Monthly Archives: July 2012

CFP: Historical Evidence and Historical Writing in Republican Rome (British School at Rome, Nov. 2013)

14 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in Latin Classics, Roman history

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From the CLASSICISTS mailing list;

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

omnium annalium monumenta : HISTORICAL EVIDENCE and HISTORICAL WRITING in Republican Rome

Conference at the British School at Rome, 31 October – 1 November 2013

We are very pleased to announce our intention to arrange an international conference on historical evidence and historical writing in the Roman Republic in the autumn of 2013 at the British School at Rome. This will be the follow-up conference to Omnium annalium monumenta. Annals, Epic and Drama in Republican Rome, held at the Institutum Romanum Finlandiae in 2009.

Scholars interested in participating in the conference are invited to submit titles and short abstracts of their prospective talks to kaj.sandberg@abo.fi by 31 October 2012.

For further information, see: http://www.bsr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Omnium-annalium-monumenta-II_Call-for-Papers-final.pdf.

Christoper J. Smith and Kaj Sandberg

Amphorae VI (2012)

14 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in Academia, Archaeology, Egyptian History, Greek Classics, Greek history, Latin Classics, Reception, Roman history

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I just got back from Amphorae VI which this year was held at Auckland University, three days of excellent postgraduate papers. Big kudos to organisers Lawrence Xu and Nicola Wright and their team of volunteers! As well as hearing some excellent presentations I got good feedback from several people on my own paper Treachery Worse Than Punic: Livy’s Landscape and Hannibal’s Invasion of Italy, which I will use to hopefully improve it further. Also met and hung out with friends new and old, its great to discuss research in informal settings like this. Its maintained a consistently good quality of papers for six years now! Next year Amphorae VII will be at Sydney University.

The horses**t that is killing Universities world-wide

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in Academia, Personal

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Please excuse my cursing, but I feel that such direct earthy language is strictly necessary in this case.

THE HORSESHIT THAT EATS THE HEART FROM UNIVERSITIES

Read it and weep. An actual email sent out from my university (“a top 100 world University” as it likes to call itself) about a seminar from a visiting higher education bureaucrat. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. Note that the subject line asserts this is The Future of Higher Education Teaching and Learning.

From: noreply@xx.edu.au [noreply@xx.edu.au]
Subject: [XXelearning] Dear XX Course Coordinators and eLearning Professionals, The Future of Higher Education Teaching and Learning

Dear Course Coordinators and eLearning Professionals,

Please consider the opportunity to attend this public lecture on The Future of Higher Education Teaching and Learning, this coming Friday at UQ, by Dr. Lxx Gxxxxx, from Cxxx Wxxxxxx Rxxxxxx University.

Where: XXXX Seminar Room 1
When: Friday July 13th
Time: 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm

Background
Lxx comes to this from a position of proactive engagement in the positioning of the university as an intellectual catalyst in a network of community organisations and public services. His most recent work has been focused on leveraging the position of the research university as a focal point for connecting education, community services, hospitals, libraries, museums, and related groups together through community networks (as in both high-speed wired and wireless networks). From the position of enabling information exchange a set of possible collaborations and connections emerges. Among the efforts Lxx has championed include:

[continues in this vein for quite some time]

I’m a part-time Classics PhD, and for many years I have worked in private industry as a software developer. The field of commercial software is often fond of this sort of obtuse jargon that fills in for real meaning, especially in sales and marketing material (less so in the actual technical field, where jargon has a precise function). However, despite this, given all my experience with deciphering statements about proactive engagement and positioning with the catalyst to perform the essential task of leveraging the enablement of information exchange, I still struggle to decipher what all this even means. It’s risible.

Remember, this is the future of your university!