Edith Hall
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edithmayhall.bsky.social
Edith Hall
@edithmayhall.bsky.social

Durham University Classics Prof keen on Aristotle, visual art, Greek theatre/pots, labour/anti-racist history, prison education, Parthenon reunification. All views my own. Also on Twitter @edithmayhall

Edith Hall is a British scholar of classics, specialising in ancient Greek literature and cultural history, and professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. She is a Fellow of the British Academy. From 2006 until 2011 she held a chair at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she founded and directed the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome until November 2011. She resigned over a dispute regarding funding for classics after leading a public campaign, which was successful, to prevent cuts to or the closure of the Royal Holloway Classics department. Until 2022, she was a professor at the Department of Classics at King's College London. She also co-founded and is Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University, Chair of the Gilbert Murray Trust, and Judge on the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation. Her prizewinning doctoral thesis was awarded at Oxford. In 2012 she was awarded a Humboldt Research Prize to study ancient Greek theatre in the Black Sea, and in 2014 she was elected to the Academy of Europe. She lives in Cambridgeshire. .. more

Art 25%
History 24%

Why is Plato’s Atlantis a Y-Chromosome thing? I’m running an international conference on in it in Durham today and embarrassingly could not persuade a single female to supplement the all-male responses to the Call for Papers. I tried so hard

Reposted by Edith Hall, Ailsa Cox

We're very proud to announce the winner of this year's prize: Edith Hall's compelling & insightful 'Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me' (Yale UP). A brilliant, moving book for experts & general readers alike - congratulations @edithmayhall.bsky.social @yalebooks.bsky.social!

Gobsmacked that Facing down the Furies wins 2025 International (formerly London) Hellenic Prize. Good to see mental health issues recognised. Here's to my valiant late mother, Brenda Hall née Henderson, who faced them down, supreme friend Peggy Reynolds and @rickypo.bsky.social, sine quibus non

Reposted by Edith Hall

Our #bookoftheweek is Edith Hall's new reading of Homer's Iliad as one root in the beginning of ecological disaster for contemporary society. Thought-provoking and smart, Hall astounds in this fresh perspective on how ancient history permeates our environment today. ☀️

Reposted by Edith Hall

@edithmayhall.bsky.social
Much enjoyed Epic of the Earth, read after hearing your talk on 9th October @britishacademy.bsky.social. Next week: environmental justice in respect of ecocide: www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
Ecocide, Human Rights, and Environmental Justice Conference
www.sas.ac.uk

What day?

Thanks, Gil. I know nothing about how to get fiction published!

Friends, I’ve written a novel. It’s about how the Gen Z children of dysfunctional boomers Clytemnestra and Agamemnon try to move on in Crimea, Thessaly and Vravrona. Now I just need to find a publisher! Any suggestions?

I had a blast at Berwick on Tweed Literary Festival today being brilliantly interviewed by archaeologist Prof James Crowe on my Iliad book. Lovely town. I want to live here.

Reposted by Edith Hall

What have the Ancient Greeks got to do with the environmental crisis? The fantastic @edithmayhall.bsky.social now giving another historical view

My tribute to Tony Harrison last week was to read his great, last, valedictory poem ‘Polygons’ at Delphi, where he started it.

Pre-Raphaelite Simeon Solomon was born this day 1840. He suffered prosecution and persecution, aggravated by antisemitism, for homosexuality. His Toilet of a Roman Lady (1869) was inspired by Pompeii frescoes, especially this one of Dido

Reposted by Ailsa Cox

This coming Sunday, three historic performances of the late, great Tony Harrison's masterpiece "v." in the Leeds graveyard where it's set. I'm speaking before the final reading. Please come. slunglow.org/v-a-homecomi...
@lrb.co.uk
@richardburgon.bsky.social

Reposted by Edith Hall

Prestigious Northern Uni Durham Crowned Britain’s University Of The Year 2025 By the Sunday Times timeout.com/uk/news/the-... So glad to work here
This prestigious northern uni was crowned Britain’s ‘University of the Year 2026’
The uni rankings are out – so, who’s top of the class?
timeout.com
Extremely sad that my much-loved friend and ally of over thirty-five years, the great poet, dramatist, socialist and acerbic wit Tony Harrison, died yesterday morning, peacefully, with his devoted partner, actress Sian Thomas, at his side. I'm so glad I visited them last week.

Thrilled the Special Issue of Green Letters I edited with Alison Sharrock is now online if you have access to Taylor and Francis. Mostly on trees in epic from Homer to Nonnus

Damn! My secret is out!

Reposted by Edith Hall

📣 ANOTHER EVENT! 📣

We are holding a book launch for the volume "Time, Tense, and Genre in Ancient Greek Literature", edited by Connie Bloomfield-Gadêlha and @edithmayhall.bsky.social.

🎟️ www.tickettailor.com/events/thein...
⏰4PM-6PM, 8/10.
📍Peel Lecture Theatre, University of Bristol. BS8 1SS.

www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/euripid... Excellent, hilarious and inexpensive productions of TWO Ancient Greek plays on in central London this week! I’m doing a post show talk tomorrow night. Do come !
Euripides' CYCLOPS and Aristophanes' CLOUDS
Produced and presented by Thiasos Theatre Company Thiasos returns to The Cockpit with a fabulous double bill of Euripides' CYCLOPS, the only surviving satyr play from Ancient Greece, and
www.thecockpit.org.uk
What have the Ancient Greeks got to do with the environmental crisis? Book your free ticket to come hear from @edithmayhall.bsky.social on this topic at our Late on Thursday 9th Oct. Plus loads more panels, a zine making workshop and exhibits
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/livin...
Living with the planet LATE
Tackle big questions and explore bold ideas about the future of our planet in this season’s British Academy Late. Immerse yourself in the sounds and music of the rainforests of Papua New Guinea; discu...
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

My daughter has just found this in Istanbul

Yesterday at Ye Houses of Parliament my former PhD student and colleague Dr Peter Swallow MP hosted the launch of my book with Durham colleague Prof Arlene Holmes-Henderson promoting Classical Civilisation and Ancient History in secondary education. It was a joy.

I was interviewed by Ian HIslop on Radio 4 today about Juvenal but forgot all about having recorded it. It's short, fun and here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Ian Hislop's Oldest Jokes - Series 2 - Mother-in-Law Jokes - BBC Sounds
Ian Hislop returns to unearth the oldest examples of five varieties of British joke.
www.bbc.co.uk

I was interviewed by Ian Hislop on Radio 4 today and you can hear it here: short but fun programme www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Ian Hislop's Oldest Jokes - Series 2 - Mother-in-Law Jokes - BBC Sounds
Ian Hislop returns to unearth the oldest examples of five varieties of British joke.
www.bbc.co.uk

On this day 44 BCE Cleopatra announced her son Caesarion co-ruler of Egypt. Since Caesar's propaganda equated Cleopatra with Isis-Venus, this Pompeii image of Venus & Cupid may be Cleo & son. However silly, it's not as bad as the choice of an uber-Aryan sprog = Caesarion in "that" movie.

On #InternationalCosplayDay, recall that Herodotus says when c. 566 BCE Peisistratus returned to Athens he hired a tall woman, Phye, to impersonate the goddess Athena as his escort to legitimise his claim to sovereignty. Worth a try if you crave absolute power: it worked for him

Love him or hate him, classical tradition people can't ignore Jacques-Louis David, btd 1748, who ranges from ludicrous (Mars & Venus) to sublime: Brutus' face in The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789) grimly presages the gore & disillusionment of the Reign of Terror

Reposted by Edith Hall

It's radio repeat day! Catch me and Prof @edithmayhall.bsky.social discussing the Nigella of Ancient Greece, goddess of hearth and home (and carbs and donkeys) Hestia, at 9:30am on BBC Radio 4 📻 🍞

🎧 Listen again on BBC Sounds: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...