After an absence, the annual WCC ECR/PhD event is back, and we are excited to announce that this year’s theme – broadly – is ‘niches’. ‘Niche’ is a versatile concept, which refers to something that is ‘exclusive’ or ‘narrow’, but also the ‘place or position suited or intended for the character, capabilities, status of a person’; ‘a place of retreat or refuge’; and ‘the actual or potential position of an organism within a particular ecosystem’.
This event is an opportunity to identify, develop and articulate your research ‘niche’ in a variety of contexts. The day will be a combination of plenary roundtables and breakout groups, structured around working on self-presentation and career planning, from your ‘elevator pitch’ to your five-year plan, to approaching career or employment breaks. These informal group discussions will be a chance to explore and develop ideas with fellow ECRs, and participants are encouraged to be involved within these groups in whichever way they are most comfortable. In addition, there will be space to socialise online and form connections with other ECRs and PhD students in a more unstructured way. Attendees will have the opportunity to prepare for the breakout sessions, using planning sheets that will be sent out in advance.
The event will take place on the afternoon of the 14th July 2022. A more detailed schedule will be presented nearer the time. Attendees are welcome to attend the entire event or to drop in for specific section/s.
WCC UK are delighted to be collaborating with the Institute of Classical Studies, the Journal of Hellenic Studies, the Journal of Roman Studies and Britannia on this event about publishing articles in these journals. The workshop will take place on Friday 6th May at 10am-12pm.
This online event, hosted by the ICS and WCC-UK, is intended to demystify the process of submitting an article to some of the leading Classical Studies journals. The Editors of the Journal of Hellenic Studies (Lin Foxhall), Britannia (Will Bowden), and the Journal of Roman Studies (Peter Thonemann) will speak about the kinds of things they are looking for in submissions, the peer review process, and ways of maximising your chances of a successful submission. As well as providing a forum for the editors to speak and answer questions about their journals, the event will also be an opportunity for the Journal Editors to get feedback from the subject community about their journals and their image, and to better understand some of the challenges or barriers that potential contributors feel they face.
The event is targeted particularly at women, non-binary people and people of other marginalised genders, and early career researchers, though others are of course most welcome to attend.
The Women’s Classical Committee UK is pleased to announce its 2022 Annual General Meeting, ‘Activism‘, on Friday 29th April 2022. The AGM will be held via Zoom: please register for the event on Eventbrite and you will be sent details of how to join the meeting.
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.
Schedule
9.15am: Room opens; welcome and housekeeping.
9.30am: Business meeting
10.30am: Coffee break
11am: Keynote round table on meaningful activism.
The panel will include participants from Trans in Classics, London Classicists of Colour, the Network for Working Class Classicists, WCC US, and Asterion.
12pm: Lunch
1pm: Spotlight talks
Efi Spentzou – The Myth and Voice Initiative
Cheryl Morgan – Trans Men in Labour
Kirsty Harrod – Approaching A Theory of Rape Narratives in Greek Tragedy
1.50pm: Screen break
2pm: Break-out discussion rooms on the theme of activism. Each group will be given the same prompts to begin discussion.
3pm: Wrap-up and close
Spotlight talks – call for papers – deadline passed
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 activism; 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 (liz.gloyn at rhul.ac.uk). The deadline for expressing interest was noon on Thursday 14th 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.
The Women’s Classical Committee UK invites proposals for a seminar series aimed at late-stage PhDs and early career academics (self defined), to run online on Tuesdays at 5 pm (GMT) on Zoom throughout October and November 2021.
The theme for this- year’s WCC UK ECR event is ‘Niches’. ‘Niche’ is a versatile and productive concept, which refers to something that is ‘exclusive’ or narrow’; but also the ‘place or position suited or intended for the character, capabilities, status of a person’; ‘a place of retreat or refuge’; and ‘the actual or potential position of an organism within a particular ecosystem’. This seminar series will provide an opportunity for late-stage PhDs and ECRs (self-defined) to develop and celebrate their ‘niche’ – an original research topic, a space, a community – that allows them to be distinctive whilst at the same time fitting into, and influencing, the scholarly ecosystem.
Speakers will have the opportunity to present their work-in-progress research and articulate their ‘“niche’” in the format and length that they prefer (thesis abstract, book proposal overviews, chapter, article) within a friendly, inclusive, and informal environment, where they will receive feedback from fellow postgraduates and ECRs. Discussion will continue on a dedicated Discord channel, which will be moderated by the WCC ECR committee members, and will give speakers and attendees the chance to carry on sharing research ideas and suggestions.
All seminars will be online and papers will be between 20 and 40 minutes; they will commence on 5th October. Those who would like to present a paper should send an anonymised abstract of 300 words by September 3rd to ellie.roberts[a]sas.ac.uk. Acceptances will be sent out by September 17th.
As part of this event, we will have one session dedicated to spotlight talks of roughly 5-10 minutes. We welcome titles and a brief explanation of the material to be presented by interested researchers at master’s level and up to be submitted by September 3rd.
The Women’s Classical Committee UK is pleased to announce its 2021 Annual General Meeting, ‘Care and Caring‘, on Friday 14th May 2021. The AGM will be held via Zoom: please register for the event on Eventbrite and you will be sent details of how to join the meeting.
People of any gender expression or identity who support the WCC’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.
Schedule
9.15am: Room opens; welcome and housekeeping.
9.30am: Business meeting
10.30am: Coffee break
11am: Keynote – Véronique Dasen (University of Fribourg) – “Amulets and Women’s Agency: Heracles and Omphale, a Knotted Life”.
12pm: Lunch
1pm: Spotlight talks
Lenia Kouneni – (Re)Introducing Greek embroidery in Classical Reception studies.
Jennifer Stager – Towards an archaeology of care
Helen Tank – Motherhood as a colonised concept: an ancient perspective
1.50pm: Screen break
2pm: Break-out discussion rooms on the theme of care. Each group will be given the same prompts to begin discussion.
3pm: Wrap-up and close
Spotlight talks – call for papers – now closed
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 care and caring; 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 (liz.gloyn at rhul.ac.uk). The deadline for expressing interest was 5pm on Monday 3rd May.
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.
The Women’s Classical Committee UK is organising an event aimed at mid-career scholars, to be held on Thursday 7th January 2021 on Zoom. We anticipate that the event will run from 10am to 1pm; should national lockdowns or other circumstances intervene, we will liaise with registered attendees to establish the most convenient alternative timing on that day.
The Women’s Classical Committee UK run a mid-career event annually to help colleagues in open-ended employment 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. We anticipate that any discussion will inevitably include consideration of how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all these issues. 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.
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.
The WCC UK is pleased to announce a series of webinars featuring classics editors from book presses and journals, who will demystify the publication process and answer questions live. This is a free pre-lunch hour webinar from 11am to noon (GMT) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (We will confer with speakers about recording their talks). This series has been organised by Manu Dal Borgo and Cressida Ryan, the WCC UK’s mentoring officers, in response to our members’ requests for more support around publishing, and to provide some support which might address concerns around women submitting less work for publication in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Women’s Classical Committee UK is organising an event aimed at mid-career scholars, to be held on Friday 13th September 2019 at the University of Glasgow, from 11am to 4.30pm.
The Women’s Classical Committee UK run a mid-career event annually to help colleagues in open-ended employment 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
In-person registration is free for paid-up members of the WCC UK, who have received instructions on how to access this ticket type over e-mail. If you need the instructions to be resent, please e-mail us at womensclassicalcommittee at gmail.com. For non-members, tickets cost £10. You may register for the event at over at Eventbrite.
The WCC UK is committed to providing friendly and accessible environments for its events, so please do get in touch if you have any access or childcare enquiries. The catering for the event will be fully vegetarian; please indicate any further dietary requirements via the event’s online questionnaire in due course.
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.
Attendees who wish to bring children are welcome to do so; the safety and well-being of children remains their carers’ responsibility at all times.
The next Women’s Classical Committee Wikipedia Project (#WCCWiki) workshop and editathon will be held at the Department of Greek and Latin, UCL, on September 20th 2018. The workshop will be led by Kelly Foster (an experienced Wikipedia trainer), Claire Millington (KCL) and Emma Bridges (ICS).
Wikipedia holds around 200 biographies of classicists, of which, at the start of this initiative, only approximately 10% were dedicated to women. This is the WCC UK’s third event of its kind, taking steps towards redressing the gender imbalance by training and encouraging classicists to edit Wikipedia with this focus.
Places are limited, so registration through Eventbrite is essential. This event is free to attend thanks to the support of the Leventis Fund. Refreshments will be provided. The workshop will take place in G09 (Otto Skutsch Room), Gordon House, UCL. The venue is on the ground floor and access is step free. There is an accessible toilet and nearby rest space.
If you would like to bring a child or children to this event, please contact the organisers (Claire Millington, Emma Bridges and Katharine Shields) as soon as possible to discuss possible arrangements.
The Women’s Classical Committee UK will host a consultation forum on REF 2021 on 18th September from 1pm to 3pm on the Open University campus in Milton Keynes. More details about the room will be provided to registered attendees.
The forum will be led by Maria Wyke, Professor of Latin at UCL and chair of the Classics subpanel, and by subpanel member Katherine Harloe, Associate Professor at the University of Reading. It will consist of a presentation and review of progress already made in the two main panel meetings. This will be followed by time for questions and discussion around concerns from our discipline and how these might be addressed.
This event is free and open to all interested members of the UK classics community, but members of the WCC UK have priority for attending the event in person. We intend to livestream the session via the Google Hangouts platform to enable interested people to attend virtually, and hope to facilitate questions from virtual attendees as well as physical ones. If you are interested in more information, please register as a virtual delegate.
