BNC Bash and Polo mints
If you’re a regular BNC reader, or even if you’re not, you might have noticed in the “Players” gallery, where the BNC profiles are kept, little red or yellow rings, a bit like Polo mints. These indicate that the profile beneath the tile was a contribution from one of our esteemed collaborators. Over the past couple of years I have been hugely fortunate be able to distribute some departmental funds to undergraduate interns (via STARIS) in exchange for their helping me cover ground in the under-explored field of radical leftist classics. What’s great about this form of collaboration is that each student brings with them their own skills and special research interests, and these can sometimes lead the project in new and unexpected directions. Last year, for example, I learned a lot from working with Anna Coopey, who in her final two years at university became fascinated with all things (modern) Greek and communist. I am delighted to learn that she has now decided to take up a place at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, to continue her explorations into Classical Reception and Greek Studies via a Classics MSt.
This year I have had the pleasure of working with two third year classicists, Maeve Neaven and Kevin Lee, whose interests in classical scholarship, theatre, visual art and Chinese translation of Greek and Roman texts, have again presented fresh lines of inquiry.
The other day, we had a little BNC bash in my office in Swallowgate, St Andrews, to celebrate 2 years of such collaboration. But we also had to toast Christopher Anaforian’s success in being awarded a scholarship to begin 3 years of funded postgraduate study with me on “Red Scare Romanitas“, or US leftist receptions of Roman History. I am sure he will be contributing plenty to the project over the next few years.
I’d only recently returned from a few months’ research in the US — where (among other and more relevant things) I found an invitation to a Hard Times Party in an archive in Chicago. Since it was at the end of Exams week I thought it appropriate to appropriate its use for new and less depressing circumstances. I’ll not go into my archival research trip here, but save that for another post.
