Welcome to the Guildford Classical Association. This site is intended to publicise forthcoming events and deliver other news to our Classicist friends. You can also contact the association using the “Contact” page above.
Anyone is welcome to attend our public events, and to join the association for our newsletters, network and free entry to all our events.
Dear GCA Members and friends,
We hope that you are having a lovely start to the Summer Term and that you are enjoying this abundance of bank holidays in May.We have some exciting events coming up this term for the GCA, as well as changes afoot for next year.
Review of the Spring Term
GCSE Conference: Last term we were treated to two very engaging talks, targeted at GCSE students, from Dr Regine May on Apuleius’ sagae Thessalae and from Professor Matthew Leigh on Virgil’s Aeneid VI. The videos of these talks are still available on our private YouTube channel via the links below, so do keep them in mind for possible revision purposes over the coming weeks.
Dr Regine May – Apuleius sagae Thessalae
Professor Matthew Leigh – Virgil Aeneid VI
Reading Competition: We were also delighted to hear performances from so many students taking part in the annual Latin and Greek Reading Competition, hosted at St. Catherine’s School. Thank you to everyone involved for a wonderful afternoon celebrating our beautiful classical languages.
Events for the Summer Term
May Talk: Next week we are looking forward to our May Talk, where Professor Eleanor Dickey will be exploring the fascinating topic of ‘The Influence of Latin on Greek’. The talk will be hosted by Sir William Perkins’s School, Chertsey KT16 9BN next Tuesday 9th May at 6.00 for 6.30pm. We hope to see some of you there to learn more about the interaction between languages in the ancient world.
Summer Party and AGM: As last year, we will be celebrating the end of the academic year with a GCA Summer Party on Thursday 29th June. This will involve a brief AGM to begin with, followed by a chance to catch up with other members with some food, drinks and some optional games. This will be based in Guildford, with the precise venue and timings to be confirmed around half term.
Looking ahead to next year
As mentioned in our email earlier this week, we have two exciting opportunities for you to get involved in helping your GCA do the best job we can for you, the community and students at our local schools over the years to come.
Call for new committee members
At the end of this term we will be saying goodbye to several longstanding members of the GCA committee, who are stepping down after many years of incredible service to Classics in the Guildford community.
We are therefore looking for new committee members to join us and help shape the future of the GCA. Being part of the committee is a great way to get involved with Classics throughout the local area and foster participation and enjoyment in our wonderful subjects. It doesn’t do your CV any harm either! If you are interested in finding out more about being a committee member, please contact Rebecca Markham-Jones rhmj@charterhouse.org.uk and we’d be happy to explain what is involved.
We hope you have a wonderful term ahead and wish you and your families a fantastic summer as we head into these warmer months. As always, please do get in touch if you have any questions or would like to know more about any events.
Kind regards,
Sophie Greenoakes
GCA Committee Member
The GCA has created a Book Bank accessible to members where you can record surplus books and resources and see what other members are offering. To access the bank, click here.
The Book Bank is available to use now so please feel free to start adding entries to the spreadsheet. If any of the books there are of interest to you, please get in contact with the donor using the contact details on the spreadsheet.
This year we were again welcomed by St.Catherine’s School, Bramley, for this popular annual event. In total nine schools took part, one of them for the very first time, and the competition was as fierce as ever. Tea was provided during a short break, after which the worthy winners were invited to read again for our entertainment before the prize-giving.
Our skilled and experienced judges gave us their time and shared valuable hints with the candidates about the finer points of pronunciation and expression: Our thanks this year go to Sarah Parnaby, Jeremy Antrich, Stephen Anderson and to Llewelyn Morgan who, as our President, gave an appreciative summing-up of the whole afternoon and shook hands with every one of the award-winners.
We are grateful to St. Catherine’s for hosting the event for us once again and facilitating its smooth running.
It was exciting to hold our Opening Party this year as a live event again. We wondered how many older members would be ready to venture out to a live event again and how many students to expect since they have been brought up on virtual events. We need not have been concerned as there was a good audience.
We were delighted to welcome Prof. Caroline Vout (Christ’s College, Cambridge) who gave a fascinating and far-ranging talk on What is Classical Art? looking not just at what we see as Classical art today but at how the sculptures of Classical times have been received and repurposed throughout the ages by various individuals, organisations and political regimes.
The audience made full use of the Q&A session to explore aspects of the subject further after the talk. Given the time-constraints and the breadth of the topic, her talk was necessarily relatively brief, so we were pleased to hear about Prof. Vout’s books on the subject, which give the option of a more detailed examination to those with a particular interest in the topic.
We are grateful, as ever, to the Royal Grammar School for allowing us to use their beautiful old hall and for providing the refreshments and to Mr Ed Bush, Head of Classics there, for making all the internal arrangements.
Dear Members and Colleagues,
I hope that this finds you all well and rested after an enjoyable summer!
On behalf of the GCA Committee, I am delighted to include an overview of this year’s rich array of events. Happily, many of these are once again able to take place in person, allowing for a welcome revival of the social side of the GCA.
At our Opening Party on Thursday 22nd September, we are very excited to be welcoming Professor Caroline Vout of Christ’s College, Cambridge, who will be speaking on ‘What is Classical art?’ This live event will take place at RGS, Guildford, GU1 3BB, at 7:30 PM for 8 PM.
We are delighted to report that Charterhouse Classics Department have extended a very kind invitation to GCA members and their students to attend a talk on Thursday 29th September at 5 PM. Gillian Hovell, ‘the Muddy Archaeologist’, will be speaking about ‘Pompeii Rediscovered’ at Charterhouse School, Godalming, GU7 2DX at 5 PM, Thursday 29th September. This should be a fantastic opportunity for newcomers to the classical world and seasoned veterans of the CLC alike to learn more about the most famous provincial town in the Roman world.
This term’s Teach Meet will take place via Zoom on Tuesday 4th October, 6 – 7 PM, with a topic (by popular demand) of ‘Approaches to teaching literature texts at GCSE and A Level.’
Our Schools Talk, which is planned with younger students particularly in mind (although all are very welcome!), will take place on Tuesday 11th October, 4:30 PM for 5 PM, at GHS, Guildford, GU1 1SJ. Dr Shelley Hales, University of Bristol, will offer a fascinating talk on ‘Experiencing the city of Rome: the sights, sounds, and smells of the ancient world’s greatest city.’
The November Talk this year will take place at St Catherine’s School, Bramley, GU5 0DF, on Thursday 10th November. Professor Armand D’Angour of Jesus College, Oxford, will be speaking on ‘Catullus and Lesbia’, at 6 PM for 6:30 PM. This talk should be of interest not only to Sixth Form students studying Catullus for A Level, but to anyone with an interest in Roman poetry, ancient attitudes to relationships and gender, or even just a romantic streak!
We here at the GCA are very pleased to be able to announce the much-anticipated return of the Sixth Form Pizza Night, which will take place on Wednesday 16th November, 5:00 – 6:30 PM, at Guildford High School, Guildford, GU1 1SJ.
The 2022 Certamen will be taking place on Tuesday 22nd November, at 2:15 PM, providing students with an opportunity to test their mettle in an exciting classically-themed quiz competition. The venue will be RGS, Guildford, GU1 3BB.
Looking forward to the Spring Term 2023, our 2023 GCSE Conference will be held virtually, in the weeks commencing 23rd and 30th January, and will run as two separate webinars in consecutive weeks. Professor Matthew Leigh, St Anne’s College, Oxford, will be speaking on the Virgil verse set-text (Aeneid 6), and Dr Regine May, University of Leeds, will be speaking on the Apuleius sagae Thessalae prose set-text.
By October Half Term, the details and entry forms will be sent out for our Latin and Greek Reading Competition, which is scheduled for Thursday 9th March (TBC) at St Catherine’s School, Bramley, GU5 0DF. Our May Talk is scheduled for Tuesday 9th May, and will feature Prof Eleanor Dickey, University of Reading, speaking on ‘The Influence of Latin on Greek.’ The venue for this, and the AGM, will be confirmed and circulated nearer the time.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the GCA Bursary scheme, which provides financial support for students to attend one of the various classical summer schools available in the UK; details will be sent out later this term.
Remember to check our website (https://guildfordca.wordpress.com/) and our Twitter account (@GCAClassics) for our programme and events and regular updates.
On behalf of all of us here at the Guildford Classical Association, I hope that you and your students are able to join us for this exciting array of events, and wish you all a happy and productive year.
Yours sincerely,
Guy Brindley
GCA Committee Member
We were very excited this May to be hosting a live talk for our members again at last. It was held at Tormead School.
Our President, Professor Llewelyn Morgan of Brasenose College, Oxford, spoke to us on The Aeneid before the Aeneid. He gave examples of where Virgil seems to have taken pre-existing stories about different heroes and used them differently to suit his purpose in the Aeneid. He also pointed out places where Virgil referred by name to presumed ancestors of different Roman tribes whose names don’t occur anywhere else in Roman literature. Have other references to these people simply been lost over time, or did Virgil invent them to broaden the appeal of his poem to contemporary audiences? After the talk there was an illuminating question and answer session ranging over many aspects of the Aeneid and beyond.
We are very grateful to Professor Morgan for giving us such a stimulating talk. The audience, consisting of members as well as local teachers and students, were rewarded with many new insights into the Aeneid, both in the talk and in the ensuing question and answer session.
We are grateful, too, to Tormead School for hosting this talk for us and providing the refreshments and to the Tormead Classics department for making us so welcome.
We were delighted to be able to hold the event live again this year, making it a special treat for those eight schools taking part. 73 excited students met at St. Catherine’s School in Bramley, for an afternoon of fierce competition. Entries were received from Year 6 right up to Year 13, and our team of four judges were challenged to make their selection of prizewinners. This time we welcomed Mrs Caroline Bowden onto our panel of judges, joining regular contributors Miss Sarah Parnaby, Mr Jeremy Antrich and Mr Phillip Parr.
Prizewinners were selected on the basis of their accurate pronunciation and expressive delivery in equal measure, and they were asked to perform again to the assembled company after a tea-break kindly provided by the catering staff at St.Catherine’s.
Prizes of Book Token gift cards (and chocolate eggs!) were given to the winners, and every competitor received a certificate of participation. Mr Jeremy Antrich, Hon. Vice President, then gave a few words to sum up the afternoon.
Thanks are due to St.Catherine’s for hosting the event; to our excellent judges who gave their time and expertise free, and were able to offer useful hints to the candidates to inform future entries; to our scribes, Mrs Judith Kingcombe and Mrs Bronwen Parr who applied extreme care in writing the certificates, and to all the students for taking part and the staff who trained them so diligently. It is a joy to see many of the candidates year after year as they progress through school and mature in their delivery of these wonderful languages.
This year saw the GCA’s first live virtual GCSE Text Conference, consisting of a pair of Zoom webinars held over two successive weeks.
On Wednesday 26th January Professor Roy Gibson of the University of Durham kindly spoke to us on the ‘Land and Sea’ prose set-text options.
Professor Gibson’s interesting and nuanced talk provided a clear but concise overview of the context for the three set authors (Caesar, Pliny, and Livy) and their highly varied aims in writing, from justification for military adventurism to demonstrating suitable zeal for the finances of Bithynia! Professor Gibson also offered valuable insight into the specific stylistic choices each author made to mould these diverse but engaging texts to their particular purposes.
The following Wednesday (2nd February), we were joined by the GCA’s President, Professor Llewelyn Morgan of Brasenose College, University of Oxford, who spoke engagingly on the ‘Passions and Poisons’ selection of verse set texts.
Professor Morgan’s talk both offered up many specific examples of the various stylistic features of each of the three texts, and also drew out some themes which united them all, such as their sophistication and the shared (if, to modern audiences, somewhat unfortunate) insistence on the association of unbridled passion and womanhood.
We would like to thank both Professor Gibson and Professor Morgan for taking the time to prepare and deliver such useful and entertaining talks on these GCSE set text options, and also the Classical Association for allowing the GCA use of their Zoom Webinar licence to facilitate these virtual events. As both speakers kindly agreed to their presentations being recorded for later use, if you were unable to join us live for these events, or know of someone who would benefit from access to the talks, the recordings of Sessions 1 & 2 can be found at: https://youtu.be/9KsSGVn9l48 and https://youtu.be/pMEAdQT_1Sw respectively.
This talk was always planned as a webinar to make it easier of access to students than a live talk. This had the advantage of enabling us to invite a speaker from quite a distance without the need for him to travel all the way to Guildford.
When we invited Dr Burden-Strevens to talk to us, we had no idea quite what a treat we had in store. Dr Burden-Strevens from the University of Kent lectures on Roman history among other things and has a particular interest in the political history of the Roman republic and early empire.
Dr Burden-Strevens looked in detail at statues of Augustus and also at his recorded actions and what they suggested about the image he was aiming to present. He gave clear evidence of a differentiation between the picture Augustus was aiming to paint of himself to the Roman people and the image which he hoped the Senate and ruling classes would form. This juxtaposition of Augustus’ two main audiences showed clearly what a tightrope Augustus had to walk in order to achieve and then maintain his position of authority in Rome in the chaotic situation following the civil wars.
Dr Burden-Strevens proved an enthusiastic and inspirational speaker on a topic which obviously fascinated him and provided valuable insights for students attending. His extensive knowledge of his subject was perfectly complemented by the warmth and spontaneity of his delivery and his clear and well-structured talk was perfectly suited to our varied audience of members, teachers and students. He impressed by giving a talk which was at the same time extremely useful to students preparing for public exams and easily approachable and interesting for those with a more general interest. He thus showed himself able to walk a tightrope arguably as challenging as that of his subject, Augustus.
Dr Burden-Strevens is a lecturer in Roman history with a particular interest in the political history of the Roman republic and early empire. He read Classics at the University of Glasgow, graduating with the top first in his year, and went on to study for an M.Phil at the University of Oxford followed by a PhD back at Glasgow where he received his doctorate in 2015. Since 2017, he has taught at the University of Kent. He specialises in the Roman history curriculum but also teaches both Latin and Greek and takes a particular interest in coinage as a means of communicating with the public. He has spoken at conferences in Europe and N. America and has a string of publications to his name. See https://www.kent.ac.uk/classics-archaeology/people/1749/burden-strevens-christopher
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