Honours for Mary Beard!

Congratulations to Mary Beard, who has been awarded an OBE for services to Classical Scholarship. Very nice that such things continue to be recognized …. here are Dr Beard’s own thoughts on the matter:

  • OBE? (A Don’s Life)

FWIW, I tried to track down other Classics types who have been similarly honoured and they are few and far between:

  • Michael Grant OBE, CBE
  • Peter Jones MBE
  • Christopher Rowe, OBE
  • Martin Ferguson Smith, OBE

… I’m sure there are more, but not many more. Now I’m wondering if Dr Beard is the first woman Classicist so honoured …  Again, congrats to our favourite Don!!

UPDATE (an hour or so later): Averil Cameron received a DBE in 2006

d.m. Evelyn Byrd Harrison

From the ASCSA:

Renowned art historian Evelyn Byrd (Eve) Harrison died peacefully in her New York City apartment on November 3.

Born in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1920, Eve Harrison received her A.B. from Barnard College in 1941 and her M.A. from Columbia University in 1943, but her graduate studies were interrupted by the Second World War. Until the end of 1945, she served as a Research Analytic Specialist, translating intercepted Japanese messages for the War Department.

In 1949, she joined the staff of the ASCSA’s Athenian Agora Excavations. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia in 1952, and a revised version of her dissertation on the portrait sculpture found in the Agora inaugurated the series The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Her Portrait Sculpture was followed in 1965 by Archaic and Archaistic Sculpture, volume XI of The Athenian Agora.

Professor Harrison began her teaching career in 1951 at the University of Cincinnati, where she taught not only art history but also first-year Greek and Latin. After a second research position with the Agora Excavations between 1953 and 1955, she joined the faculty of the Department of Art History and Archaeology of Columbia University, where she was named full professor in 1967. Four years as Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University followed, and in 1974 she was named Edith Kitzmiller Professor of the History of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University.

She was honored for her contributions to art history and archaeology by election as an Honorary Councilor of the Archaeological Society of Athens, a member of the German Archaeological Institute, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Archaeological Institute of America recognized her lifetime of accomplishment by awarding her its Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement in 1992.

d.m. Glenys Lloyd-Morgan

From the Guardian:

My friend Glenys Lloyd-Morgan, who has died aged 67 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, devoted her career to the appreciation and understanding of Roman archaeology.

She was born in Halifax and brought up in Caernarfonshire; her father was a merchant sea captain and her mother was an entomologist and teacher. Glenys graduated from the archaeology department at Birmingham University in 1970 and acquired fine skills in excavation. Former contemporaries recall how she practised it at Droitwich, Worcestershire.

Under Richard Tomlinson’s supervision, she did a PhD at Birmingham on Roman mirrors, which she studied, along with any potential Celtic-related predecessor artefacts in museums throughout Britain and Ireland. Venturing into the world of Roman Europe, she spent a very happy period at the Museum Kam in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in 1973-74. At the British School at Rome, she met Sir Anthony Blunt, who vividly recalled Glenys’s enthusiasms for Etruscan mirrors and how she had enlivened the school’s New Year’s Eve party by dancing on the table.

In March 1975, Glenys joined the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. There, she catalogued collections and did convincing re-enactments as a Roman lady. Though hoped-for promotion never materialised, she soldiered on until marrying and moving to Rochdale in 1989. She became a finds consultant specialising in Roman artefacts. In 1998, she returned home to north Wales, where it was recognised that she had developed Alzheimer’s. She was taken into a home soon afterwards and the rest of her life was spent in full-time care.

I first met Glenys at the Young Archaeologists’ Conference in Durham early in 1968, where she sang and danced, as was often her habit. Her dress could be unconventional and her eastern dances disarming to those more used to her authoritative archaeological presentations.

Made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in March 1979, she published in mainland Europe, Britain and Ireland. Glenys was a warm-hearted and helpful collaborator who made lasting friendships, retained her youthful sense of fun, loved children and assumed the role of aunt without encouragement. Her scholarly works will endure.

She is survived by her sister, Ceridwen, her brother, Dewi, and three nephews.

Lunch With Robin Lane Fox

Interesting charity effort from the Financial Times:

The Financial Times has sold lunch with Oxford classicist Robin Lane Fox as part of its 2012 Seasonal Appeal.

The online auction for the lunch, which the listing describes as a “unique opportunity,” lasted for ten days and attracted four bidders, who managed to rack up a grand total of £910.

Fox, who is a Fellow in Classics at New College, has written a weekly column for the Financial Times since 1970. He is master of the College’s main garden, as well as eight other College gardens. Known by some for his often controversial views, he infuriated many of his readers by describing this summer’s Olympic opening ceremony as ‘piffle’.

According to Wilfrid Jones, a second year musician at New, Fox is a “well known figure” in the College. “Classicists refer to him as fiercely intelligent,” he said. “My Dad, an obsessive gardener, is always asking if I’ve met him yet so I’m sure the person who won the bid will find him fascinating.”

Speaking to The Oxford Student, Fox himself commented on the charity auction, saying: “The lunch is entirely for charity and is an idea of the FT’s, now three years old. About 25 columnists are auctioned off and all proceeds go to the charity of the year. Obviously readers bid mainly to help a good cause.

“I have no idea what my winner will like to talk about, but gardening will surely be part of it. The charitable aspect is crucial – bids do not exactly set a fee which I can now charge for having College lunch.”

Holly Hewlett, one of Fox’s third-year students, has some words of advice for the winner of the auction: “Robin would HATE to live in Archaic Sparta – we had a tutorial about this!. So I’d advise when the meal is brought over to comment on how preferable the food is to Sparta’s favourite dish, black broth. That should encourage a very animated discussion.

“If the winner has done their research, they will know that Robin adores Alexander the Great. DO NOT insult him, or Pericles, or Solon (two Athenians – do your homework). The winner might call it ‘being provocative’ or ‘controversial’; he’d just call you ‘wrong’.

Hewlett continued: “Essentially, the winner can expect to find a great lunch companion in Robin and I guarantee the conversation to be as fascinating as it is entertaining.”

Alongside the gardening and traditional scholarship for which he is most known, Fox also acted as a consultant to film director Oliver Stone during the making of the 2004 film ‘Alexander’, an epic based on the life of Alexander the Great.

In a behind-the-scenes documentary produced by the BBC, Fox reflects on his experiences on set in Morocco, saying: “I hate the heat, I hate deserts. I love green fields, I like gentle rain, I love my garden, I love my horse and I love my University.”

According to the eBay listing, the charity lunch will be held “at a mutually agreeable time in early 2013.” All proceeds will go to The Global Fund for Children, a US-based non-profit organisation which aims to “transform the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children.”

What Richard Sorabji is Up To

Harry Mount writes in the Telegraph:

Professor Richard Sorabji, of King’s College London, has just completed the Herculean task of editing, translating and overseeing 100 volumes of translations of ancient commentaries on Aristotle, written from 200-600 AD.

Professor Sorabji began the job in 1985 and, over the years, publication has speeded up. In the first two years, no volumes were translated; then the process picked up to two a year; in recent years, nine a year have appeared. Professor Sorabji is now 78 and, over the last 27 years, some of his assistants and fellow translators have died. Two of his assistants, still going strong, are 90 and 92.

The publication of the 100th volume also marks a great triumph of British scholarship. The commentaries were first published in the original Greek and Latin a century ago by the great German classical scholar, Hermann Diels. But any attempt at translation was stopped by the First World War – where many of his assistants were killed.

So, these millions of words lay gathering dust for almost a century until Professor Sorabji came along in 1985 and embarked on this Sisyphean task. It still hasn’t ended – in the New Year, with the help of a new co-editor, Professor Michael Griffin, Professor Sorabji is embarking on another 26 volumes…

… wow … I think every Classicist would love to have a CV that looked something like this: Professor Richard Sorabji