It never amazes me still how selfish some people can be, even at the top their fields. It's important not to see their stinginess as a comment on the satisfaction your work brings you, though. Keep at it!
The dark fuchsia paperback cover of Clodia of Rome.
Paperback's out July 7. Art department @wwnorton.com went with this color, and it looks like Clodia and @citizensimpeachment.com might be two peas in a pod
Details: www.facebook.com/share/p/18ub...
Rome event! Come join Barbie Latza Nadeau and me -- Tuesday, May 5th, 6:30pm -- for an evening discussion about Clodia, her republic, and women in politics, past and present. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Thank you to the Almost Corner Bookshop in Trastevere for hosting.
The former leads to academic eye-rolling at public engagement. The latter leads to public engagement.
Morning musings: There's a real divide in classics between those who view the discipline as an elitist game, a period without real people, whose import can be simply be claimed or rejected; and those who view it as history, a time of real people whose lives can be both messy yet informative.
The President of the United States is threatening to commit war crimes and wipe out a "whole civilization" — all because he started a disastrous war of his own making and had no plan and no strategy for how to end it.
This is abhorrent, and the American people do not support this.
Was the Elizabeth Catlett exhibit still on? Saw this beautiful and insightful piece of hers, called "Recognition," over the winter, which I loved. Made a note to put it in my "poetics" / Odyssey file.
I look back at All the President’s Men, released on this day 50 years ago.
During production, screenwriter William Goldman said, “Expectations are so high on this movie that if the film is only good, it won’t be good enough.”
If only he was here to see how powerful it still is:
More @ Esquire…
Totally
Oh they're a wonderful team! YouTube videos so informative; perfect for a class discussion and a great opportunity (for me) to step aside occasionally and let students hear from other smart people! @smarthistory.bsky.social
Perfect! We just looked at Smart History on the coloring of the Ara P. and Augustus P.Porta. They'll like that for sure
Grazie!
Great pix btw. Was there a wow piece, in your eyes, that students would/should see? I told them it was a once in a life moment when Rome comes to us! Would love your thoughts
University has given me funds to take my whole Intro Rome class in April. Can't wait to bring them!
Again, the reason so many of us in academia are so categorically opposed to AI is not because we’re Luddites or idiots or denialists. It’s because ~every current tool & application of it is built on criminal theft & the bad faith monetization of it.
Correction: this week! (= Thursday)
Folks, if you're in Rome this weekend and interested in antiquity's overlooked women's histories, go see MJ's talk!
www.hf.uio.no/dnir/english...
A portrait of an unknown Roman women from the Torlonia marble collection.
She couldn't vote, couldn't run for office. But she stood up, stood out and passed the torch of history to the next generation who knew her story. Your're not forgotten, Clodia of Rome #InternationalWomensDay
Yeah, it's made up. I rarely flex online, but as the person who wrote one of the textbooks on this period, pure and simple. Just plain wrong.
Reads an awfully like that, doesn't it?
Never, in all my years as a scholar of the later Roman Empire, have I heard this claim about declining literacy made before. @theatlantic.com Care to share your fact-checking receipts? I'm intrigued, to say the least!
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Big shout out to my husband who, more than a decade ago, gifted me that first edition in the last post. I think it might have been a birthday present, and that memory made me grab the book this week for my travel.
Admittedly, that's a really difficult one to start with!
An Italian Girl is nicely structured and swiftly moving. The Sea, The Sea is still, to my mind, her masterpiece.
Someone who had never heard of Iris Murdoch asked me about her today, and when I described her--I've been reading her for 20 years--their joy was as if they had learned of the existence of a long-lost friend. Makes me so happy that her writing still enchants. @irismurdoch.bsky.social
No bigger indictment of how toothless legacy media has become than seeing a headline with the phrase about last night's "familiar falsehoods," as if we can just shrug off the civic collapse we're witnessing
I like the tenor of this essay very much. Emotionally, it asks us not to look away from dark chapters in recent history. Intellectually, it reminds us that history doesn't move in a straight line--which is why we should be open to learning from all parts of it.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/o...
Researchers found a tiny bottle from ancient Rome that contained fecal residue and traces of aromatics, offering evidence that poop was used medicinally more than two thousand years ago. n.pr/46eGEiL
