Nieuwsbrief/Newsletter 02-2021

Dear Teiresians,

As you have all seen by now, Alessandro has stepped down as head of the board. We would like to briefly respond to how we will be addressing the new situation. We will share the responsibilities between the three of us. It is important to note, however, that we have named Lucy Visser head of the board ad nominem, since we need to have someone acting as head of the association. As mentioned before, all Alessandro’s responsibilities will be shared between the three of us now. In practice this means there shouldn’t be a big difference for you, our members. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments in regard to these recent developments. We will continue to work to provide you with fun and educational activities as usual for the remainder of the year!

So without further ado, here are our events for the next few weeks!

Killers and Criminals in the Ancient World – online Symposium. Join us on MS Teams, Thursday, February 18, 2021 15:30 – 19:00. Criminals, killers, and thieves had an impact on ancient religious beliefs, cult practices, burial rituals, the law, migration, and more. Ancient Rome and Greece are full of crime in antiquity, you just have to know where to look. The symposium this year will be examining the cultural and historical context of criminals, killers, and thieves in the ancient world and how we as a culture can still find a connection to the past with these crimes today.

This online symposium will have an international character with speakers from universities from England, the United States, and the Netherlands. They will speak about serial killers, curse tablets, and literature. Therefore, there will be something for everyone. We hope to see you all at this year’s symposium!

Featuring:

·  “Serial Killers in Classical Myth and History” Dr. Debbie Felton (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

·  “Delightful Horror in Imperial Literature” Dr. Antje Wessels (Leiden University)

·  “An Examination of Criminal Behavior in Antiquity Through Curse Tablets” Charlotte Spence, PhD candidate (University of Exeter), supervisor Dr. Daniel Ogden

Pubquiz

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021 20:00-21:30. Who never wonders what their professor is like when he or she is not teaching? This is your chance to find out! In our pubquiz teachers will join forces with Teiresias members to win! More information will be provided in the Facebook event that will be created soon! Join us then using this Link!

The past at play: a tutorial of the past

On March 18th at 15:15 VALUE Foundation will present a lecture for Ortal-Paz Saar’s Digital Humanities course. This foundation tries to facilitate research on the crossroads of gaming and academia and they aim to make their approach as playful and accessible as possible. Videogames are played by a huge number of people and they portray interesting representations of the historical past. In this lecture, we set out to understand in what way historical research can be performed in the framework of videogames, what questions need to be asked, and thirdly, we would like to share the results of a case study. For this, we analyze the way cultures are represented in the grand-strategy game Imperator Rome. Please tune in to learn more!

To wrap up this month’s newsletter, a message from our Travel Committee:

The travel committee is facing a great challenge this year: figuring out how to plan a trip during the Corona pandemic. While this seems to be a nearly impossible task, we have managed to come up with a foolproof-plan. In the best-case scenario, we will travel to several Dutch historical wonders from May 28th to 31st. On this domestic trip, we will visit several museums in Utrecht, Nijmegen, and Leiden and we hope we will be able to enjoy some drinks at the local terrace and nice weather. In the case of stricter measures, worry not! for we have the solution to all possibilities. In this case, we will offer activities in at least one city and the least we will try to provide is an informative city-walk through Utrecht. Everything will be, as usual, accompanied by one of our teachers who will share their knowledge with us.

We will wait as long as possible with any bookings, so there is no need yet to apply, but know that the travel committee is working hard to provide a light in the darkness!

As always, the board would like to remind you that we are also available to anyone who wants to talk about issues they are experiencing in university work, or life in general! We are all in this together.