Aristophanes at Chickenshed

By Admin, on 18 December 2024

Aristophanes’ Peace: A Topical Story by Giovanna Di Martino

The Chorus of Beetles lifts Trygeus into the sky. Photo by Alessandro Bartolomucci

After thirteen long years of war, Athens and Sparta have turned a proxy dispute into an all-out extravaganza of chaos. The goddess Peace has been locked away in a cavern, far, far away, tired, sad, and downright cross with everyone for ignoring her.

Meanwhile, the gods have taken a permanent vacation from their heavenly palace, seeking refuge in the most remote corner of the earth, leaving the god of War to run the show. The result? A nation exhausted, angry, and simply desperate for any sort of deal to end the madness.

Enter Trygaeus: a once-successful winemaker who decides to take on the epic task of saving Greece. With a giant beetle as his trusty steed, he’s determined to fly to heaven, convince the gods to convince humans to cut the nonsense, and rescue Peace.

Originally produced in the spring of 421 BCE in Athens at probably the largest theatre festival in the ancient world, the City Dionysia – just days before a much-anticipated peace treaty was finally signed between Athens and Sparta – Peace is the work of the visionary playwright Aristophanes: it stands as a powerful symbol of hope and the promise of an end to stubbornly useless suffering.

This was the imaginative story that we decided to work on for our project Aristophanes at Chickenshed, an international collaboration between the University of Bristol, University College London (UCL), the University of Parma, Chickenshed Theatre and Teatro delle Albe.

Aristophanes at Chickenshed: Aims, Motives and Methods

The project comprised a five-day workshop on Aristophanes’ Peace held from the 28^th of October to the 1^st of November 2024 at Chickenshed Theatre in London. This was directed by Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari of Teatro delle Albe, with the assistance of dramaturg Giovanna Di Martino (UCL), who also produced a new translation of the play. This project brought together students from the universities involved with students from the Chickenshed’s education programmes, culminating in two (sold-out) performances of a new version of Peace.

This workshop is rooted in the pedagogical imperative of integrating performance practice into the study and teaching of ancient Greek drama. As well as providing a more accessible approach to ancient Greek dramatic scripts, this approach also serves as an appropriate method for exploring these texts that, before enjoying a long and successful literary life off the stage, were originally intended for performance.

Ancient Greek Drama, in and outside the Classroom

Since the 1960s, ancient Greek drama has remained one of the most widely used sources for writing new plays and for directors to experiment on a global scale (Hall 2004: 12). This year, the London stage alone has seen Robert Icke’s widely acclaimed Oedipus at the Wyndham Theatre and Alexander Zeldin’s equally successful The Other Place (a rewrite of Antigone) at the National Theatre; in January, the Old Vic will present Matthew Warchus and Hofesh Shechter’s Oedipus, while Daniel Fish’s Elektra will run at the Duke of York’s Theatre.

But ancient Greek drama is also one of the most appealing and widely studied aspects of ancient Greek literature and culture more generally, both at school level (through the syllabuses for Classical Civilisation, Drama and English, at both GCSE and A-Level) and in Higher Education (Andújar 2023: 373).

Though the performance history of these ancient scripts has been incredibly rich since their return to the stage in the early modern period, only recently has the discipline of Classics begun considering the reception of these texts on the stage as an integral component of the texts themselves. Recent developments in this area are part of the new subfield of classical reception studies. In addition to recognising the dramatic nature of these texts in analysing and teaching them, this field also incorporates the performance history of these texts through time as part of the multiple layers of meaning they present to us today.[1]

Yet, while taking stock of their dramatic nature and how they have worked historically on the stage is indeed a step forward for the discipline as well as for the theatre practitioners wanting to engage with these ancient scripts on the contemporary stage, only very recently has there been a change in the way these texts are taught in the classroom.[2]

The Chorus of Trygeus’ friends bid him farewell as he ascends to the sky. Photo by Alessandro Bartolomucci

Practice Research, Performance Pedagogy and the Chorus

The aims and outcomes of this workshop should be inserted into this new thrust towards practice-based teaching and research practices that align with theatre and performance studies’ long-term commitment to performance as a method of inquiry and a pedagogical tool.

Our workshop combined practice research with performance pedagogy: while it aimed at producing new knowledge in the ‘ecosystem’ of scholarship, performance, and translation of Aristophanes’ Peace,[3] it also invited university and drama students to be active participants in this process of knowledge-production.

The integration of both methodologies was greatly supported by the directors of the workshop, Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari. Martinelli’s unique approach, termed the ‘non-school’, emphasises a non-prescriptive engagement with ‘canonical’ texts that often serve as the subject of classroom study. He advocates for deconstructing and bringing these texts to life on stage through a process he calls ‘messa in vita’ (‘putting into life’). As a theatre practitioner, he draws upon the ancient Greek chorus, as well as the Medieval Passions (sacra rappresentazione), up to Majakovskij’s revolutionary theatre. His theatre practice revolves around the concept of the Chorus, which transforms individual identity into collective identity.[4]

The workshop also hugely benefited from Ermanna Montanari’s long-term vocal exploration (on which she has published widely).[5] She was responsible for the warm-up exercises, through which students worked extensively on breathing, movement and voice.

Their approach was complemented by Chickenshed Theatre’s fifty years of experience bringing together young people from a variety of difficult circumstances and backgrounds and using theatre to help them develop skills, confidence and community. This combination of approaches was supported by academics from the participating universities in several ways. Lines from Giovanna Di Martino’s translation of Peace were interwoven with the students’ improvisations during the devising process and Di Martino also acted as a simultaneous Italian-English interpreter during the workshop. Lucy Ruddiman, and Zoë Carvalho Morris provided dramaturgical support during the workshop process – while also participating in the performance.

The Process: New Knowledge and Community Building

The process of bringing together this Chorus of different voices to explore Aristophanes through a collaborative combination of methods and languages was as important as the performance we created. The goal was not to re-create or re-discover meanings that Peace may have had in the ancient world, but to participate in creating new knowledge around the play, its myth-story, and contemporary theatre practices that were generated from the participants’ interactions with them. One student reflected, ‘I loved creating for an Ancient Greek show – as I had very little knowledge of shows from that period beforehand. This experience has inspired me to be more confident in trying a new approach in theatre.’ The value of this project was in the different ways in which the ‘non-school’ method combined with Chickenshed’s inclusive theatre practices to allow the student-performers to construct their own Aristophanes; one who enabled them to express some of their own concerns through performance.

Another valuable aspect of this process was the community (the Chorus) that emerged throughout the workshop. There were challenges to this: we had different groups of people (some of whom were already used to working together in a particular way, and some of whom had never worked together before); we were combining different methods of making theatre; we were exploring a play that almost all participants were unfamiliar with; and we were doing it all across a language barrier. Nevertheless, the students reported that they felt a strong sense of community in this process. One student commented, ‘I didn’t expect to build such a strong connection within such a short period of time.’ That we were able to bring this group together into a community to create our own Aristophanes was a testament to the success of the process, which we felt spoke strongly in favour of performance pedagogy as a way of exploring ancient drama.

A bust of Aristophanes in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy, courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.

Language and Performance

Another key aspect of this project was its multilingual nature, where language should not be merely understood as a means of communication, but as a means of being, a way of thinking and, in this case, a way of ‘feeling’ theatre. One of Chickenshed’s main organizers described this project as a valuable opportunity for students to experience something new, primarily by being exposed to people speaking different languages. From the beginning of the collaboration between Albe, UCL and the University of Parma, this has been a central aspect of the project.[6]

It was noted by one participant that one of the most exciting things was indeed to be able to ‘work in a foreign language’. Another participant spoke of the opportunity to ‘connect strangers without words’ even though they did not share a language. And again, another was surprised that though ‘we spoke different languages’, there somehow emerged a common language, that of ‘performance’.

Giovanna Di Martino is Leventis Research Fellow in Ancient Greek Literature at University College London. Her main research areas are the translation and performance of ancient Greek drama in the early modern period, in Europe and beyond. She has recently co-edited a volume for De Gruyter: Translating Ancient Greek Drama in Early Modern Europe: Theory and Practice (15th-16th Centuries) and two special issues for Skenè: Memory and Performance: Classical Reception in Early Modern Festivals. She has also contributed several journal articles on translation theory and practice of Greek and Latin texts across time. Her research interests include the reception of ancient Greek drama during Fascism (on which she has published two special issues for CRJ and Brill’s Fascism). She is the author of the monograph Translating and Adapting Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes in the United States (Skenè, 2020) and is currently working on her second monograph for OUP on Aeschylus’ Reception. Translation, Adaptation and Performance. She has several ongoing practice-research projects on the translation of ancient Greek drama and its adaptations.

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Outputs

Inclusive Theatre and Community-Building | Giovanna Di Martino, Marco Martinelli, and Dave Carey

Since the end of the project, we have been sharing the premises and outcomes of this workshop with a few audiences. First, we held an event with Marco Martinelli and Dave Carey in conversation with Giovanna Di Martino at the University of Oxford, hosted by the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, on 4^th November 2024. Here we talked about Chickenshed and Teatro delle Albe, their history and ethos, and then presented a few clips from the workshop as a result of the successful collaboration.

Roundtable on Ancient Greek Comedy as Community Engagement

We also held a roundtable discussion at the University of Bristol on 11^th November 2024 as part of the Theatre Department’s events, though the panel included both classics and theatre scholars. It was a fruitful and productive discussion led by Giovanna Di Martino and Lucy Ruddiman that (unusually) brought together different disciplines and students from a diverse range of BAs. The panellists have since been in contact and expressed a desire to continue the conversation. We hope that this indicates the possibility of a future life for this project and the value of these sorts of collaborations.

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This video is a selection of moments from the performance. Each moment is intended to illustrate a different aspect of the process that went into creating it.

• Prologue: This was to convey the war happening in the background of the play, while building a sense of chorus. The performers entered the space, fell to the floor and rose again. This was repeated a few times but is only shown once here.
• The Feeding of the Beetle: The protagonist of Peace, an Athenian named Trygaeus, has acquired a dung beetle which he intends to fly to Mount Olympus to rescue the goddess of Peace. Here the beetle is represented by half the chorus and the other half are workers feeding it dung. This scene mixes the improvisations of the participants with lines from Giovanna Di Martino’s translation.
• The Flight of the Beetle: Trygaeus flies the beetle to Mount Olympus. This scene demonstrates more of the choral techniques explored, which are drawn from Ermanna Montanari’s (the other co-founder Teatro delle Albe who was also present for the workshop) work with breath and voice.
• The Gods of War: On arriving at Mount Olympus Trygeaus finds Hermes, who explains that the other Olympian gods have left the gods of war in charge. The gods of war enter singing war songs, which were chosen and created by the students.

Credits

Directors: Marco Martinelli, Ermanna Montanari

Dramaturg and Translator: Giovanna Di Martino

Assistant Directors: Zoë Carvalho Morris, Lucy Ruddiman

Workshop Organisers: Francesca Bortoletti, Giovanna Di Martino, Lucy Ruddiman, Francesca Venturi

Cast Members: David Akubardiya, Desirè Andreotti, Yasmine Anouar, Reece Bailey-Smith, Sean Baradhi, Chiara Barresi Vannini, Luca Bartolomucci, Jacopo Rossano Botto, Sofia Buttini, Alan Campani, Zoë Carvalho Morris, Camilla Castellano, Bianca Dondi, Samuel Gould, Harry Johnson, Katie King, Bunny Kwabene, Theo Leslie, Agnes Lindstoel Wilhelmsen, Naledi-Zoe Mangrozah, Joguina Mokekola, Leonardo Morgan-Russel, Annalisa Pagani, Benedetto Loris Pizzo, Lucina Rigoberto, Lucy Ruddiman, Hamza Sogut, Giada Vendemmiati, Lily Walker, Yasmin Wilson, Kye Wolbrom.

Video Footage: Simon Gutimo.

Sponsors: Istituto Italiano di Cultura (London), UCL’s Centre for Humanities Education, Ravenna Teatro (Ravenna), the Leventis Foundation, the Gilbert Murray Trust, the Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome, the Classical Tradition, the Institute of Classical Studies, the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (Oxford), the University of Parma-DUSIC, and the WIDE European Program.

Approved by UCL’s Ethics Committee under the title ‘Theatre Practice and Ancient Greek Drama in Translation’, Ethics Number 22797/001. PI: Giovanna Di Martino.

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[1] The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, founded in 1996 by Edith Hall and Oliver Taplin, is a pioneering research centre in this field. Today, the Archive continues to serve as an interface between ancient drama and its reception, both on and off the stage, while also developing new reception through collaborations with creative artists. On the return of Greek drama to the early modern stage, see Bortoletti, Di Martino, Refini 2024; on Greek drama on the British stage, see Hall and Macintosh 2005; on Greek drama in the Americas, see Bosher, Macintosh, McConnell, Rankine 2015; on the Latin American stage, see Andújar and K.P. Nikoloutsos 2020; on the Georgian stage, see Gurchiani 2017; for a general overview, see van Zyl Smit 2016.

[2] See Mitchell-Boyask 2023; Meineck 2023; Plastow and Bullen 2024, amongst others.

[3] For the use of the term ‘ecology’ and ‘ecosystem’ in relation to any new knowledge produced around ancient Greek drama, see Plastow and Bullen 2024.

[4] Martinelli’s non-school developed in Italy, but also in France, Belgium, Brazil, Senegal, the United States and recently in the United Kingdom. See Marco Martinelli, Aristofane a Scampia, Milan, Ponte delle Grazie, 2016; Id., The Sky Over Kibera, 2019: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18358142/; Id., Aristophanes dans les banlieues. Pratique de la non-école, trans. Laurence Van Goethem, Arles, Actes Sud-Papier, 2020. For more information on Martinelli’s non-school practice, see https://www.teatrodellealbe.com/ita/contenuto.php?id=4. For more on his ‘choral’ practices, see Marco Martinelli, Coro, Genoa, AkropolisLibri, 2023, and Di Martino 2024.

[5] Ermanna Montanari, Enrico Pitozzi, Cellula: anatomia dello spazio scenico = an anatomy of stage space, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2021; Ermanna Montanari, Enrico Pitozzi, Prima voce, Bologna, Sigaretten Edizioni Grafiche, 2022.

[6] On the history of this collaboration, see Bortoletti, Di Martino, Refini 2024a, 6-7.

Bibliography

Andújar, R. (2023). Profile: Greek tragedy and performance. The Classical Review, 73 (2), 373-377. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-review/article/profile-greek-tragedy-and-performance/F526AC205991FC008F369060D629212D

Andújar, R., & Nikoloutsos, K. P. (2020). Greeks and Romans on the Latin American stage (1st ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Bortoletti, F., Di Martino, G., & Refini, E. (Eds.). (2024). Memory and performance: Classical reception in early modern festivals. Skenè: Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies, 10 (1). https://skenejournal.skeneproject.it/index.php/JTDS/issue/view/32

Bortoletti, F., Di Martino, G., & Refini, E. (2024). Preface. Skenè, 10 (1), 5-7. https://skenejournal.skeneproject.it/index.php/JTDS/article/view/465/426

Bosher, K., Macintosh, F., McConnell, J., & Rankine, P. (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.

Di Martino, G. (2024). Practice research, performance pedagogy, and early modern Aristophanes: Building (on) the script(s). Skenè, 10 (2), 247-292.

Gurchiani, K., Torlone, Z. M., Munteanu, D. L., & Dutsch, D. (2017). Greek tragedy on the Georgian stage in the twentieth century. In A Handbook to Classical Reception in Eastern and Central Europe (pp. 548–559). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Hall, E. (2004). Introduction. In E. Hall, F. Macintosh, & A. Wrigley (Eds.), Dionysus since 69: Greek tragedy at the dawn of the third millennium (pp. 1-46). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hall, E., & Macintosh, F. (2005). Greek tragedy and the British theatre, 1660-1914 . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mitchell-Boyask, R. (2023). Teaching the Oresteia as a work for the theatre. In P. Burian & J. Bromberg (Eds.), A Companion to Aeschylus (pp. 533-543). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.

Meineck, P. (2023). Applied Aeschylus. In P. Burian & J. Bromberg (Eds.), A Companion to Aeschylus (pp. 518-532). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.

Plastow, C., & Bullen, D. (Eds.). (2024). Introducing the classics ecology. In Greek tragedy, education, and theatre practices in the UK classics ecology (pp. 1-16). New York: Routledge.

Smit, B. van Z. (Ed.). (2016). A handbook to the reception of Greek drama . Wiley Blackwell.

So, You Would Like Your Students to Be More Engaged?

By Admin, on 15 November 2024

A blog post for all those interested in Student Engagement and Inclusion in Higher Education

By Elisa Valentin

Jesper Hansen, Selin Abdik, Elisa Valentin, and Abbi Shaw (from left to right), at the RAISE Conference.

A few months ago, I received an open call to join a reflective research project on students’ perceptions of generative AI in education led by UCL Arena researcher Jesper Hansen and Faculty Learning Technology Lead (UCL A&H) Abbi Shaw. Having mulled over that question throughout my master’s, I jumped at the opportunity to reflect on my own and hear about other students’ experiences. Fast-forward to September, I had the honour of sharing my experience as a participant in this project alongside Selin Abdik (see her blog about her experiences) at the RAISE (Researching, Advancing & Inspiring Student Engagement) conference in Leicester. This blog post is a reflection on this experience.

Over the course of my studies, I have encountered numerous ways of questioning systems of power and how to act within them. The RAISE Conference was one such space where I got to hear from those researching and working to advance inclusion and student engagement in Higher Education. Hearing from a mix of student engagement leads, faculty leads, student union officers, activists, and students like me felt like sharing perceptions of what the ‘elephant’ looks like, except that, unlike the parable of the six blind men, we were actually united by the commitment to improving student engagement and inclusion.

Placing Care at the Heart of Education

Dr. Iwi Ugiagbe’s keynote set the stage for this year’s topic on Equity in Attainment and Student Success. With the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis as background, the racial and ethnic achievement gap is increasing. In parallel, students’ expectations of and engagement in higher education have changed. Not only this, the challenges that higher education institutions face regarding student engagement differ based on their unique geographical and institutional context and their student body.

Among the topics raised were the need to adapt learning spaces, focus on delivering quality teaching, and mediate the external factors affecting attendance and achievement, such as costs of living, commuting, and caring responsibilities. This was all part of a broader reflection on what ‘education for the 21st century’ and the ‘post-covid’ model should look like. Presenters and participants did not shy away from relating this to structural inequalities and injustices. Through these discussions, it became clear how the questions of student engagement and achievement are intimately connected to questions of care.

A clear message I left the conference with was the need more than ever to place care at the centre of educational approaches and redefine ‘student success’ in academic and professional terms. To do so, we must start by seeking and hearing students’ voices to inform solutions and co-creation and involve them in improving and solving the diverse issues that concern them. This does not mean putting the onus solely on students to do this work. The RAISE Conference had some good examples of how student-led or student-staff collaboration gives centre stage to the voices it aims to empower.

The Power of Student Voice

From initially contributing as a research participant to co-presenting alongside Abbi and Jesper and attending the conference, it was powerful and validating to feel that people looked positively upon Selin and my input and even sought it. Equally powerful and a source of pride was witnessing fellow students being vocal about their experiences and sharing their projects at the conference.

The MedRACE Project left a notable impression on me as an example of what student voices coming together and receiving an attentive ear can achieve. Presented by medical students from the University of Leicester, MedRACE is a great example of a successful student-staff partnership that has grown over the years, working to foster equality in the medical curriculum and address racial harassment.

The MedRACE student-staff partnership project presented by medical students from the University of Leicester at the RAISE Conference.

In the words of one of the student presenters: ‘We’re at the forefront of experiences, so we can highlight issues to staff.’ This encapsulates the need for student voice. Who else is better than the primary concerned to know what is needed for our education experience? Nonetheless, as the students repeatedly stated: ‘We could not have achieved all this without the help of our staff’.

Methods that Bring Value

Any project or initiative that seeks to improve the conditions of students should therefore strive to have them take an active voice on the issues that concern them. The question, then, is how to reach students when they are not engaging as much?

Effectively engaging students (or any target group) requires them to feel that there are benefits to getting involved.

Drawing on their experiences of doing anti-racism work in sports societies, doctoral researchers Rhianna Garret and Iman Khan made the case for the value of student-led advocacy in developing valuable skills for employability. Starting from the observation that ‘it’s really hard to do critical thinking and problem-solving out of context’, their point is that students can pick up valuable transferable skills from getting involved in issues they care about. Crucially, these advocacy initiatives must be institutionally backed and connected to an employability approach to yield such benefits.

The presentation highlighted the need to see students as agents rather than passive beneficiaries and, as a consequence, the need to also hold them accountable. Connected to this is the idea that students should be taught that they can and should be compensated for their work, notably when this generates an emotional or psychological cost.

Another way to encourage student engagement is through adopting research and data collection methods that bring value to the participants themselves. While surveys and questionnaires have their place to gather input, they can provide a thin understanding of a phenomenon. This can feel especially frustrating when grappling with questions of student satisfaction and expectations as a module leader, programme director or at the faculty level. On students’ end, this kind of practice can often feel extractive, of little value, or perceived as unlikely to achieve much change.

This brings me to my last point, which was the object of my participation in Abbi and Jesper’s research. As a student and former academic representative, I can speak from personal experience about the value of creating spaces to exchange with staff and faculty on topics that are relevant to me and to the broader student body.

For certain ‘controversial’ topics, such as the use and perceptions of AI, disconnecting these spaces from the academics that teach and assess you on a daily basis increases trust. Equally, using alternative methods of inquiry, such as reflective research, co-creation or ‘embodied’ methodologies, can be perceived as more enriching by participants as it is an opportunity to gain insights on a topic relevant to their life and contribute to shaping the debate.

Final Thoughts

Through this experience, I developed a greater understanding of the power of the ‘student voice’ and the impact we can have as students on people in the room, probably beyond what was anticipated! Of course, this requires being (en)able(d) to make it into the room in the first place. The key is, therefore, to create spaces and opportunities for students to share their thoughts and get involved with issues that they care about in a way that can benefit them personally and professionally. Students must be given opportunities to join these spaces and be vocal about their need for them. This requires dedicating adequate resources to creating these spaces and exchanges.

Here are three takeaways I invite you to consider:

• We should approach issues of engagement and inclusion from a perspective and pedagogy of care.
• To increase student engagement and inclusion, seek initiatives and methods that bring value to all involved. Practices that invite reflection and contribute to an experience that participants might value intrinsically are especially interesting.
• To my student peers, your voices and experiences matter, let them be heard

As a recent UCL IOE graduate in Educational Planning, Economics and International Development, I am passionate about researching education equity, its connections to the ‘poly-crisis’, and what achieving quality education might look like depending on each context. A legacy of my Arts and Sciences (BASc) studies, I enjoy applying my ‘research imagination’ to investigate interdisciplinary issues. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisa-valentin/?locale=en_US

RAISE 2025 will be happening on September 4-5 September at the University of Glasgow.

Bringing the socio-economic dimension to the forefront: a podcast series with A&H students

By Admin, on 14 November 2024

How can Lecturers ensure that they create an inclusive environment where all students can thrive and enjoy an optimal sense of belonging? Why are some students less inclined to participate in in-class discussions than others? Are we doing enough to diversify the curriculum? Are we adopting a truly intersectional approach when we implement new teaching and assessment methods? Why is attendance not what it used to be?

UCL’s Arts & Humanities Faculty boasts a myriad of successful and effective EDI initiatives, yet these questions kept popping into my mind following meetings with personal tutees and candid conversations with students. Indeed, it was as part of the “Reverse Mentoring in SELCS” programme that my own student mentor first mentioned the issue of socio-economic equity, and our sessions brought to the forefront something that should be self-evident but that many of us hadn’t really paid attention to: that not all students arrive in UCL with the same financial, social and cultural capital. Whilst this is especially true for First-Year students, these differences are also pervasive in every degree year. Students who have attended private schools with lower student-to-teacher ratios, who have benefitted from private tutoring, who are well-travelled and who regularly attend cultural events are more likely to participate in class and to show higher levels of confidence. This is particularly pertinent in the Arts and Humanities, where in-class discussions often prompt students to share their personal experiences and preferences with regard to travels, performances or exhibitions.

A collage of our socio-economic equity interviews.I discussed this with my colleague Macarena Jiménez Naranjo, who had also taken part in the same reverse mentoring programme and who incidentally had received similar comments from her own student mentor. In fact, it became clear that so many of our students had discreetly hinted at the issue of socio-economic inequalities, and how these shaped their learning and campus experience. Furthermore, as an Access UCL personal tutor who has worked closely with this cohort for the past two years, students have often confided in me how in particular a lack of cultural capital exacerbates their impostor syndrome and limits their ability to perform inside and outside the classroom.

Macarena and I felt it was time to discuss the socio-economic dimension openly. We already worked together to produce an A&H EDI Dialogues podcast, an experience we really enjoyed. We therefore decided to host and record a series of three podcasts under the umbrella topic of socio-economic equity and education. Each podcast would involve the two of us as presenters and two students who would discuss a particular aspect of this overarching topic. We knew we wanted to create a safe environment where students could safely hone their speaking and analytical skills, boost their critical thinking and gain confidence. Also, in line with the decolonising the curriculum format, students should be responsible for designing the podcasts.

With the support of the Centre for Humanities Education, we invited six Arts and Humanities students to cover three main topics. Anna Duongova and Isaac Timberlake focused on intersectionality and reverse snobbery, highlighting how appearances can deceive. James Cooper and Victoria Wysocka discussed class issues on campus, including commuting and social opportunities. Natalie Calderon and Tatum Kemsley’s conversation centred around the Year Abroad, which, although no doubt exciting and enriching, can also pose a set of socio-economic issues.

The very stimulating conversations allowed students to provide insights and convey suggestions on how to make our lectures more inclusive in terms of socio-economic factors. It was also heartwarming to see how it built a greater understanding between all of us – people from different generations, origins and backgrounds. Above all, the students’ candid revelations and pertinent recommendations are already shaping our strategy – as Lecturers, as researchers and as personal tutees. We invite you to listen to the full series, which indeed challenges assumptions and calls for deeper thinking about the delivery of courses and institutional practices by bringing socio-economic issues on campus to the forefront. In the meantime, here are our top tips:

• Don’t judge a book by its cover. Reverse snobbery is real, and it is damaging. Living off campus and/or having to miss out on expensive social activities can also exacerbate students’ feelings of loneliness – encourage your students to attend free or low-cost activities.
• Commuting is expensive! It can also be exhausting. It can affect students’ attendance, performance, and in-class participation. The same applies to part-time jobs. Whenever possible, try to help make their workload more manageable.
• If your students have a Year Abroad, acknowledge that whilst this really is an exciting opportunity for all of them, the logistics can be challenging for students with caring responsibilities or those from lower economic backgrounds without financial support.

Interested in continuing the conversation or looking to collaborate with us on similar initiatives? Please contact us via m.oaknin@ucl.ac.uk and m.naranjo@ucl.ac.uk.

….

The UCL Centre for Humanities Education is funded by generous support from The Lord Randolph Quirk Endowment Fund at UCL. EDI Dialogues were made possible through the support of The Lord Randolph Quirk Endowment Fund.

Macarena Jiménez Naranjo, PhD, is a Lecturer (Teaching) in Spanish Language and Hispanic Literature at University College London. Her interests include Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE), language varieties, and curriculum decolonisation. She currently coordinates the Special Interest Group on Decolonising Spanish Language Teaching ELEUK (SIG-Des-ELEUK).

Mazal Oaknín is Associate Professor (Teaching) in Spanish Language and Literature and Gender Studies and Spanish Language Coordinator. Her publications include the monograph Feminism, Writing and the Media in Spain (Peter Lang, 2019), and the co-edited volumes Literatura política y política literaria en España: Del Desastre del 98 a Felipe VI (Peter Lang, 2015), and Inclusion, Diversity and Innovation in Translation Education (UCL Press, 2024). Her present research interests centre around EDI in Spanish language teaching and translation education.  Mazal is Co-Director of the e-Expert Seminar Series in Translation and Modern Language Teaching and is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Translation Studies. Since 2022 Mazal has also launched a number of EDI projects, including the “Tackling the BAME-BIPOC Awarding Gap in SELCS”, “Decolonising Gender Studies Through Reverse Mentoring”, “Reverse Mentoring in SELCS”, and “Mi Salud Mental: Using Curriculum-Infusion to Promote Positive Mental Health and Wellbeing”. Mazal is also a Co-Chair of UCL’s Gender Equality Steering Group.

From Research Participant to Co-Presenter: My RAISE Conference Experience

By Admin, on 30 October 2024

Jesper Hansen, Selin Abdik, Elisa Valentin, and Abbi Shaw (from left to right), at the RAISE Conference.

In May 2024, an email popped into my inbox that would unexpectedly lead to a great academic experience: presenting at a national conference on student engagement. In the email from Abbi Shaw and Jesper Hansen, they were looking for students to take part in their research about how Arts and Humanities students engage with and think about AI. As an undergraduate Arts and Sciences student with an interest in artificial intelligence, faculty research being conducted about our perceptions of AI as students intrigued me, so I expressed my interest in being a part of this research. Fast forward to September, I was a student co-presenter at the 2024 RAISE (Researching, Advancing & Inspiring Student Engagement) Conference at the University of Leicester.

After expressing my interest in participating in the research, we were tasked with writing a series of reflections on five key questions and then joining a focus group to discuss them with other students. The questions were not just technical—they asked us to reflect on our personal relationships with AI, from the role it plays in our academic work to how we see it shaping our future careers. The questions were designed to enable us to dig deep into our feelings about generative AI, with questions about what reflections the term ‘generative AI’ triggers, or about how AI shows up in our daily life, or even in our studies at UCL. The introspective nature of the questions made me want to answer them and hear about what the other participants said.

A few months later, I received an exciting email from Abbi and Jesper about another opportunity: to be a student co-presenter at the RAISE Conference at the University of Leicester. If you have never heard of RAISE, it is a conference that focuses on research around student engagement, with themes like accessibility, equity, and celebrating diversity. This year’s theme was “Equity in Attainment & Student Success,” which was very fitting with the nature of our participation in this research. The purpose was to amplify student voices and make them part of the broader academic conversation. At the time, I did not know what the conference was about or what to expect from presenting, but I wanted to give it a go. So, Elisa Valentin (who has also written a blog on her experiences) and I joined the team as student co-presenters and had the chance to extend our participation.

Our presentation at RAISE focused on UCL’s ongoing efforts to incorporate a wide range of perspectives—from both staff and students—into the research process. Elisa and I shared our experiences of participating in faculty-led research, talking about how meaningful it was to be seen not just as participants, but as active contributors to the project.

Standing up there as a co-presenter, I realised that this kind of student engagement—where our insights are valued on an equal footing with those of staff—is exactly what conferences like RAISE are all about, and it fits into this broader discussion of co-creation. Co-creation was indeed a recurring theme throughout the conference, and it became clear that involving students in shaping their own learning is not just beneficial—it is necessary. Whether it is redesigning assessments, building inclusive learning environments, or making decisions about course content, there was a strong push for universities to break down traditional hierarchies and engage students as equal partners.

At the conference, there were people from various universities, all with different experiences and backgrounds, who gathered to discuss how we can reshape higher education. One of the parallel sessions that stood out to me was the one about “Why are students not attending in-person classes post-COVID-19?” by Conor Naughton (Education and Student Experience Manager at the University of Nottingham), Tom Lowe (Assistant Head of School (Student Experience), School of Finance and Accounting at the University of Westminster), and Tania Struetzel (Director of Student Success at Southampton Solent University). This session, delivered as an interactive workshop, explored the students’ perceptions of the necessity of in-person attendance after the pandemic. The majority of the room was academic staff members, and as a student, it was interesting to hear the academic staff discuss what they think the reasons for students’ low attendance to in-person classes might be.

As I listened to the discussions on post-COVID attendance, I realized just how complex student engagement is. While many staff members pointed to flexibility and convenience as factors, I found myself thinking about the importance of mental health, diverse learning preferences, and the need for universities to adapt. It was reassuring to see that the conversation was not about ‘blaming’ students for lower attendance, but about rethinking how we deliver education in a way that truly meets the needs of today’s learners.

This whole experience left me with a deeper understanding of equity in education, and how essential it is for students to be included in the shaping of our academic environments. It was pleasant to see so many educators and students working together to reimagine what inclusive education looks like. From being involved in the research to presenting at the RAISE Conference, this experience has shown me that students have a pivotal role to play in shaping not only our own learning journeys but also the broader academic landscape.

Author Bio: Selin Abdik is a second-year BASc Arts and Sciences student at UCL, specialising in the interdisciplinary application of technology. Selin has a strong interest in how technology can drive innovation and create impactful change across various fields. As a co-presenter at the 2024 RAISE Conference, Selin contributed insights on student involvement in research and policy changes within higher education. You can find out more about Selin’s work via Linkedin.

This project was supported by funding from UCL’s Centre for Humanities Education. The author wished to express their thanks to UCL CHE and the Randolph Quirk Endowment.

RAISE 2025 will be happening on September 4-5 September at the University of Glasgow.

Widening Participation and Collection-Based Learning: An Interview with Dr Elettra Carbone

By Admin, on 25 October 2024

Hi Elettra – many congratulations on receiving the Faculty Education Award for enhancing belonging! Can you tell us a bit more about your work as Widening Participation and Outreach Tutor for the School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS)?

I was Widening Participation (WP) and Outreach Tutor for SELCS from 2019 to 2023 but have worked with WP since 2016. I started by teaching a session on Italian and Norwegian for the first Y12 Residential Language and Culture Summer School run by SELCS and then ended up coordinating it the year after. I have never looked back, and WP continues to be a big part of what I do as I am still heavily involved in our Language and Culture Taster Days and Summer Schools.

Since 2017, I have aimed to design a comprehensive WP strategy that today involves colleagues across UCL and engages with a wide range of schools, pupils and teachers. Thanks to the generous support of UCL Access and WP and many UCL colleagues, I began constructing a dedicated online platform which features information about WP activities and initiatives and a library of online resources. Our yearly activities have so far included running the Y12 WP Residential Language and Culture Summer School, contributing to the Routes into Language Schools and managing a scheme called Near Peers – designed and coordinated by Terry King – which provides a platform for UCL language undergraduates to mentor school students of languages online. In 2023, I also created a programme of Language and Culture Taster Days for Y6 to Y12. This has been a great way to establish contacts with different schools: we have welcomed 50-60 pupils per taster day by dividing them into four groups and rotating them across four different activities. These include a session on why and how we study foreign languages, a visit to the exhibition ‘Not Just Words: Learning Languages through Objects and Art’, a surprise language taster and a campus tour.

During the pandemic, I also focused on providing teachers and learners with free online resources promoting innovative approaches to foreign language learning and multilingualism. These include our ‘A Language is Not Just Words’ series, which I coordinated with my colleague Christine Sas (Associate Professor in Dutch and WP and Outreach Tutor for SELCS since 2023). I highly recommend checking out these resources which so many colleagues worked on – the multilingual songs were so much fun to make!

The second series was ‘The Language and Culture Show and Tell’ series. This consists of language tasters and related materials created around objects from UCL Art Collections. This was also the basis of the above-mentioned UCL Art Museum exhibition, ‘Not Just Words’.

You’re also the academic lead and creator for the exhibition ‘Not Just Words: Learning Languages through Arts and Objects’, which promotes innovative object-based approaches to language education! Please tell us a little bit more about this exhibition and how the idea for it came about.

As I mentioned, ‘Not Just Words’’ was born out of the Language and Culture Show and Tell series, a collaboration between a group of language specialists at UCL and UCL Art Museum. The exhibition (or showcase, as my colleagues and I prefer to call it), which I co-curated with Dr Andrea Fredericksen (Curator, UCL Art Museum), opened in January 2023. It initially featured 13 short language taster videos, which take artworks from UCL’s Collection as their starting point while encouraging visitors to learn some of the basics in several languages. The aim is to showcase the benefits of this innovative object-based or, more specifically, collection-based approach to language teaching, which demonstrates that language is not just words by emphasising the connection between language and culture.

I think the showcase has shown how a collection-based approach to language teaching can successfully promote both the importance of language awareness and the relevance of university collections to academic and non-academic audiences. I was thrilled to see how the showcase encouraged more tutors (across UCL and beyond) to create similar collection-based tasters as Ancient Greek, Faroese, Hebrew and Romanian joined the series in 2023 and 2024. In fact, three more tasters which significantly expand the series’s scope (and which were generously supported by the Centre for Humanities Education) are in development now, so watch this space!

The ‘Not Just Words’ exhibition in the Summer of 2024.

How do the objects or artworks in this exhibition impact its visitors? Have there been any particular responses sparked by this exhibition that you’d like to share? 

In this exhibition, the objects very much take centre stage. They are what visitors see even before they engage with the video tasters on the iPads. My colleague Andrea often calls the objects ‘conversation starters’ and I really like this expression. They are the starting point of the conversations we have had with colleagues who created the tasters and of the narratives developed in the videos. They have also been the source of many interesting conversations with different visitors. The focus on the object is why I am so keen to emphasise that the video series is called ‘Show and Tell’. As I often explain to the school groups that visit us, the ‘show and tell’ methodology – which they are all familiar with from Early Years settings and Primary school – offers many opportunities and allows learners to take control of their learning. It is also not dissimilar from what we call Object-based Learning (OBL), a methodology UCL colleagues have developed extensively in recent years.

While the videos are generally suitable for visitors from 15-18 years of age upwards, the objects themselves allow us to engage even younger audiences. The enthusiastic response we had from a group of Y3s (aged 7-8) when we organised a language treasure hunt in the museum will remain one of the highlights of the exhibition.

How did you grow interested in museums as a site of learning? What role do they continue to play in education?  

A bit by chance really… Museums, OBL and, more specifically, collection-based teaching are now central to my teaching, but it all started when I attended a drop-in session at UCL Art Museum in 2015. There I met Andrea and Dr Nicholas Grindle (Lecturer (Teaching) Education and Practice Development) at the Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (now UCL Arena). They were trying to encourage more staff members to use UCL Collections in their teaching and UCL Art Museum as a teaching space. Following this session, together with then Danish language tutor Dr Jesper Hansen (who today is Associate Professor (Teaching) and Programme Director for Arena for Lecturers on Probation at UCL Arena), I began to pilot a new teaching approach to a series of joint Danish and Norwegian language classes that took place in UCL Art Museum and introduced collections-based teaching as a language learning methodology in Scandinavian Studies curriculum. Today, I try to include collection-based sessions in my teaching whenever I can: in my language sessions, literature and cultural studies sessions and public engagement and knowledge transfer events.

Can you tell us more about the language tasters you have developed, and how you view their role in making language learning more accessible to students?

Given that UCL offers the widest range of language-based degrees in the UK, the Language and Culture Show and Tell series showcases as many languages and objects in our collections as possible. We began by focusing on the foreign languages we offer at UCL while exploring objects from our UCL Art Collection but then expanded our scope to languages beyond UCL (like Faroese) and a broader range of UCL collections (like Special Collections and the Petrie Collections). For each language, the tutor produced a short video which takes an object from the UCL Collections as its starting point. Some also include a worksheet based on the video’s content.

By using objects from UCL’s Art Collections as their starting point, the language tasters digitally recreate the experience of learning through objects in museum spaces, making our collections and approach to learning as accessible as possible. As I mentioned earlier, these materials were originally designed with students in Y10-Y12 in mind. This means that, while they were created within a research-intensive university environment, they are tailored to be accessible to a much broader audience. The tasters, which are freely available online, thus allow learners to access them from their own devices, presuppose no previous knowledge and are accompanied by a full transcript.

In what ways has your research informed your teaching, and vice-versa?

My teaching projects with UCL’s collections have entirely changed the course of my research. Ever since Professor Dilly Fung outlined the UCL Connected Curriculum in her book A Connected Curriculum for Higher Education (2017), research-based learning has become a core principle behind UCL’s educational framework. As outlined in Fung’s book, student learning ‘should reflect the kinds of active, critical and analytical enquiry undertaken by researchers’. creating connections ‘across subjects and out into the world’, ‘connecting academic learning with workplace learning’, ‘producing outputs directed at an audience’ and ‘connecting with each other’ (Fung 2017, 5, 20). Working with OBL and Collections is a great way of introducing these key principles in our teaching and informing our research. At the moment, I see most of my research as an example of ‘teaching-based research’, namely research that comes directly out of exploring new teaching practices.

The collection-based Scandinavian Studies teaching project I carried out in 2016 provided the first fragments for my research while encouraging me to embrace a different approach to research, one that ultimately takes its starting point from serendipity. As I unearthed new materials these were included in my research but also fed back into my teaching. In 2021 I launched the online exhibition Nordic Fragments, where historical items from UCL Collections are combined with modern-day digital objects to explore stories of UK-Nordic connections from the nineteenth century onward. In addition to articles that analyse the impact of a collection-based approach to teaching, I am also finishing a monograph: British Representations of Modern Scandinavia: An Object-based Investigation (to be published by UCL Press). In this book, I explore the cultural contacts between the UK and Scandinavia, taking as a starting point selected items from UCL Collections. Divided into three sections (landscapes and communities, translation and remediation, research and teaching), it examines UK-Scandinavian relations and considers shifting power dynamics between these regions. With its focus on material fragments and its object-based approach, this volume also aims to give a methodological contribution to the study and use – in both research and teaching – of archival materials from university collections.

Ultimately, I firmly believe that the link between research-based education and teaching-based research is a dynamic one that reminds us of the important role that university archives, and access to them, play in the production of culture and dissemination of education.

What does belonging to a community mean to you? 

For me belonging to a community means sharing experiences and practices to support individuals and the community as a whole. Being part of a community is important, but being open to being drawn into different communities is even more important. Had my colleague Dr Annika Lindskog (Lecturer in Swedish and then Admissions Tutor for SELCS) not asked me to contribute to the Y12 Summer School in 2016, I might not have worked so much with WP. Had Andrea not pulled me into the UCL Art Museum in 2016, none of this might have happened and I would not have had the chance to work with so many colleagues from so many different fields. I really like being part of different communities, both in my professional and private life, and ultimately I think it’s when we are open to support and learn from these different communities that the best collaborations and friendships are born.

***

Dr Elletra Carbone is an Associate Professor in Norwegian Studies and Scandinavian Studies in UCL’s School of European Languages, Culture, and Society. Since 2017 Elletra has been Widening Participation and Outreach Tutor for SELCS, and in 2020 Elltra joined the UCL Art Collections Advisory Group. Elletra is also one of the directors of the non-profit publisher Norvik Press Ltd, UCL, a council member of the Anglo-Norse Society, a deputy editor of the journal Scandinavica. An International Journal of Scandinavian Studies and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of European Studies.

All images courtesy of Dr Elettra Carbone.

EDI 2024-2025 Small Grants – Open for Applications

By Admin, on 22 October 2024

The Centre for Humanities Education is pleased to announce the 2024-2025 call for small EDI grants within its Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) stream. We invite staff and students to propose projects that contribute to fostering inclusivity, diversity, and accessibility in education. For this round, we will accept all applications that centre on EDI; we particularly encourage initiatives that focus on (i) disability equity and (ii) race equity.  

Grants Purpose: The purpose of these small grants is to encourage innovative projects that aim to enhance equal opportunities and create a more inclusive learning environment at UCL Arts and Humanities. We especially welcome proposals that consider disability and race (and the intersections of these with other dimensions of equity (including socio-economic equity, gender equity, LGBTQ+ equity, race equity, religion and belief equity). 

Eligibility:  

• Faculty, staff, and students from UCL Arts and Humanities are eligible to apply. Students should apply in collaboration with a member of staff. 
• If you are a student, we suggest you discuss this with someone in your programme or study or department. If you don’t feel this is appropriate for your idea or are not quite sure whom to contact among staff, then you are also welcome to contact Dr Jesper Hansen (j.hansen@ucl.ac.uk). 
• Collaborative projects involving multiple stakeholders are encouraged.  
• Projects that take intersectionality into account are warmly welcome.  

Grants Amount: Grants of up to £500 will be awarded to successful proposals.  

What can these funds be used for?   

• Events/conferences/workshops;
• To pay PGTAs or other students to undertake tasks relating to an event/conference/activity (at the relevant standard UCL rate);   
• To pay the expenses of visitors (travel/overnight hotel if necessary) who give talks (note that UCL Expenses Policy will apply to these);   
• To purchase resources/consumables.   

What can they NOT be used for?   

• They cannot be used for staff buy out;   
• They cannot be used for the purchase of equipment.  

Project Categories: We welcome proposals in the following categories (but not limited to):  

• Development of educational resources that address Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
• Initiatives promoting mentorship and support for students from underrepresented backgrounds.
• Workshops, seminars, or events fostering awareness and dialogue on equity in education.  

Application Process: Interested applicants are invited to submit a proposal via this Microsoft Form, including the following details:  

• Project title and brief description (up to 300 words).
• Objectives and expected outcomes (up to 200 words).  
• Budget breakdown.  
• Timeline for project implementation.  
• Potential challenges and mitigation strategies (up to 200 words).  
• Relevance to the overarching goal of socio-economic equity and education (up to 200 words).  

Submission Deadline: The deadline for submitting proposals is 25th November, 2024. Late submissions will not be considered.  

Review Process: Proposals will be reviewed by a panel within the EDI stream of the Arts and Humanities Centre for Humanities Education, considering the alignment with the initiative’s goals, feasibility, and potential impact on socio-economic equity and education.  

Notification of Awards: Successful applicants will be notified by 2nd December. Funds will be disbursed upon approval of project plans. Funding has to be spent by May 30th, 2025 (please keep in mind that this is a hard deadline). 

Contact: For inquiries or further information, please contact Thomas Cryer (thomas.cryer.21@ucl.ac.uk).

How to Apply:  

Deadline: 25th November, 4pm.  

We look forward to receiving your innovative proposals that contribute to advancing equity and education within our community. 

Making a SPLAS: this award-winning SELCS team is tackling the BAME awarding gap

By UCL CHE, on 19 June 2024

Mazal Oaknin, Alejandro Bolanos-Garcia-Escribano, Haydn Kirnon and Marga Navarrete won the UCL Faculty of Arts & Humanities Education Award 2024 team award for enhancing belonging. This dynamic and tight-knit team has nurtured several projects in collaboration with SELCS staff and students to tackle major issues in higher education, such as the BAME awarding gap. Read on to learn more about their work!

Hi Mazal, Alejandro, Haydn and Marga – many congratulations on receiving the Faculty Education Award for enhancing belonging! Please tell us a bit more about yourselves and how you would describe yourselves as educators. 

We know each other very well as we’ve been co-teaching language and translation modules in SPLAS (Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies) since 2017. We worked hard to redesign the Spanish language programme that we had inherited, but what must be highlighted is that we are part of a very tight-knit team. Our personal lives – our personalities, ideas and beliefs – are very much entrenched within our professional lives, and we believe that our bond and cohesiveness can be felt in the way we teach and work.

Alejandro, Marga, Mazal and Haydn poised on a gloriously colourful Andalusian patio! Photo credit: Haydn Kirnon

From a pedagogical point of view, we have strived to align our teaching methods and materials to ensure progression across the three academic years of the BA in Spanish. As co-teachers of the compulsory modules on Spanish language in general, and pedagogical translation in particular, all undergraduate students of Spanish (as well as those who pursue postgraduate studies at SELCS/CMII) are taught by us at some point. This gives us an excellent opportunity to get to know our students closely, though it also allows us to identify challenges and discuss areas of improvement.

You’ve been working on a three-year project at SELCS titled “Turn on the heating! Tackling the BAME awarding gap by beating the ‘cold climate’ in our classrooms”. What a fantastic title! Can you tell us more about what inspired you to come together to work on this project? What did you observe about BAME/BIPOC students and the way that they encounter the educational system that inspired this project and its formulation?

In our teaching, we have also aimed at achieving best practices and we always endeavour to cater for our students’ needs. Our language groups are relatively small (12–15 students) and participation is highly important and strongly encouraged. Throughout the years we have become aware of the increasingly diverse racial profile of our students, and scholars such as Jason Arday, Kalwant Bhopal and Shirley Anne Tate have made it abundantly clear that the system fails to take into account the different needs of our students in terms of not only the curriculum but also student-staff rapport, pastoral care and teaching dynamics, among other key elements. This is something we had intuitively observed already and that has been validated by other scholars working on EDI-related topics in higher education.

Shirley Anne Tate’s work has been inspirational.

In particular, the work of Shirley Anne Tate has been a source of inspiration to us. We were really empowered by her talk addressing the BAME awarding gap, in which she mentioned students’ “lack of sense of belonging” and the “cold climate” in higher education. Our research expertise lies beyond sociology, but as experienced educators these are issues that we had witnessed in SPLAS, so it became immediately clear that we had to do something to tackle them.

The project’s main goal is to reduce the awarding gap among BA students in Hispanic Studies through a series of multi-level initiatives over three years. You have done this through multiple initiatives, including electing BIPOC student reps. Can you tell us more about the process of working with students to identify and address ongoing issues? What are some challenges and possibilities that emerge from this relationship?

We worked very hard to submit competitive bids to fund our project. Our funding has been almost exclusively used to pay students for their work at a rate that would reflect the emotional labour that we believe is intrinsic to the role. We felt it was crucial to recognise their time and efforts.

In terms of the emerging possibilities, the relationships we have established with students have been transformative and deeply enriching, both personally and professionally. This project has led to many other student-teacher collaborations and to an increasing interest in pursuing PG studies among some student collaborators. Also, the lessons learnt are allowing us to fine-tune not only our materials but also our class dynamics, personal tutee meetings, research, etc. to make them more inclusive.

One ongoing challenge that we have identified is the possible reluctance of some students to identify publicly as BAME/BIPOC and so engage with the project by becoming BAME/BIPOC student representatives. There may be concerns that, in so doing, they become visible or set themselves apart from the rest of the student body in a way that, to them, may feel disadvantageous. Addressing this matter continues to be one of the aims of our ongoing research.

Motivation is key to the project, and it has been the impulse for all project members, staff and students alike. There have been administrative challenges throughout, which has been a considerable drawback. And, of course, there are significant time constraints, given that staff participation is a voluntary and non-remunerative task that has been taken on in addition to a packed teaching/research schedule.

Unfortunately, there have been administrative hurdles that have impacted negatively on the development of the project. Although this has meant having to axe or postpone some tasks and initiatives, the project has also made us more resilient. We have learnt to do more with less.

You have also organised termly workshops that bring together SELCS teaching staff and external experts on the awarding gap. Please tell us more about the topics you’ve discussed, and some of the more memorable discussions or repeated themes which have emerged from these workshops!

A few social events were organised by our student reps. We as project members supported these events.

Apart from the student-led events, we offered workshops and talks led by world-renowned scholars who work on EDI-related topics in higher education. We were grateful that the speakers were all very enthusiastic about our initiative. They recognised the need for a project of this calibre.

Angela Jackman speaks at a workshop on the BAME awarding gap at UCL on 14 May 2024. Photo credit: Alejandro Bolaños

Of particular importance is the fact that some topics were commonly addressed by the speakers in their talks, including the need for greater awareness of intersectionality and some of the most pressing issues HEIs are currently experiencing, including (lack of) sense of belonging, the degree awarding gap, unconscious bias, etc. Many of our colleagues have found these workshops inspiring and useful.

A list of our events is below:

• “The degree awarding gap: What do we want? Elimination. When do we want it? Now.” (Angela Jackman, 14 May 2024)
• “How has Black Lives Matter affected racism in education?” (Kalwant Bhopal, 2 May 2024)
• “Speaking Truth to Power …. and other Cautionary Tales” (David Dibosa, 29 February 2024)
• “Against mastery: teaching and thinking in the neoliberal university” (Pavan Mano, 12 September 2023)
• “Advancing the Dialogue on the BAME Awarding Gap” (Jason Arday, 13 June 2023)
• “Making a SPLAS: Why I’m Still Talking to White People About Race” (Haydn Kirnon, 8 March 2023)
• “Creating an inclusive teaching environment” (Madeline Young, 2 November 2022)

Among the questionnaires that students filled in, we have observed positive reactions to our efforts.

Can you tell us more as well about the BAME student-staff support network that you have organised? How would you describe the community that has been grown within this network?

Our reverse mentoring programme has proved successful in subverting the traditional student-staff dynamics, thereby allowing for more authentic collaboration and relationships on an equal footing. Student mentors took the lead in setting up regular meetings with staff mentees, and these took place in neutral spaces outside campus, including cafés, galleries, museums, parks, etc. This contributed to students’ empowerment, boosted confidence and motivation, and a greater sense of belonging. The relationships formed will continue after this project as our aim is to keep providing professional and academic guidance.

Mentors and mentees from the reverse mentoring project mingle at dinner. Photo credit: Alejandro Bolaños

We as project leads soon became aware of the need to get everyone together and share ideas and reflections on how things were going. Therefore, we organised monthly social lunches for mentors and mentees to meet and discuss their involvement and to build a greater sense of community. At the end of the project, we also invited all participants to join us for dinner.

We are particularly proud of our students, some of whom have already expressed their motivation to pursue further studies and continue collaborating with us. The mentor leads are currently working on materials such as a toolkit and a reverse mentoring guide under our supervision, which will turn into their first academic publication. This has sparked their interest in research, so we have encouraged them to go down this route and consider PhD studies.

As a group, can you also tell us a little bit about what you’ve learned from navigating these issues as a team, rather than as individuals?

We have learnt from each other by brainstorming and sharing common concerns. Given the nature of this project, we chose not to impose very rigid deadlines or milestones and instead opted to allow for further flexibility. The project evolved organically following our discussions with the students, and we took actions accordingly. We encouraged each pair to define their own objectives and tackle the issues that were more pressing to them.

We ensured that our project remained open to everyone, and it soon sparked interest among colleagues and students, so we were incredibly happy to welcome new collaborations that were motivated by everyone’s approachability and friendliness. By doing this, our project has become a safe space for everyone involved, of which we are particularly proud.

What are some of your observations about current translation and modern languages curricula? In what ways has your research informed your teaching, and vice-versa?

From the outset, we joined efforts to reconsider the materials that we used in class. Because our SPLAS Translation and language modules have a pedagogical function, we made a concerted and holistic effort to revamp not only the selection of authors, but also the topics discussed.

We discussed how this research has informed our teaching practice in a recent article published in language and translation journal Alfinge: https://journals.uco.es/alfinge/article/view/16370

What does belonging to a community mean to you?

Belonging to a community means embracing, celebrating, and learning from both our differences and the things we have in common. But we want to hear from the readers in the comments — what does belonging to a community mean to you?

From Rome’s ideal woman to Medusa and the Stone Butch: Challenging a conventional Classics curriculum

By UCL CHE, on 10 June 2024

by Poppy Shortmoor and Ella Bosworth-Gerbino (Department of Greek and Latin)

What was Rome’s ideal woman? Selflessness, sexuality, and dependency on men – these were the values that coloured the depiction of female characters in Roman epic, mythology, and elegy.

But this idealised helplessness of women in Roman literature is juxtaposed against their real economic liberties, where there was much more freedom and agency than is generally believed.

The mausoleum of Ummidia Quadratilla, a wealthy Roman woman whom we featured in our paper.

Our paper, titled “How the Economic Role of Roman Women both Challenges and Conforms to Literary Ideals”, focused on this juxtaposition, and was one of many presented at this year’s Greek and Latin Speaker Series, titled New Frontiers in the Ancient World.

The Speaker Series, organised this year by Mairead McAuley and Ronald Chiu, aims to diversify the curriculum and encourage students to explore new perspectives with regards to Classics.

Placing student work front and centre

Student participants volunteered to give a short lecture on a topic of their choosing within the themes of sexuality, gender, identity, race, and otherness.

After participants had their abstract approved, they independently researched and created their presentations over a few weeks. These projects covered topics like femininity in Sumerian literature, sexuality in Greek art, and feminist analyses of mythology and theatre.

A commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion is at the centre of this year’s Speaker Series. This focus allows for new topics not commonly discussed to be introduced to students, which hopefully will aid the process of broadening the wider curriculum.

Additionally, it highlights what students are interested in, fostering a more welcoming environment and allowing new perspectives into the discussion on the ancient world.

This interest in diversity was particularly evident in the wide variety of talks from other students. Not only were they able to explore their own interests, as we were, but also to illuminate topics that other participants might not have been aware of before.

Karen Guo’s talk “I petrify: Medusa and the Stone Butch” was a particular standout.

Bringing together contemporary queer theory and ancient mythology, she discussed parallels between the concept of the Stone Butch popularised by Feinberg in the late twentieth century, and the themes of sexuality in Medusa’s story.

Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus and the Head of Medusa. Photo by Álvaro Rotellar on Unsplash

Mitigating historical bias on modern literary reception

Our own paper was illustrated through an exploration of the historic figures including Ummidia Quadratilla and other Roman women.

Together, we set out a rough plan of our presentation, then went on to conduct our research separately before combining our arguments.

Ultimately, we reached the conclusion that it is important – when studying classics – not to take literature as unequivocal, historical fact, due to its intrinsic links to the ideals of its time and culture.

This topic was particularly interesting to both of us, because, as women studying in a traditionally male dominated field, we understand the importance of recognising the impacts of historical bias on modern literary reception, and of highlighting female history.

Exploring student interests beyond modules

The Speaker Series gave us an opportunity to explore our subjects outside of the modules available in the Greek and Latin department.

Being able to investigate a particular area of Classics that we are especially interested in, we were able to develop a sense of independence within our studies. In particular, the Speaker Series allowed us to develop skills that we have not had much opportunity to exercise as of yet.

Additionally, as we both plan on going into higher education, this project has provided an invaluable introduction into a more self-directed line of study, giving us skills that will no doubt be useful in our educational journey.

Poppy Shortmoor is a second year ancient world student who is planning on doing a masters in economic and social history and is particularly interested in the economy of the early Roman imperial era. Ella Bosworth Gerbino is a 2^nd year French and Latin student who is planning on going into teaching and is interested in the modern reception of classics. 

New EDI Dialogues episode! Re-centre Pedagogies, De-centre Curricula

By UCL CHE, on 31 May 2024

Macarena Jiménez Naranjo promised her student, Nadia Hussain, and the rest of Nadia’s classmates that they would receive full marks for one part of their assessments — simply for turning up to class. Listen to find out how this bold decision lifted the pressure of grades, fostered student-led scholarly exploration, and drew students back into the classroom after the fracturing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants: Mazal Oaknín, Macarena Jiménez Naranjo, and Nadia Hussain (all from UCL’s Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies)

Step out of the classroom and into an ancient world with Virtual Reality

By UCL CHE, on 17 May 2024

“If you want to learn French, you can go to Paris. But if you want to learn Latin, you cannot visit the ancient world; well, with Virtual Reality, now you can!” muses Antony Makrinos, who is an Associate Professor in Classics at UCL.

Dr. Antony Makrinos demonstrates how to use a VR headset to workshop participants.

Across two workshops held in April 2024 at the Object-Based Learning Lab, Antony showed both educators and students how the classics can be taught in innovative new ways through VR.

From current-day Athens to Ancient Rome

Slipping the VR headset over your head, you jerk slightly as you find yourself floating like a bird over the modern city of Athens. You can see the sunny streets of the storied Greek city run into the distant hills as you turn your head carefully from side to side. The shining white pillars of the Acropolis and the Parthenon immediately catch the eye.

This, as Antony says, is only a small part of what VR can bring to our classrooms.

Antony uses the headsets and software of a VR company called ClassVR to take students not only to modern-day Greece but into the Colosseum in Ancient Rome — where students can duck gladiators lunging at each other in a fury of swords and watch lions lunge at them from behind bars.

Alternatively, if you are more inclined, you can also stand on Mount Olympus, home of the Greek Gods, and watch Pegasus soar through the stars.

The ability to explore these virtual environments — where you can move around and interact with objects while physically staying seated — helps enhance immersion and engagement for students, especially when paired with lessons that contextualise the VR experience.

The cube and the amphora

One can even “handle” objects through VR. Holding and manipulating a rubber cube in your hands, you can turn an amphora — a storage jar used in ancient Greece — around and around in virtual reality, peering carefully at its painted design.

A rubber cube that you can physically manipulate to move the virtual image in the VR environment.

This is a form of mixed reality, where physical and virtual environments are combined.

As Antony puts it: “What you feel in your hands is the cube, but what you see when you wear the VR headsets is the amphora. You are instantly introduced to the delights of virtual Object-Based Learning where one can handle any kind of object virtually.”

Incorporating VR into our learning leads us to ask how we can interact with ancient objects — and even opens up questions about what an object is.

For instance, Antony shows us that one can make a 3D object using a phone camera app and then import it into the VR application. An image of a teacup materialises before your eyes, seemingly teleported from Antony’s breakfast table to the headset. The same applies to any other object one wishes.

Students can create their own VR museums with digitised objects. An example shared by Antony has students working at UCL’s Petrie Museum, where they were able to digitise ancient mummy labels.

A digitised mummy label.

Advantages and challenges of teaching and learning with VR

The incorporation of VR into the classroom can make the experience far more immersive and engaging for students. It also allows students to pick up some important and increasingly relevant skills — for example, the application and usage of VR technology and other augmented reality tools in a wide range of contexts.

Workshop participant Jesper Hansen (left) and Antony Makrinos (right) traversing the ancient world while on UCL campus.

There are some drawbacks to consider too: VR headsets are still quite expensive, VR cannot replace face-to-face teaching, and some users complain of vertigo and dizziness while using the headsets.

Additionally, there are also limitations to the virtual environments currently generated. For example, Antony has asked whether graffiti in Latin could be added to the walls of the Colosseum so that students can approach this text and practise their language skills, but it turned out that this would make the file “too heavy”.

As VR technology continues to improve, these issues of cost, usability, and accessibility are likely to be diminished.

Overall, it is therefore not so much a question of replacing large amounts of classroom teaching with VR, but considering the pedagogical benefits some engagement with VR will offer.

For more information about Dr. Antony Makrinos’s usage of VR in teaching humanities, please get in touch with him at a.makrinos@ucl.ac.uk. He also holds VR office hours at the Department of Greek and Latin, Gordon House — please email Antony for more info. This blog post was written by Kellynn Wee.