Women's Classical Committee UK

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Women's Classical Committee
AbbreviationWCC
Formation8 March 2015;7 years ago (2015-03-08)
Founded atInstitute of Classical Studies, London
PurposeClassics, gender equality, profile of women in antiquity and classics
Co-Chair
Laurence Totelin, Cardiff University – April 2018 to April 2022
Co-Chair
April Pudsey, Manchester Metropolitan University – April 2019 to April 2023
Key people
Victoria Leonard (co-chair, 2015)
Helen Lovatt (co-chair, 2015-2016)
WCC Wikipedia Editathon at Senate House, London (January 2017) WCCWiki11.jpg
WCC Wikipedia Editathon at Senate House, London (January 2017)

The Women's Classical Committee UK (WCC) is a group of academics, students, and teachers who aim to support women in Classics, promote feminist and gender-informed perspectives in Classics, raise the profile of the study of women in antiquity and Classical reception, and advance equality and diversity in Classics. [1]

Contents

History and aims

The WCC was formed in 2015, on International Women's Day, at the Institute of Classical Studies, London. [2] It was inspired by the Women's Classical Caucus in the United States and the Society for Women in Philosophy UK (SWIP). Membership of the WCC is open to all genders. The first chairpersons of the WCC were Victoria Leonard and Helen Lovatt. [1]

The WCC held its launch event, 'Women in Classics: Past, Present and Future', at the Institute of Classical Studies on 11 April 2016. [3] [4] The WCC held its 2017 annual general meeting on 20 April 2017 at the Ioannou Centre, University of Oxford. [5] The theme was 'Diversity in Classics'. The second WCC AGM was held at the Institute of Classical Studies again in April 2018, on the theme of activism with feminist classicists Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Donna Zuckerberg (editor of online magazine Eidolon) as guest speakers. [6]

Activities

The first major event the WCC organised was 'Classics and Feminist Pedagogy: Practical Tips for Teaching', which took place at the University of Birmingham on 29 July 2016. [7]

The WCC has organised careers advice workshops for early- and mid-career academics, and an alternative careers in and around classics event. [8] [9] In September 2017 the WCC organised an event on bullying and harassment in classics hosted by the University of Roehampton. [10]

The WCC has organised a panel of papers at the 2017 Classical Association Conference at the University of Kent and the Classical Association Conference at the University of Leicester. It has sponsored two round table discussions on feminist pedagogy at the 2017 International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds, and sponsored a double panel on empresses from Late Antiquity at the International Medieval Congress 2018. [11] [12]

Activism

The WCC organises monthly remote Wikipedia editing sessions in order to continue to reverse the gender skew online and to mobilise change through digital tools as well as providing a positive example for others. [13] Occasional group editing sessions are organised to bring people together to edit to improve the representation of women classicists on Wikipedia, often with training sessions delivered by trainers from the Wikimedia foundation. [14] [15] By June 2017, the WCC had added thirty-nine articles on female classicists to Wikipedia. [13] In 2018, the WCC wrote to the organisers of the 2019 Fédération internationale des associations d'études classiques and Classical Association joint conference, criticizing their discouragement of proposals for all-female as well as all-male panels (also known as 'manels'). [16] Their activism in this regard caused the organisers to revise their policy, stating that 'Following feedback and discussion we accept that we were wrong to initially discourage all women panels'. [17] In recognition of their efforts towards gender fairness and inclusivity in the field of Classics, the organisation was invited to be a nominating body for the 2021 UK Research Excellence Framework assessment. [18] [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods in order to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppression; and the relationships between power and gender as they intersect with other identities and social locations such as race, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, and disability.

Mary Beard (classicist) English classicist

Dame Winifred Mary Beard, is an English scholar of Ancient Rome.

Digital Classicist

The Digital Classicist is a community of those interested in the application of digital humanities to the field of classics and to ancient world studies more generally. The project claims the twin aims of bringing together scholars and students with an interest in computing and the ancient world, and disseminating advice and experience to the classics discipline at large. The Digital Classicist was founded in 2005 as a collaborative project based at King's College London and the University of Kentucky, with editors and advisors from the classics discipline at large.

The Women's Classical Caucus, Inc. (WCC) is an affiliate of the American Philological Association, the organization for North American scholars and teachers of Greek and Latin language, literature, and culture, Greek and Roman historians, and scholars of ancient philosophy, science, material culture, papyrology, epigraphy, and other fields. The WCC also maintains liaisons with the American Institute of Archaeology and with the Lambda Classical Caucus, formerly the Lesbian and Gay Classical Caucus.

The Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS) is a professional organization for classicists and non-classicists at all levels of instruction which promotes the Classics through the broad scope of its annual meeting, through its publication of both original research and pedagogical contributions in The Classical Journal and Teaching Classical Languages and through its awards, scholarships, and outreach initiatives.

An edit-a-thon is an event where editors of online communities such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, and LocalWiki edit and improve a specific topic or type of content. The events typically include basic editing training for new editors and may be combined with a more general social meetup. The word is a portmanteau of "edit" and "marathon". An edit-a-thon can either be "in-person" or online or a blended version of both. If it is not in-person, it is usually called a "virtual edit-a-thon" or "online edit-a-thon".

The Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS) is an academic organization which "promotes the study of the Patristic Age, the Middle Ages, and the Early Modern era from the perspective of gender studies, women's studies, and feminist studies". Its development followed the rise of the study of medieval women in the 1970s and 1980s, and sought to increase the number of and sponsor papers about medieval women, and feminist theory driven scholarship, at the largest international medieval studies conferences, International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo and Leeds IMC.

Edith Sharpley English Lecturer

Edith Sharpley (1859–1940) was a Classical Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge from 1884 to 1910.

Judith P. Hallett is Professor Emerita of Classics, having formerly been the Graduate Director at the Department of Classics, University of Maryland. Her research focuses on women, the family, and sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome, particularly in Latin literature. She is also an expert on classical education and reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz

Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz is a classical scholar, specialising in ancient Greek literature and intersectional feminism.

Judith Mossman (classicist)

Judith Mossman is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Arts and Humanities and Professor of Classics at Coventry University. She was the President of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (2017-20).

Barbara Elizabeth Goff is a Classics Professor at the University of Reading. She specialises in Greek tragedy and its reception; women in antiquity; postcolonial classics and reception of Greek political thought.

Fiona McHardy is a Professor of Classics and also the Head of History and Classics in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Roehampton. In 2003 she started work at Roehampton where she was responsible for building up the BA Classical Civilisation. Her research interests include ancient and modern Greek literature, folk poetry, anthropology and culture. She teaches modules on ancient Greek language, literature and culture.

Donna Zuckerberg American classicist, editor-in-chief of Eidolon

Donna Zuckerberg is an American classicist, feminist, and writer. She is author of the book Not All Dead White Men (2018), about the appropriation of classics by misogynist groups on the Internet. She was editor-in-chief of Eidolon, a classics journal, until its closure in 2020.

Shelley Haley American classical scholar

Shelley P. Haley is the Edward North Chair of Classics and Professor of Africana Studies at Hamilton College, New York, and President of the Society for Classical Studies. She is an expert in applying Black feminist and critical race approaches to the study and teaching of Classics.

Alison Keith

Alison Keith is a classical scholar who is Professor of Classics and Women's Studies at the University of Toronto, where she has been a Fellow of Victoria University of Toronto since 1989. She is an expert on the relationships between gender and genre in Latin literature, and has published widely on topics including Latin epic poetry, Ovid, Propertius, and Roman dress.

Rebecca Futo Kennedy Classicist

Rebecca Futo Kennedy is Associate Professor of Classics, Women's and Gender Studies, and Environmental Studies at Denison University; and the Director of the Denison Museum. Her research focuses on the political, social, and cultural history of Classical Athens, Athenian tragedy, ancient immigration, ancient theories of race and ethnicity, and the reception of those theories in modern race science.

Katherine Harloe

Katherine Harloe is Professor of Classics and Director of the Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Previously she was Professor of Classics at the University of Reading. She is an expert on the history of classical scholarship, the reception of Greek and Roman antiquity, and the eighteenth-century German classicist and art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann. She is the first black professor of Classics in the UK, and the first woman director of the ICS.

Victoria Leonard Classicist

Victoria Leonard is a British Classicist specialising in the study of religion, gender, and the body in Late antiquity. She is a Post-Doctoral researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London and a research fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies. She holds a PhD from Cardiff University. Leonard was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in July 2019.

Elizabeth Gloyn is a Reader in Latin Language and Literature at Royal Holloway, the University of London and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research focuses on the intersection between Latin literature, ancient philosophy and gender studies; as well as topics of classical reception, and the history of women in the field of Classics.

References

  1. 1 2 Victoria Leonard; Liz Gloyn (2016). "THE WOMEN'S CLASSICAL COMMITTEE - Origin and Visions" (PDF). Council of University Classical Departments Bulletin. 45.
  2. McHardy, F. (11 October 2016). "Launching the Women's Classical Committee in the UK". Cloelia (Women's Classical Caucus). Retrieved 22 June 2017.
  3. "WCC Origins and Visions" (PDF).
  4. "Wikipedia:Meetups/UK/Institute of Classical Studies Jan 2017". Wikipedia. 22 March 2017.
  5. "The Women's Classical Committee UK: looking forward after our first year". theclassicalassociation.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  6. Campbell, Virginia (1 June 2018). "Report from the 2018 AGM". WCC-UK. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  7. "Classics and Feminist Pedagogy". WCC-UK. 22 July 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  8. Atack, C. (25 May 2017). "The Women's Classical Committee UK: looking forward after our first year". The Classical Association . Retrieved 22 June 2017.
  9. "Adjacent, Alternative and Post-Academic Careers in and around Classics". WCC-UK. 24 May 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  10. "Booking Open: Bullying and Harassment in the UK Classical Workplace: Finding Solutions". WCC-UK. 14 August 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  11. "Classical Association Conference 2017 DETAILS OF ROUND TABLES, PANELS, SPEAKERS, AND PAPERS" (PDF). Open University. 2017. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
  12. IMC, 2017. Leeds International Medieval Congress, 03-06 July 2017. Leeds, University of Leeds. pp. 70 (session 406) and 157 (session 914)
  13. 1 2 Victoria Leonard (11 June 2017). "How we doubled the representation of female classical scholars on Wikipedia". Times Higher Education . Retrieved 22 June 2017.
  14. "Wikipedia:Women's Classical Committee/Events and Workshops". Wikipedia. 5 September 2017.
  15. "Wikipedia:Meetups/UK/Institute of Classical Studies Jan 2017". Wikipedia. 22 March 2017.
  16. Gloyn, Liz (17 May 2018). "WCC UK write to FIEC/CA about manels". WCC-UK. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  17. "FIEC/CA 2019 Revised Call for Panels and Posters". www.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  18. Gloyn, Liz (7 October 2017). "Report from the WCC UK steering committee". WCC-UK. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  19. England, Higher Funding Council of. "Nominating panel members - REF 2021". www.ref.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 August 2018.