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Author Archives: virginiacampbell


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Work in Progress Shorts: these are not peer reviewed, but undergo the same pitch development process with an editor as video essays.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

Steering Committee Elections

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Following this year’s election, we are delighted to announce that Dr Cora Beth Fraser and Dr Emma-Jayne Graham have been elected to the Steering Committee of the Women’s Classical Committee UK.

We would like to extend our thanks to all of the excellent nominees, and to the many members of the WCC who participated in the election. During such a turbulent year, it was wonderful to see so many members enthusiastic to participate in the running of the Committee.

Dr. Fraser and Dr. Graham will officially assume their positions in the Steering Committee at the AGM on Friday 14th of May. We look forward to welcoming them and congratulating them in person!

Author Interview: Allison Surtees

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This post is provided by WCC UK member Cheryl Morgan, If you are a member of the WCC UK interested in contributing to the blog on any topic, please contact womensclassicalcommittee@gmail.com.

Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is a new volume of academic essays exploring the ways in which people in ancient Greece and Rome expressed genders beyond what we in the modern, Western world view as the “traditional” gender binary. Born out of a discussion panel on “Gender B(l)ending in Ancient Greek and Roman Culture and Society” held at the annual conference of the Classical Association of Canada in Toronto in 2015, this volume is the work of Classicist Allison Surtees and Jennifer Dyer, a professor of Gender Studies. In conjunction with a review of the book, the following interview with Allison Surtees took place.

Why did you choose to look at gender diversity in the ancient world?
It came out of a panel on gender bending and blending at the annual conference of the Classical Association of Canada, which I helped organise. We got several great papers, but a lot of the submissions seemed to misunderstand the topic. People were submitting papers on subjects like men playing women on stage, which might play with gender but is very different from someone who identifies as, and lives their life as, a woman. There wasn’t much understanding of gender theory. Classicists are often concerned that Classics is not relevant today, but we become relevant by reflecting the society we live in, and that society is one in which gender has become an issue. I feel that the dearth of understanding of gender issues plays out in interpersonal relations and what happens in the classroom. Even cis women have difficulty with the old boys’ club that is Classics. It must be far worse for trans people.

Your colleague, Jennifer Dyer, is a professor of gender studies. How did you come to partner with her, and how did that work out?
Jennifer and I have been friends for many years and had long wanted to work together. I knew that she was just the person I needed on board to make this book work. We had a division of labour over what types of content we addressed in editing. She looked at the gender content, and I did the Classics. It seemed to work well.

A common complaint levelled at trans history is that trans people did not exist prior to the 20th century and the invention of medical gender reassignment techniques. How did you and Jennifer tackle that issue?
People of a variety genders have always existed. Gender is a construct. All that changes is how we make space for different genders in different societies. Western people want to claim the history of the Greeks and Romans, but often they only want to claim the good parts — the arts, the philosophy and so on. To be descendants of the Classical world we have to take on the whole of that society. That includes the slavery and the rape culture, it includes the very different attitudes to sexuality, and it includes the existence of people of a variety of genders.

Trans people often invoke the maxim, “Nothing about us without us”, when dealing with academics. Were any trans people involved in writing the book?
I haven’t met many of the authors so I don’t know a lot about them. I didn’t ask whether anyone was trans. I did ask for pronouns, and everyone gave either “he” or “she”, but that doesn’t mean that none of the contributors was trans.

Almost all of the written history we have from the Classical period was produced by elite men. How does that affect our ability to understand their world?
We took some techniques from theory. In the introduction Jennifer talks about abductive reasoning, which is used a lot in Queer Theory. This allows us to ask what is the most likely explanation for the facts, which is not always that reported. We also need to be aware that much that is taken as fact in Classics has actually been interpreted from the data by old white men. There is a very famous sculpture of the god Hermaphroditus, which adorns our cover. From most angles it looks like a beautiful woman, but the person depicted also has a penis. The traditional interpretation was that the Romans would have found this shocking or laughable, but that’s just us imposing a modern, transphobic reading on the statue. There is no clear Roman source saying that’s how it was seen.

The most obvious example of trans people in Rome is the cult of the goddess, Cybele, whose followers were castrated and lived as women. The cult seems to have been hugely important, with a temple on the Palatine Hill next to the Imperial Palace. Yet their activities were distinctly un-Roman and many ancient writers seem to have despised them. Do we know how ordinary Romans viewed these people?
This question hasn’t fully been addressed, but we need to remember that the Greek and Roman cultures were not the monoliths we have generally portrayed them as. Just like today, there were many different segments of their society, and each segment will have had different attitudes. We only have the view of the elite, but that can’t have been the only view as it doesn’t explain the obvious facts.

The book also covers intersex people, who would have been much more visible in the ancient world because everyone gave birth at home. Roman society seems to have changed a lot over the years in its attitude to such people, from originally wanting them killed at birth to the point where the philosopher, Favorinus, could be a close friend of the Emperor Hadrian.
It does yes. We didn’t have space to address that much. But we don’t see this book as the final word. We hope it will push conversations forward. There are more trans people in Classics now than ever before. I look forward to seeing what work they do.

Are there any other ambitions you have for the book?
We want the book to be read by undergraduates and non-Classicists as well as academic professionals. We have tried to make it as accessible as possible. In particular, we want to push back against the way that Classics is used by white supremacists and the alt-right to justify their politics. Classics should be for everyone.

 

CUCD Equality and Diversity in Classics Report 2020

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We are pleased to share the announcement that the CUCD has released their Equality and Diversity in Classics Report. The report is the final output of the CUCD Equality and Diversity Project, 2019-20. The report can be found here. The report presents and analyses the results of two surveys that were disseminated in 2019. The Experience Survey aimed to take a snapshot of the field of classics and explored experiences of discrimination and barriers to progression among postgraduate and staff experiences. The Departmental Contexts Survey examined departmental policies and contexts, with input from Heads of Department and Equality Officers. A summary of the data used to compile the report can be found here. The report complements the WCC’s own survey and report, Women in Classics in the UK: Numbers and Issues (2016).

The report will be formally launched on the 25th of November 2020 in an event hosted by the ICS from 1-3:15 pm.

The launch event includes brief presentations by the co-authors of the report, Helen Lovatt and Victoria Leonard.

A panel of experts will present their own responses to the report, followed by discussion, and finally a Q and A session.

Presentations include:

Mathura Umachandran: Who’s Task is Equality?
Lucy Grig: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? A Perspective from a Head of Department
Victoria Leonard: Changing Equality In Classics? A Five-Year Perspective From The Data
Helen Lovatt: What We Did and What We Need to Do: the CUCD Perspective
Katherine Harloe: Spotting Patterns; Recognising Problems
Sukanya Raisharma: TBC

If you are interested in attending the launch event, please register here.

Open Letter to the Vice-Chancellor and Provost of the University of Roehampton

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The University of Roehampton is faced with losing large numbers of posts in the Arts and Humanities as a result of university cuts. At the same time, other areas of the university are expanding, placing an unequal burden on budget savings in one area of teaching and research, including Classics. What follows is the letter sent on behalf of the WCC UK to the vice-chancellor and provost of the university. We encourage any members of the WCC UK or our community to send their own letters of support for the staff and students facing losing their jobs and degree programmes.

Dear Professors Ezingeard and Gough-Yates,

We are writing on behalf of the Women’s Classical Committee UK to express the very serious concern of our members at the news of the University of Roehampton’s plans to make significant funding and staffing cuts to Arts and Humanities. As a group working within the field of Classical Studies in the UK, weare dismayed at the effects these cuts will have on Classics at Roehampton, as well as across Arts and Humanities more broadly. Classics is a particularly successful subject at the university: the Roehampton Classics courses were ranked fifth in the UK in the Guardian league table 2020, 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 teaching and its effectiveness.

The Arts and Humanities are not disposable, not ‘soft’ subjects or things that are just ‘nice to have’: they remain a crucial part of Higher Education in the UK. Theirstudy teaches written and verbal communication and skills of creative and critical thinking that cannot be automated but are essential across the workforce; they empower citizens; contribute to sustaining a vibrant culture and economy; give students cultural capital and rounded personal lives; and ultimately help to create a cohesive society. Their fully funded inclusion on the curriculum at Roehampton is made essential by the traditional make-up of the student body at the university. Many Roehampton students are from working-class backgrounds; and a large proportion are from Black and other ethnic minority backgrounds. They are regularly the first in their families to go to university. Shrinking of the Arts and Humanities at Roehampton will reduce access for these communities and contribute to the exclusion of traditionally under-represented members of society from participating in the arts and creativeindustries.

Cuts of this magnitude will have a devastating effect on both the student experience and the quality of the research of whoever remains, and seriously harm planned innovation, such as new programmes in development, including a new MA in Environmental Humanities, due to launch next year. They will also harm the reputation of the University, demonstrating that it does not hold its own Arts and Humanities departments in high enough regard to provide adequate funding and support to them. As an organisation focusing on women inClassical Studies, we have been impressed by the equality of gender representation among Classics and Ancient History staff, and fear that these cutsrun the risk of damaging this balance, thus negatively affecting the University’s ability to claim the Athena Swan Bronze Award.

We understand that the present global situation is exceptional and puts Higher Education Institutions in a volatile position, and that management have a responsibility to the whole university community. Nevertheless, we strongly urgeyou to reconsider your plans and continue to support your excellent Arts and Humanities colleagues in their highly impressive and successful work. We look forward to hearing from you on this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Laurence Totelin and April Pudsey
WCC UK Co-Chairs
On behalf of the members of the WCC UK

WCC ECR Research Dissemination Workshop: Notes

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On Friday, the 10th of July 2020, the WCC UK hosted its annual early career research event, focusing on the dissemination of research. As the event was held entirely online, the organisers have provided notes for the various sessions as well as links for further resources on the topics discussed.

Live tweets from the event can be found at #WCCECR.

There are two playlists of videos for the event that can be found on the WCC UK’s YouTube channel: presentations and spotlight talks.

Publishing journal articles Q&A (Carol Atack)

Useful links:
List of Classics journals with submission instructions
Not-for-profit open-access repository site for sharing publications
ORCID sign up for a digital ID to identify you as an author across different platforms
Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society: distributes payments to members when UK-published articles are copied or books are borrowed from public libraries
WCC short-term mentoring scheme may be a useful resource to consult a mentor about specific issues relating to publishing an article

Key discussion points:

  • things to consider in turning a (section of a) PhD chapter or a conference presentation in a journal article
    • length!
    • tone (e.g. if a very conversational oral presentation)
    • specificity – e.g. a very broad lit review may be needed for a thesis chapter, should be more closely tied to precise topic of article. (If the lit review is outside of your specialist area, consult colleagues from that area for help!)
    • number of footnotes – long discursive notes that are necessary in a thesis can often be cut from articles
  • it’s fine to publish articles from your PhD before submission, though do consider how these may overlap with an eventual book (cf. monograph publishing below)
  • articles sent back for ‘revise and resubmit’ can still get published! NB these can take two routes – can be sent back to the same reviewers or to a different set; the latter case is going to be more like an initial submission than the former
  • if you receive a really unfair review, engage with the editor on it; taking it to an advisor or mentor to see how to proceed/respond is also a good idea
  • for multilingual authors, it’s a good idea to publish in a mixture of English and other language(s)

Publishing trade monographs talk (Issy Wilkinson)

Useful links:
Society of Authors: support and advice for authors

Key discussion points:

  • trade publishing aims at a general audience, with books marketed widely
  • two main kinds of relevant trade publication: narrative non-fiction (60-90,000 words) and illustrated non-fiction (25-50,000 words; more pictures!)
  • ways to find a publisher: go bookshopping! talk to independent booksellers, talk to colleagues
  • should you have an agent? they advocate/negotiate for you, but getting one without a completed MS is tricky; you’ll need to self-represent to get a book deal before MS completion. Small publishers are more likely to accept MSS without agents.
  • things editors will consider when commissioning a trade book: why publish this now? who is the audience? what are the competitor publications?
  • you can approach editors directly; they may also commission books based on previous publications, journalism, public events, social media…keep profiles up-to-date!
  • book proposal should be succinct and direct, specifying audience (age, what shops they visit, what else they read…). check out what books are bestsellers in your area. tone should be similar to that of a cover blurb. and personalise your emails to the editor you’re writing to!
  • remember in trade publishing deadlines are REAL 

Publishing trade and academic monographs Q&A (Issy Wilkinson and Michael Sharp)

Trade-specific points

  • IW tries to find new/less-published authors – maybe half of her authors are ECRs; specialism is more important than experience
  • market for ebooks is increasing for narrative non-fiction, but not for illustrated, and in general hard-copy sales are not being pushed out by ebooks
  • point at which contracts are issued varies – may be based on just an initial proposal, or on a complete MS
  • deadlines are firmer and turnarounds quicker in trade publishing than academic: a couple of years is really the maximum time between agreement and publication. other commitments can be factored in when making agreement, but timing is just less flexible
  • the key difference is that trade books are not new research, which is what takes most of the time for academic publications
  • co-authorship can lighten the workload or lead to its own issues; it’s more common to have multiple contributors to a volume with a single main editor

Academic-specific points

  • for the ‘thesis book’ – it’s worth embargoing your thesis if it’s deposited in an online repository as some presses will not publish it if it’s freely available (not CUP – MS regards the book as sufficiently different from the thesis that it doesn’t matter – you will need to revise it for publication anyway!)
  • for the ‘second book’, most people approach a publisher with an idea, perhaps with some related articles published. a good first book plus strong proposal including sample chapters can lead to a provisional contract before the MS is completed
  • NB contracts for first-time authors often specify that publisher is to be given first refusal on the author’s second book
  • publishers may issue a ‘letter of interest’ if needed for e.g. applications – this will come after some input from readers, enough for editor to know they are interested, but is not a commitment to publish as a contract is
  • generally a contract is only issued after a full MS is submitted (though no need to have fully sorted out e.g. conforming to house style at this stage)
  • authors who are not in academic jobs are just as welcome to publish as those who are; time-frames can be flexible (deadline specified in agreement can be up to 4-5 years away; to allow for longer timeframe it’s possible to wait until later in writing process before making agreement)
  • co-authorship is the exception, not the norm, for monographs (as opposed to edited volumes)

General

  • you can include work previously published e.g. as articles or book chapters – rule of thumb is something like up to 1/3 (academic) or half (trade) of the complete work.
  • Agreements with article/chapter publishers should mean you are able to re-use your own content in the book, though you may need to notify them
  • pros/cons of trade vs academic publishing: trade books have larger reach, potential greater impact; but may be less of a contribution to ECR academic CV

Research plans for job and funding applications Q&A (Naoise Mac Sweeney and James Clackson)

Key discussion points

  • Start looking for postdoc jobs/funding early – you never know when e.g. the perfect postdoc will come up – but final year of PhD is when to start seriously applying
  • If you know of people who are applying for/have got project funding in your area, by all means get in touch to ask about opportunities even if formal job ads not yet published
  • post-PhD projects should be connected to your PhD but new — e.g. expand outwards to a bigger topic; transfer the question to a different dataset/context; comparative analysis
  • When writing research plans, show drafts to as many people as possible — including non-specialists (especially for funding applications and JRFs); ask to see previous successful (or unsuccessful!) applications
  • You can use current trends/debates to make your research topical for an interdisciplinary committee – but remember research doesn’t always need to be topical, just to matter to your particular discipline
  • Ditto, if you can show an impact on adjacent fields of research, do – but a single project doesn’t need to do everything: sell it on its own strengths
  • When writing for people outside your own discipline, tell them what the current debate is, what your contribution to this is, why it matters
  • Job applications imply an applicant needs to do everything – you can’t tell from them what criteria are actually key for a particular department’s. Look at department members/activities, esp those on interview panel – e.g. for impact, look at previous REF submissions (environment statement, impact case-studies) – different departments will have different focuses on e.g. media work vs local community engagement
  • When choosing an institution for a funding application, the most important thing is the benefit to your own research, rather than strategy about e.g. how many previous grants they’ve won
  • As well as individual research, research plans can certainly include things like organising a conference/journal special issue/edited volume. Make sure these include a proper research output from you – ie a paper and/or intro/conclusion with substantial research content, not just a summary of contents
  • Value of (published or proposed) trade publications in applications varies – for a job it can be a plus, showing wider impact/knowledge transmission/communication with wider audience; less so for a research grant. More traditional institutions can still see trade books as less ‘serious’ than academic.
  • Ditto other forms of wider communication like blogging, running workshops, etc – the system has not yet figured out how to properly value things like this. Academic publications should still be the priority. NB that people interviewing you will look at your social media if you have it.
  • Differences between applications for jobs and funding:
    • for a job, it’s about the whole person, not just the research project; but can be harder to sell interdisciplinary work in a job app than a funding proposal
    • Proposing to spend time on turning PhD thesis into a book is fine in a job application, not for a funding application – these expect to fund new research

BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers Q&A (John Gallagher)

  • Application: pitch for a radio show plus review of recent cultural item
  • Pitch for show should be based on your research but potentially broadened in scope (e.g. JG’s was about phrasebooks – his area of research – but expanded beyond early modern period)
  • Review: good idea to review something unrelated to your research – showing breadth/range (e.g. JG reviewed a recent novel). Subject doesn’t have to be “highbrow”!
  • Anyone at an AHRC-funded institution (including e.g. cultural heritage orgs as well as unis) is eligible to apply; no previous media experience required but having some definitely isn’t a disqualifier
  • 60-person shortlist -> workshops in groups of 20 with BBC producers and AHRC people; talks, workshopping and delivering pitches and answering questions on them (e.g. unpicking jargon, backing up big claims, giving examples – reacting on your feet is what’s important), simulated radio show discussion
  • Just because there’s already a high-profile person who’s often in the media talking about your area doesn’t mean you can’t apply/won’t be successful – aim in first instance is to create interesting programmes rather than finding new ‘go-to’ people in particular topics
  • Benefits of programme – as well as the obvious media exposure, there are benefits in expanding presentation skills (helpful for teaching!), answering the ‘so what’ questions about research, and definite CV benefits
  • Question about support provided for dealing with potential harassment arising from media exposure, especially as e.g. a woman or person of colour. JG has experienced a lot of discussion around potentially sensitive subjects, but not so much about protection of individuals; senses that producers are increasingly aware of this as an issue but the support mechanisms are not necessarily very strong. But NB a social media presence is not required either for application or if successful.

Knowledge exchange projects (Emma Cole)

Useful Links:
South West Creative Technology Network mailing list
Pervasive Media Studios newsletter
Bristol and Bath creative R&D
Creative Clusters Programme

Key discussion points:

  • Possible starting-points: local meet-ups, mailing lists/networking events for organisations you might want to collaborate with
  • When setting up a collaboration, be clear on IP ownership, and who has control over which elements of the project — best to have elements where the timeline is under your own control in case of external delays affecting your research/publications from project.
    • Consult uni legal teams for advice on contracts, NDAs, etc. Note that universities will often want to control IP.
  • Start small and build up – e.g. having an existing collaboration (with seed money, or even unfunded) can help gain larger-scale funding to scale up the project
  • Ditto in job applications – existing projects with room for growth and potential to attract further funding are attractive
  • Institutional backing can help – e.g. some funding opportunities are only available to those with (permanent) uni jobs – but there’s also a freedom to explore possibilities when not on a permanent/research contract
  • consider that you may wish to borrow research methods from other disciplines when involved in KE but that you’ll have to explain clearly how you’ve adapted them
  • there could be all kinds of ways you could participate in KE – let your imagination run wild!

Other useful resources:
Classicists’ PDF Society (Discord)

WCC UK Call for Blog Posts

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The Women’s Classical Committee (UK) is pleased to issue an open-ended call for members to contribute to the WCC UK blog. This aim is two-fold: to increase the use and readership of the blog, and to promote the work of our membership.

We welcome submissions on a range of topics including (but not limited to):

  • your research
  • pedagogy
  • current topics in academia / schools / other fields related to Classics, Ancient History, and Archaeology broadly defined
  • issues relevant to the aims of the WCC UK
  • personal stories or experiences
  • book reviews
  • public engagement or outreach activities
  • any other topic you wish to write about

Blog posts should be in a range of 800-1500 words. Light touch editing may be carried out by members of the social media team. Posts can be anonymised. If you are interested in contributing to the blog on any topic, please contact womensclassicalcommittee@gmail.com with a brief description of the topic you wish to write about and a time frame for when you expect to complete the post.

#WCCWiki Colloquium 2020

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The first #WCCWiki Colloquium will be held on 29 July 2020 from 10.00am to 3.15pm. #WCCWiki is a crowd-sourced initiative that aims to increase the representation of women classicists (very broadly conceived) on Wikipedia. Since we began in 2016, we have edited or created more than 450 Wikipedia pages for women classicists. For more information, please visit our Project Page.

The event is an opportunity to bring the #WCCWiki community together, and to reach out to those interested in learning more about women classicists online and why that’s important. We will share experiences and resources for editing, and develop future objectives for #WCCWiki.

The colloquium will be hosted online by the Institute of Classical Studies. This event is free and open to all but places are limited and booking is essential. Booking information can be found on the ICS website.

#WCCWiki Colloquium Schedule
Emma Bridges: moderator
Adam Parker: moderator
Valerie James: technical assistance on Zoom

10-10.15: Introduction, Victoria Leonard: what is #WCCWiki, why is it important, how you can get involved (15 minutes)
10.15-10.25: Emma Bridges, technical introduction to the event (10 minutes)
10.25-10.30: Talk 1, Richard Nevell: data and statistics (5 minutes)
10.30-10.45: Discussion (15 minutes)
10.45-10.50: BREAK (5 minutes)
10.50-11.05: Talk 2, Kelly Foster: Race and Wikipedia (15 minutes)
11.05-11.25: Discussion (20 mins)
11.25-11.40: Break (15 minutes)
11.40-12.15 Discussion: technical Wikipedia editing how-to and skills share – bring your queries! Ie., how do I make an infobox? How do I get images online?
12.15-1.15: LUNCH
1.15-1.25: Talk 3, Adam Parker: Notability (10 minutes)
1.25-1.35: Talk 4, Kate Cook: Achieving good article status (10 minutes)
1.45-2.05: Discussion (20 mins)
2.05-2.10: Break (5 minutes)
2.10.2.25: Talk 5, Miller Power: LGBTQ+ (15 minutes)
2.25-2.45: Discussion (20 minutes)
2.45-2.50: Break (5 minutes)
2.50-3.10: Final discussion: round-up and future directions (20 mins)

Organised by Richard Nevell, Emma Bridges, Katie Shields, Anna Judson, Victoria Leonard, Kate Cook, and Adam Parker

WCC UK emergency grants Round 2 June 2020

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Following the first round of emergency grants offered in April 2020, the Women’s Classical Committee UK can offer a further round of emergency grants, thanks to support from our members and from the Classical Association. In this round we can offer emergency grants of up to £100 per applicant to UK-based applicants; we hope to make an initial distribution at the end of June 2020.

We encourage applications from early-career researchers and unfunded or partially funded graduate students in financial need due to the pandemic crisis and lock-down, including those whose fixed-term employment or funding expires at the end of this academic year. We also encourage any classicist in need to apply, including those working in classics-related creative arts and performance. This scheme is available to all classicists regardless of gender or affiliation with the WCC UK.

We are also keen to support unfunded and unsalaried student applicants who have lost paid work (both academic and non-academic) on which they relied for living expenses as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, especially those who are falling through gaps in government schemes or who have not been given emergency funding by their institutions.

To apply for this funding, please email carolatack@gmail.com by 30 June 2020 with the following information:

  • Your current course, including year (eg 2nd year doctoral student in Classical Archaeology), or job title (eg Teaching Fellow).
  • Your current or most recent institutional affiliation.
  • Brief details of your situation: please tell us something about your situation along the following lines (these notes are not exhaustive):
    – ‘had departmental funding for MA fees, self-funding for living expenses, no income now from zero-hours coffee shop job at xxx, applied for universal credit/government support programme xxx’;
    – ‘in final unfunded year of PhD and now no hourly-paid teaching work for final term of year’;
    – ‘recent PhD graduate; working with theatre company but now all performances cancelled, laid off from paid work and hourly-paid teaching cancelled’.
  • If you have applied for or received emergency funding from other schemes, or from your department or institution, please let us know; this will not affect your application for this scheme, but will help us gain a better understanding of the varying support offered by different institutions.
  • If you are able to email from your institutional email account (ie. @xxx.ac.uk address), please do so, though if this is likely to expire soon please include your personal email address too.

Applications will be reviewed quickly, by a small team of WCC UK committee members; all details will be treated as confidential. Payments will be made by bank transfer to UK bank accounts. Applicants who have received funding in the previous WCC UK round, as well as from schemes offered by other organisations including New Classicists and Sportula Europe, are welcome to apply to this round of WCC UK grants as well.

WCC UK ECR Research Dissemination Workshop

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The Women’s Classical Committee UK is pleased to announce the full programme for its online ECR event on Friday 10 July. Designed for early-career and postgraduate researchers in Classics, Archaeology, Ancient History, and other fields relating to the study of the ancient Mediterranean world and its reception, the aim of this online workshop is to provide
information and opportunities for discussion on both traditional and non-traditional forms of reaching out with research.

The majority of presentations will be pre-recorded, and will be available to watch on the WCC UK’s YouTube channel from a week in advance of the live event; they can also be watched on the day during the breaks between live sessions. Two other presentations will be given live, immediately before their respective Q&A sessions, all of which will take place over Zoom. Live events will not be recorded but a written summary of the information and
resources shared will be published after the event.

We also plan to offer 5-minute prerecorded “spotlight” talks, in order to provide a chance for delegates to share projects, experiences or research connected to the WCC UK’s aims. We would especially like to hear from delegates who have been involved in innovative or unusual activities related to outreach, widening participation, knowledge exchange or public
engagement. If you would like more information or to volunteer to give one of these talks, please email Rhiannon Easterbrook (rhiannon.easterbrook@sas.ac.uk). The deadline for expressing interest is 5pm on Monday 22 June, and videos should be submitted by 5pm on Tuesday 30 June.

People of any gender expression or identity who support the WCC’s aims are welcome to attend this event; registration is free for both WCC members and non-members (if the event reaches capacity, WCC members will be given priority). The link for registration is here.

Registration closes at 12 noon on Thursday 9 July.

Schedule:

Pre-recorded presentations
Publishing journal articles – Carol Atack
Publishing academic monographs – Michael Sharp
Research plans for job/funding applications – James Clackson
BBC New Generation Thinkers’ programme – John Gallagher
Knowledge exchange projects – Emma Cole
Research plans for job/funding applications – Naoise MacSweeney

Live sessions, Friday 10 July (all times are UK = GMT+1)
10.00-10.15 – welcome remarks
10.15-10.45 – Q&A on journal articles – Carol Atack
10.45.11-15 – break 
11.15-11.30 – live presentation on trade publishing – Issy Wilkinson
11.30-12.15 – Q&A on publishing (academic and trade) – Michael Sharp & Issy Wilkinson 
12.15-1.30 – break
1.30-2.15 – Q&A on research plans in job/funding applications – James Clackson & Naoise MacSweeney 
2.15-2.30 – break
2.30-3.15 – breakout groups to discuss participants’ research plans
3.15-4.15 – break
4.15-4.45 – Q&A on the New Generation Thinkers programme – John Gallagher
4.45-5.15 – Q&A on knowledge exchange projects – Emma Cole 
5.15-5.30 – Closing remarks