Dr Christine Plastow
@chrissieplastow.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at the Open University | Co-artistic director of Theatre of the @GentleFuries | researching Athenian forensic oratory & theatrical receptions of myth | she/her | catposting
Pinned
Getting started on ancient Greek
This free course, Getting started on ancient Greek, offers a taster of the ancient Greek world through the study of one of its most distinctive and enduring features: its language.The course ...
www.open.edu
Because I'm updating them today, I'd like to remind #AncientBluesky that we have *FREELY ACCESSIBLE* Ancient Greek resources at the Open University! 🏺
First, we have a 16 hour free OpenLearn course, which takes you from learning the alphabet to reading simple sentences: www.open.edu/openlearn/hi...
First, we have a 16 hour free OpenLearn course, which takes you from learning the alphabet to reading simple sentences: www.open.edu/openlearn/hi...
Popping up here for a moment to celebrate the fact that we just submitted the manuscript for 'Gender, Status, and Space in Athenian Oratory and Society', co-edited by Hilary Lehmann and me, to Routledge! From a panel originally conceived in 2019, it's been a long road. Out next year!
November 27, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Popping up here for a moment to celebrate the fact that we just submitted the manuscript for 'Gender, Status, and Space in Athenian Oratory and Society', co-edited by Hilary Lehmann and me, to Routledge! From a panel originally conceived in 2019, it's been a long road. Out next year!
Everything is largely awful, but consider also:
October 22, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Everything is largely awful, but consider also:
Time to lie face down on the floor
I wrote about the stupid white paper.
In summary, with these people in the driver's seat and apparently unbothered by consequences, we're so cooked.
In summary, with these people in the driver's seat and apparently unbothered by consequences, we're so cooked.
Somewhere in the Department for Education, a phone is ringing
On October 20th at a bit after 5pm, the UK government introduced its Education and Skills white paper to Parliament, to absolutely no…
hitchcockian.medium.com
October 22, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Time to lie face down on the floor
This morning's abstract-writing process so far:
Open Word document
Open notes on abstract
Get a piece of cake
Go outside and talk to the cat
Give the cat treats
Make a cup of coffee
Stare out of the window
Write three words, rethink them instantly
(NB these are all essential parts of the process)
Open Word document
Open notes on abstract
Get a piece of cake
Go outside and talk to the cat
Give the cat treats
Make a cup of coffee
Stare out of the window
Write three words, rethink them instantly
(NB these are all essential parts of the process)
October 22, 2025 at 9:51 AM
This morning's abstract-writing process so far:
Open Word document
Open notes on abstract
Get a piece of cake
Go outside and talk to the cat
Give the cat treats
Make a cup of coffee
Stare out of the window
Write three words, rethink them instantly
(NB these are all essential parts of the process)
Open Word document
Open notes on abstract
Get a piece of cake
Go outside and talk to the cat
Give the cat treats
Make a cup of coffee
Stare out of the window
Write three words, rethink them instantly
(NB these are all essential parts of the process)
Your girl is languishing in grant-writing purgatory. Send cats.
October 20, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Your girl is languishing in grant-writing purgatory. Send cats.
Reposted by Dr Christine Plastow
Hello @classicstober.bsky.social !
@chrissieplastow.bsky.social
I have loved Greek and Roman Mythology since I was a little girl!!!
I have a Poetry starter pack we are an activity community! Please repost so we can connect History/Classics/Nerds/Poets/Artists to each other!
go.bsky.app/6yHVpGM
@chrissieplastow.bsky.social
I have loved Greek and Roman Mythology since I was a little girl!!!
I have a Poetry starter pack we are an activity community! Please repost so we can connect History/Classics/Nerds/Poets/Artists to each other!
go.bsky.app/6yHVpGM
October 15, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Hello @classicstober.bsky.social !
@chrissieplastow.bsky.social
I have loved Greek and Roman Mythology since I was a little girl!!!
I have a Poetry starter pack we are an activity community! Please repost so we can connect History/Classics/Nerds/Poets/Artists to each other!
go.bsky.app/6yHVpGM
@chrissieplastow.bsky.social
I have loved Greek and Roman Mythology since I was a little girl!!!
I have a Poetry starter pack we are an activity community! Please repost so we can connect History/Classics/Nerds/Poets/Artists to each other!
go.bsky.app/6yHVpGM
Cannot recommend having constant vertigo at all, but especially while trying to meet an imminent funding deadline
October 13, 2025 at 11:35 AM
Cannot recommend having constant vertigo at all, but especially while trying to meet an imminent funding deadline
I've been feeling rough all week (some kind of mystery infection + inner ear stuff so I feel seasick all the time) but I'm sitting down now to make progress on catching up with #ClassicsTober!
October 11, 2025 at 10:19 AM
I've been feeling rough all week (some kind of mystery infection + inner ear stuff so I feel seasick all the time) but I'm sitting down now to make progress on catching up with #ClassicsTober!
Only three days in but I'm finding writing for #ClassicsTober25 so rewarding. Turns out if you enjoy doing something and you do it a little bit every day (/whatever level of regularity), that feels good. #TinyJoys
October 3, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Only three days in but I'm finding writing for #ClassicsTober25 so rewarding. Turns out if you enjoy doing something and you do it a little bit every day (/whatever level of regularity), that feels good. #TinyJoys
Waffle and I are enjoying tuning in online this afternoon to the launch event for Women Creating Classics and Women Re-Creating Classics!
October 1, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Waffle and I are enjoying tuning in online this afternoon to the launch event for Women Creating Classics and Women Re-Creating Classics!
After faffing around with the usual mild terror at the idea of sharing anything creative in public, I've settled on taking this year's #ClassicsTober prompts as creative writing prompts and will be sharing poem fragments of uneven quality. Here we go! #ClassicsTober25
October 1, 2025 at 9:46 AM
After faffing around with the usual mild terror at the idea of sharing anything creative in public, I've settled on taking this year's #ClassicsTober prompts as creative writing prompts and will be sharing poem fragments of uneven quality. Here we go! #ClassicsTober25
Reposted by Dr Christine Plastow
A reminder that #ClassicsTober starts tomorrow on @classicstober.bsky.social and the overall theme is KATABASIS.
September 30, 2025 at 9:36 AM
A reminder that #ClassicsTober starts tomorrow on @classicstober.bsky.social and the overall theme is KATABASIS.
Compulsory pear will continue until morale improves. I currently have 60 pears in my house. Everything is pears.
Our pear tree has made so many pears and they are ripening so fast, it is currently compulsory to eat at least one pear a day in our house. I am enforcing the Pear Rule with an increasingly sticky iron fist.
September 30, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Compulsory pear will continue until morale improves. I currently have 60 pears in my house. Everything is pears.
RIP Tony Harrison. My favourite poem of his, which I quote almost every time I open the orators: ay ay! stutterer Demosthenes/gob full of pebbles outshouting seas
![Them &
by Tony Harrison
I
alai , ay, ay! ... stutterer Demosthenes
gob full of pebbles outshouting seas —
4 words only of mi 'art aches and ... " Mine's broken,
you barbarian, T.W.! " He was nicely spoken.
" Can't have our glorious heritage done to death! "
I played the Drunken Porter in Macbeth .
" Poetry's the speech of kings. You're one of those
Shakespeare gives the comic bits to: prose!
All poetry (even Cockney Keats?) you see
's been dubbed by [vs] into RP,
Received Pronunciation, please believe [vs]
your speech is in the hands of the Receivers. "
" We say [vs] not [uz], T.W.! " That shut my trap.
I doffed my flat a's (as in " flat cap " )
my mouth all stuffed with glottals, great
lumps to hawk up and spit out ... E-nun-ci-ate!
II
So right, yer buggers, then! We'll occupy
your lousy leasehold Poetry.
I chewed up Littererchewer and spat the bones
into the lap of dozing Daniel Jones,
dropped the initials I'd been harried as
and used my name and own voice: [uz] [uz] [uz],
ended sentences with by, with, from,
and spoke the language that I spoke at home.
RIP RP, RIP T.W.
I'm Tony Harrison no longer you!
You can tell the Receivers where to go
(and not aspirate it) once you know
Wordsworth's matter / water are full rhymes,
[uz] can be loving as well as funny.
My first mention in the Times
automatically made Tony Anthony!](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:t4wtiqd3xk3y4q6myw3hp5rr/bafkreidbdvmkkigw75477qqjxvccjyuxn7d4iu3edgjyarfceqzdkv6iwa@jpeg)
September 27, 2025 at 10:12 AM
RIP Tony Harrison. My favourite poem of his, which I quote almost every time I open the orators: ay ay! stutterer Demosthenes/gob full of pebbles outshouting seas
Friday feeling.
September 26, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Friday feeling.
Pleased to share this fascinating conversation with the brilliant playwright Caridad Svich @csvich.bsky.social, where we talked about her Iphigenia play and how to adapt Greek tragedy now. Out now in Practitioners' Voices in Classical Reception Studies!
university.open.ac.uk/arts/researc...
university.open.ac.uk/arts/researc...
The Open University
Caridad Svich is a US-based playwright, songwriter, editor, educator and translator of Cuban-Argentine-Spanish-Croatian descent.
university.open.ac.uk
September 26, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Pleased to share this fascinating conversation with the brilliant playwright Caridad Svich @csvich.bsky.social, where we talked about her Iphigenia play and how to adapt Greek tragedy now. Out now in Practitioners' Voices in Classical Reception Studies!
university.open.ac.uk/arts/researc...
university.open.ac.uk/arts/researc...
Bought myself an early birthday present. As both a classicist and a @themountaingoats.bsky.social fan, I'm always going back to the text.
September 24, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Bought myself an early birthday present. As both a classicist and a @themountaingoats.bsky.social fan, I'm always going back to the text.
Our pear tree has made so many pears and they are ripening so fast, it is currently compulsory to eat at least one pear a day in our house. I am enforcing the Pear Rule with an increasingly sticky iron fist.
September 24, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Our pear tree has made so many pears and they are ripening so fast, it is currently compulsory to eat at least one pear a day in our house. I am enforcing the Pear Rule with an increasingly sticky iron fist.
Sometimes on a Friday evening after one (1) gin and tonic you hear Somebody to Love and cry a bit about Freddie Mercury
September 19, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Sometimes on a Friday evening after one (1) gin and tonic you hear Somebody to Love and cry a bit about Freddie Mercury
Really going to make an effort to join in this year!
September 18, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Really going to make an effort to join in this year!
I am watching a house clearance over the road. Lots of perfectly good furniture going into a big crushing bin lorry with a St George's cross on the side. The metaphors are getting a bit heavy handed these days
September 12, 2025 at 9:10 AM
I am watching a house clearance over the road. Lots of perfectly good furniture going into a big crushing bin lorry with a St George's cross on the side. The metaphors are getting a bit heavy handed these days
Reposted by Dr Christine Plastow
Philology: the Best of All Possible Methods? A response to the apology.
planudes.medium.com/the-best-of-...
planudes.medium.com/the-best-of-...
The Best of All Possible Methods
The Gold and Katz Defense of Philology
planudes.medium.com
September 9, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Philology: the Best of All Possible Methods? A response to the apology.
planudes.medium.com/the-best-of-...
planudes.medium.com/the-best-of-...
Found this very clear and useful.
Hi #UCU folks,
Now that the first round of dust after the HE Ballot announcement has started to settle, I finished a blog post about making plans in light of the ballot.
This one is a bit more scattered IMHO esp I the last sessions but...well...brain zaps.
bparsia.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/n...
Now that the first round of dust after the HE Ballot announcement has started to settle, I finished a blog post about making plans in light of the ballot.
This one is a bit more scattered IMHO esp I the last sessions but...well...brain zaps.
bparsia.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/n...
Now We Have A Ballot
On Sept 1, HEC voted to initiate a statutory ballot seeking authorization for industrial action (including strikes and ASOS, I’m betting) against UCEA as part of our pay dispute. As you may h…
bparsia.wordpress.com
September 10, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Found this very clear and useful.
Please everyone dissuade me from signing up for a half marathon!!
September 9, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Please everyone dissuade me from signing up for a half marathon!!
Reposted by Dr Christine Plastow
I want to be very clear: we tried to stop this. We urged HEC to look at context and evidence, we were ignored and accused of 'betrayal'. Our full @ucucommons.bsky.social HEC report is forthcoming. If you want things to change at national level, you need to VOTE IN THE ELECTIONS.
We tried. I’m sorry. The vote was very close and our pleas for common sense and taking our time to work out next steps were met with accusations of ‘betrayal’ from the usual suspects. Commons HEC report imminent.
No, I don’t enjoy this.
No, I don’t enjoy this.
UCU will be balloting for strike action over pay - because clearly HEC have identified a large pot of money that providers who are currently laying off vast numbers of staff and closing courses could be using to sweeten the pay offer.
September 8, 2025 at 3:00 PM
I want to be very clear: we tried to stop this. We urged HEC to look at context and evidence, we were ignored and accused of 'betrayal'. Our full @ucucommons.bsky.social HEC report is forthcoming. If you want things to change at national level, you need to VOTE IN THE ELECTIONS.