Mary Beard Gifford Lecture Details Announced

Event Date:

Monday, May 6, 2019 - 05:30

Venue:

The Sypert Concert Room, St Cecilia’s Hall, 50 Niddry Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LG

Details

From the University of Edinburgh:

Event Details:

Dates: 6, 7, 9, 27, 28, 30 May, 5:30-6:30pm.

The lectures may be followed by questions. Latest finishing time is 7pm.

Venue: The Sypert Concert Room, St Cecilia’s Hall, 50 Niddry Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LG

Tickets are free of charge and will be available here from 1 April 2019.

Series Update

We are delighted that Professor Mary Beard will be joining us this May to deliver a series of six Gifford Lectures. Further details will be available in the Spring.

Series Videos

The lectures will be recorded and links will be posted in the respective pages of each lecture.

The Ancient World and Us: From Fear and Loathing to Enlightenment and Ethics

Lecture 1 - Introduction: murderous games

Monday 6 May 2019

This lecture introduces some of those moral and ethical dilemmas in studying the classical world, asking how we understand remote ancient cultures that have come to stand both for the pinnacle of "civilisation" and for the nadir of corruption and cruelty. Choosing the gladiatorial games as one case study, it takes aim at the sense of moral superiority that we so often display in the face of some of antiquity's worst "crimes".

Lecturer Information

Mary Beard

Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge; Fellow of Newnham College; Royal Academy of Arts Professor of Ancient Literature

Mary Beard is one of Britain’s best-known classicists, Professor at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Newnham College. She has written numerous books on the ancient world including the Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town; has presented highly-acclaimed TV series, Meet the Romans and Rome: Empire without Limit; and is a regular broadcaster and media commentator. Mary is one of the presenters for the BBC’s recent landmark Civilisations series.