Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Family Lectures 2023
During the span of three lectures, original thinker and acclaimed classicist Mary Beard asks what we learn from studying the ancient world. She concedes the ancient world does not offer ready-made answers to modern dilemmas. And it is not all about bathing in the well-springs of “Western Civilization”. Beard believes that studying the Classics is exciting, fun and risky. It encourages us to think differently, to look at our own world with new eyes, to challenge our own assumptions, and to see where those assumptions come from.
April 20, 2023
6 to 7:30 p.m.
First Lecture
David Rubenstein Forum, Friedman Hall
April 25, 2023
6 to 7:30 p.m.
Second Lecture
David Rubenstein Forum, Friedman Hall
April 26, 2023
6 to 7:30 p.m.
Third Lecture
David Rubenstein Forum, University A and B
The Humanities in Practice
The Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Family Lectures bring to campus individuals who are making fundamental contributions to the arts, humanities, and humanistic social sciences.
Each visitor offers an extended series of 3–5 lectures and develops a book for publication with the University of Chicago Press.
About Mary Beard
Mary Beard is one of the most original and best-known classicists and is distinguished as an English scholar of ancient Rome who shares her knowledge broadly on the BBC and in the classroom. She is a professor emerita in Classics at Newnham College within the University of Cambridge; the classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement, where Beard writes a frequently published blog called “A Don’s Life;” and a frequent host of BBC broadcasts about Pompeii, ancient Roman history, and historic figures such as Julius Caesar and Caligula.
In 2018, she became Dame Commander of the British Empire for her services to the study of classical civilizations. Among many honors, Beard received the Wolfson History Prize in 2009 for her book Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (2008), the Bodley Medal in 2016 for her outstanding contributions to the world of books, and honorary degrees from Oxford University, Yale University, and University of St. Andrews, among others.
When Beard began her TV career in middle age, she broke boundaries of gender and appearance for learned commentators who had traditionally been what she describes as “craggy white men.” Beard calls herself a “craggy white woman.” She believes that looking closely at Greece and Rome helps us to understand more about ourselves and recognize how we have learned to think as we do. Beard has an uncanny ability to make classical studies, ancient Roman history, and life highly intriguing and relevant for current times.