WCC and me – Dr Carol Atack
As part of our tenth anniversary celebrations, we are writing a series of blog posts in which members tell us about their experiences with the WCC UK. Our third interviewee is Dr Carol Atack.
Carol Atack is Director of Studies in Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge. Her research deals with fourth-century BCE classical political thought, with a particular focus on the political and ethical thought of Plato and Xenophon. She was also the first Treasurer of the WCC.
She discusses her involvement with the WCC with Katherine McDonald, current co-chair of the WCC.
KM: How did you first get involved with the WCC?
CA: I met Liz Gloyn at a conference when she had just come back from her PhD at Rutgers. It was the Cambridge Triennial in 2012, which was one of those conferences that brought a lot of people together. But it was evident to us that there were lots of separate islands in the classical world, and communications between them weren’t always perfect. I went away from that event feeling that building community was really important.
Both from my research and my teaching around that time, I also got a sense that feminism itself was going in new directions, and that there were new conversations to be had. Once a group of us started talking and meeting up, it was amazing to meet so many people who were asking similar questions of different material or using the same theoretical approaches or facing similar problems.
The original meeting at Senate house [in 2016], the first kick-off meeting, was so energising, so powerful. And, yes, showed that there was lots of work to be done, and I think started to show some of the challenges that would lie ahead. Fundamentally, I think it demonstrated that there was a real need for something like the WCC to provide a space in which feminist and intersectional approaches were front and centre not marginal.
KM: Are there any other events or particular initiatives that stand out in your memory?
CA: One of the things where I think we were able to make a difference as a small organisation, which was pretty fleet of foot, was at the crisis point that emerged at the Covid shutdown at UK universities [in March 2020]. The WCC had become incredibly aware of the huge precarity of graduate funding in the UK, because it affected a lot of members. It became very clear, the minute that the Covid lockdown took hold, that a lot of partially funded and self-funded graduate students across the humanities were relying on casual work in operations that were now shutting down. So, whether that was library work, or hospitality in coffee shops and bars, or whatever, the work that was paying people’s rent evaporated. And that was a huge crisis.
But we as the WCC had money that was intended to give people small grants to go to conferences, and those conferences were not going to be happening. So there was an opportunity to repurpose events funding to provide living grants for students. And we managed to get that up and running very quickly, very straightforwardly. It was really on a kind of no questions asked basis: if somebody applied from an institutional address, then we could send them money.
That went through several rounds in the end. We were able to get the Classical Association to provide funding, and other organisations stepped in and helped or developed their own similar schemes.
Precarity of student funding remains a huge issue in the humanities, but that moment crystallised it for individuals whose very careful planning and budgeting completely collapsed.
KM: I think that’s something to be very proud of. I think if people weren’t directly involved in that, they might have no idea.
CA: We did it very quietly and we aimed not to be a burden on applicants.
One of the other things I’m proud of is that the WCC has always been an inclusive organisation. We’ve not been a single sex organisation, we have always had men as members and we have also been very clear that we are open to trans members and non-binary members. So whatever people’s sexual or gender identity is, there is a space for them if they are in support of our aims.
I think there have been some moments of profound learning along the way with different projects. There are points where one realises that one’s feminism has been naïve and not appreciated the complexities, for example in the intersection of gender and race or class. But I think the WCC did make a good call on inclusivity early on and that is really important now. And that came from listening to student and early career members. The fundamental principle of being an inclusive organisation was important.
KM: So, I think you’ve touched on some of this as you’ve talked about those initiatives. What has the WCC added to your life as a woman in Classics in particular?
CA: I think it’s given me a lot of comradeship and community. I’ve made friends through it and strengthened relationships with people working in similar areas. I’ve also learnt from people working in very different areas. I still do teach a lot in areas where feminist scholarship is really significant. I’ve had conversations that have helped me to appreciate different approaches, understand topics in different ways, and come to an appreciation of theorists whom I might have found difficult. There’s been a lot of learning as well as community.
I’ve spent most of my time in Classics in big departments where there are lots of people, and where there’s always someone else who is doing your stuff. So it’s maybe not been as extreme for me as it might be for somebody who is in a smaller department. But I really got a lot out of meeting people across the range of the profession, and seeing the kinds of ideas and questions that the early career members were coming up with.
KM: Finally, then, what would you say to someone particularly an early career scholar, or a student, who’s considering joining the WCC for the first time?
CA: It offers you another space in which you can have interesting conversations with people. Some of whom you will agree with, some of whom will challenge your views. Especially if you are working in a part of the subject that is more female-coded then you may find a wider array of useful interlocutors and people who understand the position of the work you’re doing. But obviously the WCC goes a long way beyond people who happen to work on sexuality or gender-related topics. Equally, if you’re working in a part of the subject where women and people concerned with gender equity are thinner on the ground, then it will be useful too. But fundamentally, it’s a good space in which you can come together and engage with people who might be experiencing similar things to you, and who might be looking at similar issues to you.
I think I’d also say that there were some moments of profound learning along the way with different projects and that in a way, some of our experiences in understanding intersectionality and getting that right, we had some painful learnings events that didn’t go well. Real challenges as feminism as a kind of project evolved from one phase to another, there was a lot of a lot of learning there. That was important on a research level, how are you approaching topics? When you talk about women in the ancient world, what women are you talking about? But also in understanding better the multiple forms of exclusion that operate across academia and thinking very hard about Classics as a subject and its history, and the kind of social exclusions, class or race and ethnicity as well as gender.
So I think that’s something that I have felt that, certainly while I was actively involved in the WCC, that was a journey. I think this should be a continuous learning experience.
I do think there are there are points where one realises that one’s feminism has been naive, not appreciating some of the complexities. I do also think that generally speaking because, British feminism has often been based in the labour movement and has shared both its openness and its closedness to other forms of oppression and understanding the intersection of sex and race based challenges and exclusions. I think that in a sense it’s a different journey from organisations in the US and understanding the difference between American and British feminist experience has also been an important thing to learn about.
And sometimes I think that because of all the amazing American scholars, whose work has dominated the field sometimes, the tradition or British social history and feminism haven’t quite made their way into Classics. So I think there’s a lot of learning there.
And also there were some things before WCC got going. An awareness of a need both for community and support to bring together. People who might be studying gender related topics who are kind of flung it around in different departments and might feel a bit marginalised in their own context, but might find it really powerful and useful to get together with people teaching their topics.
But also some of the challenges that still existed for women in the discipline which are kind of historical and complicated. Not always very evident from the outside. It always looks as though there are plenty of women and sometimes it might seem that there are a lot of women in the room and then, you will say hang on. What are they doing? Where are the senior people? Why isn’t this getting support? Why is this question being treated as trivial or marginal rather than being taken seriously?
