concerned and supportive – often with a twinkle in her eye – as 24 teenagers over-shared their problems. Meanwhile in Latin classes she tactfully steered discussions of Catullus’ poetry, sensitive to her pupils’ different levels of worldly experience, and understanding. She led us through the newly introduced Cambridge Latin course, collapsing with laughter at the howls of protests that erupted when we found out that the irritating Quintus had survived the eruption of Vesuvius, along with boring Grumio, when clearly poor Melissa should have been the one to escape.

Elizabeth’s confidence that girls could achieve what they wanted intellectually was inspirational. Setbacks became challenges, mistakes became learning. She told memorable stories of her solo travel adventures; one came back to me as, around 35 years ago, I was interrailing around Europe and my (very slow) train stopped at Trasimeno. Elizabeth had enlivened Livy’s account of the battle of Lake Trasimeno by telling us how she had once, in her enthusiasm for seeing the site of the battle, jumped off the train at Trasimeno and set off to explore. What she found was very little lake, squadrons of mosquitoes and that there wasn’t another train for days.

My entire class was also convinced that when Elizabeth, aged 20, had married Peter Warren, a research fellow at Corpus Christi, in 1966, they had eloped to Gretna Green. So when Elizabeth brought Peter into school to deliver a sixth form general knowledge lecture on archaeology, there was great interest in seeing this romantic figure. I was entrusted with Peter’s slides, stacked neatly in a carousel. I promptly dropped the lot (I still feel mortified about this). Peter and Elizabeth were totally unfazed and years later when I read Elizabeth’s ‘Memories of Myrtos’ in Aegean Archaeology, I realised why. Archaeologists are used to dealing with stuff scattered all over the floor. What really impressed me, however, as Peter lectured from his unpredictably sequenced slides, illustrating Early Bronze Age Crete and the discovery of the Goddess of Myrtos, was his emphasis on how pivotal Elizabeth had been to the success of the excavations during the two seasons in 1967 and 1968. She managed food and accommodation with no electricity, drains, rubbish collection, or tarmac in 44 degrees centigrade. She also helped carry out study seasons after the excavations had finished, drawing and tracing vases and small objects for subsequent publications.

Elizabeth instilled a passion for the Classics in me, and I continued with Latin as part of my London University English degree, taking an option in the  Classical Background to English Literature which included translating a significant amount of Senenca’s Medea. I lectured on Greek tragedy at La Trobe University and I put Greek drama on the first year core Drama course at Royal Holloway. I love working with the APGRD, and all that Seneca paid off when I was researching Elizabeth Cary and her neo-classical dramaturgy.

Although some of Elizabeth’s achievements were conventional – mayor for five years and deputy mayor for two – Elizabeth’s kind of brilliance, her ability to engage, interest and inspire students was of the sort that can easily be undervalued. When she left KEHS, her then form missed her so much that they hired a bus to go and see her (the catering experience in Myrtos probably came in handy that day). But for me, the most telling tribute to her came from a friend and class mate, Susan Clarke, who was no Classicist and who was ready to drop Latin as soon as she could:

For someone who was really only good at maths and science I remember her lessons being a safe and comfortable place and her making Latin a fun subject.

So vale, Elizabeth, and thank you.

WCC UK at the 2022 Classical Association

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We are delighted that the WCC UK will be well-represented at the upcoming Classical Association conference in Swansea and on-line. As well as two panels, we also intend to run our mentoring scheme for members – stay tuned for more details!

Saturday 9th April 11.30am-1pm – Session 2, Panel 5

#WCCWiki Workshop

This workshop has been organised by Victoria Leonard, Anna Judson, Katie Shields and Kate Cook on behalf of the WCC UK, and represents the continuing activity of the #WCCWiki project.

Following the success of #WCCWiki’s workshop at the FIEC/Classical Association in 2019, the Women’s Classical Committee (UK) will hold a Wikipedia editathon at the CA in 2022 to improve the online representation of classicists who identify as women or non-binary. Classicists are broadly conceived, to include archaeologists, ancient historians, religious studies experts, theorists, and art historians, and others who work on the ancient world.

The workshop seeks to improve the representation of classicists who identify as women or non-binary on Wikipedia, with a particular focus on overlooked Welsh women or non-binary classicists, such as Kathleen Freeman, Käthe Bosse-Griffiths, Jacqui Mulville and Juliette Wood, or those whose research focuses on Wales’s culture and history, such as Catherine Clarke. Of those six women historians who are Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales, an important notability criterion for Wikipedia, five need their pages improving and one lacks a page entirely. The workshop will be an important starting point to addressing this imbalance and promoting the online visibility of Welsh classicists (broadly conceived) who identify as women or non-binary.

The workshop welcomes people of all genders, and it is aimed at those who have never edited Wikipedia before, as well as more experienced contributors. Training will be provided for the first 30 minutes, followed by a supported editing session.

For more information about #WCCWiki, see here, and see #WCCWiki on Twitter.

 

Sunday 10th April 2pm-4pm – Panel 7, Session 7

Politicising Women in the Ancient World

This panel has been organised by Ellie Mackin Roberts, Claire Stocks, Penny Coombe and Thea Lawrence on behalf of the WCC UK and in conjunction with Assemblywomen: The Video-Journal of the WCC UK.

This panel seeks to investigate the ways that women and girls (broadly defined) were politicised in the Greek and Roman worlds. Politicisation, whether imposed internally or externally, is a lens through which we can interrogate the lives of women in a world that is patriarchal and socially constructed. Women’s lives are not simply about the production of new generations of citizens, but they are integral to the political, economic, and social fabric of the ancient past. By looking at several cases from Greece and Rome the papers of this panel will trace the lives of distinct women, and then men and societies that frame them as political.

Elena Duce Pastor (Universidad de Zaragoza) – Peisistratos and the politicisation of marriage

Briana King (University of St Andrews)- “Brides of Disaster”: Homeric Heroines and the Ideology of Male Victory

Laura Fontana (Università degli Studi di Milano) – Politicising matrons’ mourning in the early Roman Republic

Caitlin C. Gillespie (Brandeis University) – Death Becomes Her: Poppaea Sabina’s Political Beauty

A new interpretation of the Ceres and Proserpina myth

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This week’s guest post comes from Hannah Morrish, an actor and screenwriter who has among other things played a number of roles in Shakespeare’s classical plays, about her latest project. 

Ceres is a short film, currently in development, that tells the story of a daughter seeking refuge from her abusive relationship at the home of her estranged mother. It follows their attempt to reconnect, and move forward, before the daughter’s inevitable decision to return to what she knows. But now with earth underneath her fingernails.

The film is a modern retelling of the myth of Ceres and Proserpina, a film about mothers, daughters, regrowth, and the complexities of abuse.

I grew attached to the myth while working on it as an actor at the RSC, at a time when I found myself having frequent conversations with friends and colleagues about their experiences with coercive-controlling relationships.

Ceres uses the roots of the myth to look at the everyday shadows of emotional abuse, the far-reaching effects it has on those close to the victim, and the near-impossibility of extricating oneself from its hold.

Set in modern-day suburban Norfolk, this fifteen-minute film is about the subtle psychological movements that can often only take place in safe female spaces.

This section of Ted Hughes’ translation of the Proserpina myth is the essence of the film:

From this day, Proserpina,

The goddess who shares both kingdoms, divides her year

Between her husband in hell, among spectres,

And her mother on earth, among flowers.

Her nature, too, is divided. One moment

Gloomy as hell’s king, but the next

Bright as the sun’s mass, bursting through clouds.

The Rape of Proserpina, Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes

The film will be directed by Amelia Sears and the parts of Ceres and Proserpina will be played by Juliet Stevenson and myself respectively. Due to the subject matter of the film, we aim to assemble an all female, trans, and non-binary crew for the shoot.

Ceres aims to shed light on the nuances and complexities of emotional abuse, the scars left on women that can’t be seen, and the female connections that help to bring women back to themselves.

We are currently in the fundraising stages of production with one week to go to reach our goal. If this film and the subject matter resonate with you, and you felt like supporting in any way, or indeed sharing with others, you can find more information on Kickstarter.

Assemblywomen Call for Pitches

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We are thrilled to be opening Assemblywomen: the Video Journal of the Women’s Classical Committee (UK) for the first Call for Pitches. Please find further details about the journal and the types of submissions below. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at assemblywomenwcc@gmail.com with any queries you may have.
Assemblywomen is the video journal of the Women’s Classical Committee (UK).The Women’s Classical Committee was founded in 2015 in the United Kingdom with the following aims:
  • Support women* in classics**
  • Promote feminist and gender-informed perspectives in classics
  • Raise the profile of the study of women in antiquity and classical reception
  • Advance equality and diversity in classics
*By ‘women’ we include all those who self-define as women, including (if they wish) those with complex gender identities which include ‘woman’, and those who experience oppression as women.
**By ‘classics’ we understand the study of the ancient Mediterranean world and its reception, including but not limited to scholarship by students and post-holders in academic departments of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology.
Assemblywomen furthers the general aims of the WCC by providing an innovative platform for the open access publication of research on women and gender in the ancient world. We will accept submissions that focus on women, or take feminist or gender-informed approaches to the ancient Mediterranean world, work that undertakes comparatives studies between the Mediterranean world and global cultures or which examines global cultures in relation to the ancient Mediterranean. While we are actively working to create a platform in which we can accept work that does not have a connection with the Mediterranean world, at this point in time we do not have the sufficient breadth of knowledge in order to do this.
There are three types of submissions currently being accepted.
Video Essays: these are our peer reviewed submissions. These may undergo several stages of peer review depending on the submission, including review of the pitch and the final script. Video essays should present original research and be between ten and twenty minutes in length (around 2000-4000 words, depending on speech patterns).
Work in Progress Shorts: these are not peer reviewed, but undergo the same pitch development process with an editor as video essays. They should present original research, but as the name suggests this will likely be ‘work in progress’ and does not need to present firm conclusions. These should be between 5 and 15 minutes in length (1000-3000 words approximately).
Review or Response videos: These videos will vary in length but should be no longer than 15 minutes. These are videos that either:
  1. Review a body of work (more like a review essay than the review of a single book). These may take the form of ‘state of the field’ type essays, and should make some general observations about the place of each of the books/articles/videos within the (sub)discipline more broadly).
  2. Videos that respond to another Assemblywomen video or to an article or book. The original author will usually be given an opportunity to respond also. Please note: these are not places for criticism, but for constructive critique and/or dialogue. These may take the form of “here is another example that illustrates this point”, “this responds well to X methodology”.
Assemblywomen Editors: Ellie Mackin Roberts, Claire Stocks, Thea Lawrence, Penny Coombe

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