Classics News and Events
AI meets antiquity: Warwick ancient historian tests DeepMind’s transformative new model
Co-authoring a paper published in the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal Nature today, Alison Cooley, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick, has played a key verification role in developing the first artificial intelligence (AI) model for contextualising ancient inscriptions.
The Art of Veiled Speech, from Antiquity to Modern Times: 1st May 2025, 4pm
Subtexts are all around us. In conversation, business transactions, politics, literature, philosophy, and even love, the art of expressing more than what is explicitly said allows us to live and move in the world. But rarely do we reflect on this subterranean dimension of communication. Words don't just say what they say, and often we can understand (as listeners) and convey (as speakers) more, or something else entirely, than what is expressly said. Every day, we send out double-meaning messages and decipher those sent to us by others, without even taking notice. Greco-Roman rhetoric provides invaluable theoretical tools for thinking about this phenomenon, notably with the rhetorical notion of “figured speech”. History offers striking examples of the use of innuendo in ancient and modern political contexts. In personal and public life, veiled speech has many functions, including diplomatic, poetic, humorous and polemical. It also raises difficulties, as it carries the risk of misunderstanding. Criteria can therefore be proposed to remedy uncertainty and guarantee interpretation.
Latest Material Musings blog article
In February's Material Musings blog article, Noah Fenwick discusses a mosaic depicting the four seasons and its display in the Yorkshire Museum, in an article titled: 'Perspectives of Perusal: The Yorkshire Museum's Four Seasons Mosaic'.
You can read it here: here
September's Material Musings Blog Article
New for September on the Material Musings blog, Jurriaan Gouw discusses changes to Greek warfare in the 5th-4th centuries BC and the development of the Macedonian phalanx, in an article entitled 'Less is More: The Transition from Hoplite to Phalangite'.
You can read it here.
New article on the Material Musings Blog
July's article on the Material Musings blog is by Chris Parr, who discusses the origins of the Lacus Curtius in the Forum Romanum: 'Reinventing Rome's Forgotten Past - the lost significance of the Lacus Curtius'. You can read it here.