Author: Aimee Turner

ASCS 46 2025: Showcasing the future of the field

March 3rd, 2025
The annual meeting of the Australian Society for Classical Studies was held in Canberra this year, at the start of February. As well as bringing many visitors to the Pompeii exhibit at the National Museum of Australia (which we absolutely recommend!), the range of papers lead to a jam-packed week of research and networking. From the relationship between history and game in tabletop gaming books, to the identification of marginalised identities in Roman frescoes, from Bronze age archaeology to Renaissance receptions, there was something of interest for everyone. But what really amazed me were the presentations of our postgraduates, whose amazing works inspired thought and passion! Below, Jaymie Orchard and Elizabeth Leaning (runner up and winner of this year’s OPTIMA (Outstanding Postgraduate Talk In a Meeting of ASCS) prize, respectively) present their amazing research.

(un)winding History: Queer Time and Fulvius’ Fasti

Jaymie Orchard (they/them) (University of Otago)

My paper entitled “(un)winding History: Queer Time and Fulvius’ Fasti” used queer approaches to temporality to explore the earliest attested Roman fasti, which exists now only in citations and quotations from later authors. This fasti, a Roman calendar, is attested to have been written by Marcus Fulvius Nobilior in the first decades of the 2nd century BCE. Though the study of this fasti has the potential to tell us about the development of later Roman fasti my talk focused on what it might tell us about the construction and experience of time during the mid-Republic.

Traditionally, scholarship has grappled with the combination of cyclical and linear time as represented in the fasti. However, as many queer understandings of time do not take linear chronologies as granted, their use allowed me to reintegrate previously discordant understandings of the calendar. The original combination of linear and cyclical elements was unprecedented at the time the fasti was written, and I thus, I demonstrated that viewing them as separate overlooks the important developments made in Fulvius’ fasti.

Queer time theories unsettle normative conceptions of linear time. They allow us to make visible the way institutions and social conventions influence individual’s use and experience of time. This allowed me to problematise the presentation of the calendar as reflecting a neutral vision of time and instead demonstrate how Fulvius’ fasti reinforced societal expectations of elite men’s life paths. By considering the constructed nature of time I was able to discuss how viewers of the fasti with different positionalities may have understood the calendar within their own experience of time.

My talk was a part of a panel which I co-organized entitled “‘An Open Mesh of Possibilities’ Queer Theory in Classics and Ancient World Studies,” and though my paper was a stand-alone talk, its success is deeply indebted to my fantastic co-panelists. Together Tobias Fulton, Trish Springer, and I showcased a wide range of applications of queer theories and highlighted the many benefits of their application to the study of the ancient world. Through a very intentional and extended collaboration we were able to present three papers that were much more than the sum of their parts. We created resonances across the three papers, laying theoretical groundwork for each other, returning to themes, and reframing previous conclusions. By queering the traditional panel structure we demonstrated how to put queer methodologies into practice. Through co-creation and collaboration we presented the audience with an open mesh of possibilities and invited them to lean into what is possible, rather than clinging to what is certain.

Meteor Showers and Cosmic Dust: Retranslating the Technical Terms of the Pyramid Texts

Elizabeth Leaning (she/her) (University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau)

[From right to left: Snake, Toad, Partridge, Llama with Baby Llama, Fox, Shepherd]

The painting by the Cusco artist Miguel Araoz Cartagena shows the Milky Way over Cusco, in the months of July and August, when the sky is clear and most of the astronomical phenomena venerated by the Incas can be easily observed.

Presenting at ASCS as an Egyptologist is always a heavy commitment. While steps have been taken in recent years to make the conference accessible, there is certainly a feeling among Egyptologists (and other scholars in non-traditional fields) that we have to go to extra lengths to make our work both understandable and appealing to the Classicists. This year, I presented on the part of my thesis I thought would best meet these criteria – a lexicographical study. Though Egyptology has its own unique quirks when it comes to lexicography (the visual element of communication springs to mind), it seemed the best way to explain my research to a non-specialist audience, as lexicographical research is very common in Classical philology. However, the lens with which I conducted this lexicographical study was not so commonplace at ASCS, nor in academia as a whole. After all, “archaeoastronomy” is not a field many people have heard of. However, as the study of ancient history increasingly looks towards interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, fields such as archaeoastronomy are beginning to shift from the peripheries of academia and into the limelight.

Archaeoastronomy – described by Clive Ruggles as “a field with academic work of high quality at one end but uncontrolled speculation bordering on lunacy at the other”¹ – is the study of how ancient cultures observe and understand the night sky. A relatively recent field of study, archaeoastronomy combines an understanding of a culture’s literature, art, and architecture with mathematical and astronomical knowledge of the celestial phenomena that they were observing and reflecting. It struggles against preconceived notions of “astronomy = astrology”, theories about alien interference, and the ever-present colonial overtones that relegate complex astronomical thought to European cultures. My PhD thesis finds its place amongst this new and complex, but fast-growing, field of study – examining the astronomical data encoded in the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts.

Perseids is the Perseid Meteor Shower over Sahara el-Beyda by A. Waddah

N5 in Unas is the sign for the sun in the Pyramid Texts of Unas by Elizabeth Leaning

The Pyramid Texts are a corpus of mythological data that date back to the 24th century BC. They were inscribed on the walls of eleven tombs (six kings and five queens), and provide evidence of the earliest mythologies and beliefs of ancient Egyptian culture. However, while being inherently religious and mythological, it is a celestial afterlife for kings and queens that they depict. Amongst metaphors of ascending on falcon’s wings and devouring the gods, archaeoastronomers can find references to meteor showers, cosmic dust, and other astronomical events. The Pyramid Texts are an expansive corpus that are probably the most-studied text in Egyptology (so a terrible choice for a PhD thesis). However, since their discovery and publication in the 1840s, only five publications have considered their astronomy. There is a stunning dearth of scholarship on just how much astronomy ancient Egyptians encoded into this undeniable astronomical text.

The paper I presented at ASCS explored one of the ways in which I am attempting to uncover this “hidden” astronomical knowledge. Using lexicographical methods I examined the ancient Egyptian words traditionally translated as “iron of the sky”, “lake” and “horizon”, arguing that in the astronomical context of the Pyramid Texts they were better translated as “meteor shower”, “cosmic dust” and “syzygy of sun and earth”. In cases where these astronomical phenomena were documented in the Pyramid Texts, I suggest that the astronomical data is not so much “hidden” and “encoded”, but merely obfuscated behind the use of technical terms. After all, no modern scientific text that discusses “accretion disks”, “event horizons” and “black holes” could be accused of deliberately secreting away the astronomical knowledge behind these apparently mundane terms. This paper sits sits both in conversation with the interdisciplinary scholarship² and Egyptological community³ of Australasia. Both it and my broader PhD thesis aim to network these influences together into what I can only hope is a coherent methodology through which to explore the astronomical knowledge of ancient Egypt.
1. Quoted in Carlson, J. (1999). “A Professor of Our Own”. Archaeoastronomy & Ethnoastronomy News 33. ↩︎
2. Postgraduate students in particular are crossing disciplinary barriers to see the ancient world through new lenses. At ASCS46 this included but was by no means limited to those papers by Jemima McPhee (Australian National University), Jaymie Orchard (University of Otago), Shona Edwards (University of Adelaide), Haydn Lea (Australian Catholic University), Fenella Palanca (University of Melbourne) and Chelsea Schwartz (University of Adelaide). ↩︎
3. Particular thanks must be given to Dr. Julia Hamilton, who provided guidance both for my ASCS paper and for this write-up! ↩︎
GenAI and assessment in ancient history

December 5th, 2024

By Dr Aimee Turner

As 2024 wraps up, a lot of academics (those not enjoying a much deserved break!) are starting to look towards the new year. One of the major concerns in academia remains the impact of AI, and particularly on assessment. From conversations I’ve had and my own marking experience, some students are embracing this new technology, and we are not ready for them. In one of the fields that relies heavily on written assignments, the validity, reliability and fairness of our assessment practices are being undermined.

As a learning designer, I am commonly asked “how do I GenAI-proof my assessment”, and I have to answer that, sadly, there are no ways to really AI proof an assessment. In the unit I just finished teaching, there was an online test at the end of semester that asked students to identify and analyse art and architecture, based on images, and even that task showed signs of AI usage. There are no really good resources out there at the moment to help with this – AI detection software is spotty at best, inaccurate at worst, and we are still struggling to really understand how we can use this technology ourselves.

That said, there are a few things I would recommend that would limit the opportunities and temptation to use GenAI in assessment in ancient history.

The first step is thinking about how to make the assessment relevant to the students, something they would have an interest in doing. I haven’t had a chance to coordinate my own units yet, but one of the things I would do is move away from essays in first year – and possibly all together. For example, instead of having students complete an essay for their final task, I would think about getting them to develop an exhibit, either real or virtual, around a topic – about gender in myth, or Athenian responses to crises. Have them develop something that draws on the physical remains as well as the literary, supported by modern research, which still demonstrates the skills needed for an essay – critical analysis, source selection, communication skills – but in a way that is more practical and engaging. Embrace group work, problem- and project-based learning and be creative!

The second step is to consider how you can build students’ AI literacy, so that they have an awareness of when it is and is not appropriate to use the tool. Engage in activities that demonstrate the dangers of using AI without critical thought – for example, have them look for sources using GenAI, as it will almost always hallucinate at least one and others will be of non-scholarly quality. Scaffold this into your assessment, so that AI is just one more tool to help them with their studies, not do it for them. One resource I particularly like, from Oregon State University, is this revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. It gives a really clear picture of where AI currently sits, and in this updated version pairs human capability with AI support.

Finally, consider what skills and knowledge you really want to assess. Which of these can easily be done with GenAI? Skew your marking guides or rubrics, so that even if they use GenAI for the writing, they will fail or barely pass without doing more. Some students are fine with passing (Ps make degrees, as my friends always chanted in my undergrad), but most really do want to do well and this will steer them away from the generic outputs of AI. I actually see this as the opportunity provided by GenAI for us to push our students to higher levels of critical and analytical thinking.

Now is a good time to start thinking about your assessment tasks for 2025. Choose one to start, and draw on the resources provided by your institution to start making real change in the field.
Crap Slides: How to Avoid Them and Make Your Presentation Effective

June 26th, 2024
Penelope Carpentier
Historians by and large don’t get trained in how to do slide presentations. Primarily we learn by observing our elders in scholarship, those who have been around for longer and presented at more conferences. Surely, we think, they know what they’re doing. But they’ve been working on the same premise as we are: they also looked to their predecessors’ efforts as exemplars. But what we are all drawing on are the very first slides, which were created by scholars who weren’t used to presentations even with overhead projectors, let alone the new technology of Microsoft PowerPoint. They bodged together something that would simply do, and then passed that bodginess down to us today. We can do better!
(Albert Bettannier, La tache noire, 1887; public domain)

Younger scholars learn their presentation skills from their academic predecessors
In order to forge our way to better presentations overall, let’s go through the process you might use to produce PowerPoint slides, and at each stage we’ll look at some pitfalls we might fall into, and some tips that we can use to make our slides actually useful to our talk, rather than distracting from it.

The Pondering Stage

Do you need one?

So you’ve just put the finishing touch on your conference paper. Great work! Now it’s time to do the slides to go with it. But do you need them? You don’t actually have to have a PowerPoint presentation. People these days expect it; we’re a lot more frequently bombarded by visual media and aren’t used to just sitting and listening to something by itself. But presenting without slides still a valid option. If you do decide to include slides, your paper should still be able to be presented without visual aids at all. Technical problems do happen, and if they happen to you, it shouldn’t be the end of the world. Your presentation shouldn’t fall apart because you couldn’t show a graph, and that’s all people remember from it. Your visual aids are just that: an aid.

Things to Remember
(Woman with a wax tablet and stylus, fresco from Pompeii; public domain)

Be thoughtful when creating your slides, whether using a computer or a tablet
Firstly, PowerPoint slides are like the illustrations in a children’s book. They either describe what’s going on, or provide a visual example of what you’re saying, or stop it from being boring. As David Phillips says in his TED talk “Death by PowerPoint”, ¹ the words that are coming out of your mouth and you yourself are the stars of the show. You want people to be focussing on you and what you’re saying, not the slides. They’re just the support act or the background dancers to make you up the front look good.
Secondly, as you do with your presentation text, be mindful of your audience. Are they all going to be specialists? What age bracket are they likely to be in? Is anyone going to have English, or whatever language you’re presenting in, as a second language? If they’re all specialists, you can assume more: you can put a picture up that is familiar to your field and expect everyone to know what it’s about, or you can make a field-specific joke and most people will probably get it. If they’re likely to be older, visuals in small detail should be avoided. If your presentation language is not the attendees’ first language, then you’ll want to simplify your expressions and limit your jargon. The aim is to make your presentation and your information – words and visuals – accessible to as many people as possible.

Thirdly, remember that PowerPoint is just a tool. You don’t have to prescribe to its templates. This is particularly true of the headings box. As David Phillips points out, the massive text of the headings box is a great way to draw everyone’s attention to that heading, but then, rather than looking at anything else on the slide, their attention stays on that heading. They are entirely optional; PowerPoint just sticks them in automatically. The same goes for dot points: PowerPoint adds them as a default, but you don’t have to play that game if you don’t want to.

Backgrounds

Plain black text on a white background can be pretty boring for an audience member to look at, and changing your background to something different brings some more interest into your slides. Some people use their university’s licensed background. You might like to go for one of the templates that Microsoft suggests. Both these are fine.
Slide 1

Slide 2

Another option is a picture background to generate some more interest. Remember to go for something that is simple – not with a bunch of detail that might distract people trying to figure it out – but also something evocative of the subject matter of your talk. For example, for a talk on remembrance, you could use a picture of rosemary, its symbol in the language of flowers (right).
But, as David Phillips suggests, it’s best to avoid using a white or brightly coloured background (Slide 1). If you do, people are going to be mesmerised by the shiny screen. It’s like trying to have a conversation with someone who’s watching TV or playing on their phone; they’re just not going to be listening to you. Remember, you’re the star of the show; you don’t want to be competing with your own slides. It’s better in general go for something darker and/or bland for your background (Slide 2).

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis (by Mokkie; CC-BY-SA-3.0)
Content

One of the biggest temptations for historians is the wall of text. Unless we’re doing something with more visual elements, such as archaeology (with its interesting pictures of artifacts) or art history (with its interesting pictures of pictures), we might feel that all we have left to us is the wall of text, whether it’s a chunk of text from a source we’re investigating, or a quote from another scholar, or even a dot point summary of what we’re literally saying at that moment.

One of the most common missteps is when we put up our wall of text (for example, Slide 3) and just go on with our talk over the top of it. We might go to the text eventually, we might even just refer to it tangentially, we may just whack it up and hope that people will read it on their own.

Slide 3

The problem here is that people can’t focus on two things at the same time. If you give them text and talk, then they’ll read the text, then remember they should be listening to you and switch back to listening, but then they’ll be back to reading the text, and so on. They’ll remember neither what you said nor what was on the screen. Remember, you shouldn’t be competing with your own presentation. You are the star here.

This brings us to Tip 1 on content: Don’t put any text on the screen that you’re not immediately going to read out. As soon as you hit the “next slide” button, you read out exactly what you’ve put up. People are going to be reading it anyway, and if it’s smoothly in as part of your talk, there’s no distraction, and people are still with you. That means if you have something in multiple languages, be prepared to read out both languages. If there isn’t a point to you having the original language up there other than to say “look, this was originally in Greek” or whatever, then just put up the translation. You don’t need to show your Greek underpants; we trust you’ve done the work. You only have limited time, after all.
(Irish monk writing; public domain)

Writing with two pens shows just how angry he is.

Tip 3 is in fact the most important tip, so I’ll put it in all caps: ONLY ONE IDEA PER SLIDE. This is something that David Phillips similarly underlined. As I said before, people can only focus on one thing at a time, so we need to keep it simple for them. One of the biggest culprits in wall of text is this: “In my presentation I’m going to discuss these things,” and then a wall of dot points (see Slide 4). By the time we’ve finished discussing point 1, the audience is already further along and not listening.

Instead, what we can do is gradually reveal our points, and as a new point is revealed, the previous ones are in a darker colour (see Slide 5). People’s attention will be drawn to the lighter colour and the new point, where you want their attention to be.² We can even go back and recap, putting the appropriate point we’re explaining in the lighter colour (see Slide 6). This means that, wherever we go, the audience knows where their focus should be.
Tip 2 can also help us avoid the wall of text: Visualise your point rather than writing it out. Say you’re talking about the Church’s reaction to heretics: rather than spelling out on your slide, “I am now talking about the Church’s reaction to heretics,” show us a picture of a monk writing something, or even a modern-day person writing an angry letter. Show a picture of the person you’re talking about, or an artifact from the community that they were a part of, or what the location looks like today, as long as it relates to what you’re saying. If you need to, you can talk for ages over the exact same picture, or you can even do the whole talk over one picture. Your words are the star.

Slide 4

Slide 5

Slide 6
Slide 7

Slide 8

Using this text colour trick is also great for tables. Tables full of data coming at you all at once is at the same time both overwhelming and intensely boring (see Slide 7). But it becomes so much more manageable if you draw people’s attention to a discrete chunk at a time (see Slide 8). Now it becomes part of a developing story rather than a slab of meaningless data.

Won’t this mean a lot of slides? Maybe, but it’s not an efficiency race. Just make sure that people have enough time to digest what’s on the slide before moving to the next one. But if you have just one idea per slide, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Visuals

Pictures

As mentioned above, pictures in your presentation are like illustrations in a children’s book. They should be relevant to the point you’re making, ideally on a direct level – like you’re talking about a particular author, and you show a picture of that author – or at least on a macro level, where it portrays the topic you’re talking about in general. In addition to this principle, though, there are a few extra elements to make them helpful illustrations.
Most important when you go about choosing pictures is Tip 1: Be law-abiding. Avoid just grabbing any picture off the internet, but make sure you have the appropriate permissions to use it. Many places, like museums or creative commons, will let you freely use their images under certain circumstances; just be sure that they allow them for conferences. Just to be on the safe side, it’s useful to put the licence code (or whatever is appropriate) under the picture in a very light, small, non-distracting font.
We all love creative commons (public domain)
(Yassine Elshayeb in Thailand; CC-BY-SA-4.0)

The audience and the speaker can’t always be this close to the slides.
Tip 2 here is also fairly obvious: Pictures should be visible. On the one hand, they should be large enough to see clearly, which often happens when we try to put too many images on one slide. David Phillips here suggests six or fewer items on a page so that people can take everything in at a glance. On the other hand, it also means pictures should be a good enough resolution: looking at a pixellated mess is neither fun nor instructive.
Tip 3: Show the audience what they should be looking at. As with lists or tables, we should draw their focus to where we want rather than have their attention wandering all over the image in search of why it’s there. If you have a map or an artifact, or any other detailed picture, then have something that points out where you’d like to take them, whether that’s an arrow, a star, or a box or circle around it.

Tip 4: Keep your captions short. Again, the rule of six or less helps here: keep it to six or less words if you can, so people can just take in the whole caption at a glance and not get distracted by it by reading it. Unless it’s actually a point you’re making, the audience doesn’t need to know absolutely everything about the image.

Fonts

Choice of fonts is up to you as the presenter, although visibility must also be kept in mind here. Make sure it’s large enough to read from a distance, as some people may be seated far from the screen (around sizes 28-32, smaller for picture labels), and that it’s a colour that is legible across the whole of your background. One way to make your text really pop, and mitigate any conflict with the background, is to colour the box around your text, with a 30% transparency (see: before (Slide 9) and after (Slide 10) using this method). It will give you the contrast you need while being more subtle than a block of colour.

Slide 9

Slide 10

Transitions and Animations

Some people can get very excited with transitions and animations. They want their presentation to be more interesting, so they put in every fancy movement they can. Unfortunately, transitions and animations can be more distracting than interesting: the audience is thinking more about the origami fold transition than what was on the slide. So the tip here is to keep it simple: Fade or Push, perhaps even Wipe, for transitions, and a quick Disappear/Reappear or Fade for animations. There are some cool but subtle effects that you can do with Push and Morph (check out tutorials on YouTube), but we have to remember that we’re the show, not the slides.

A Quick Technical Warning

If you’re using someone else’s computer or system, bear in mind that they may not have the same version of PowerPoint that you do; they may not even have PowerPoint, and they’re importing your slides into another program. In this case your fancy animations or even your fancy fonts may not be available. In cases where you’re handing the reins to someone else, it’s best to keep your fonts basic, and avoid animations.

Similarly, if you’re not using your own computer, or you don’t know what the screen will look like at the time of your presentation, it’s a good idea to leave a margin of nothing around the edges of your slides in case they get cropped out.

Be aware too that some screens in auditorium will be floor-length, and people may not be able to read the bottom third of your screen because of the heads in front of them. So unless you know otherwise, like you’re doing a Zoom presentation or you know the screens are up high, then avoid putting important information down in the bottom third of your slides.

The Final Step

Now your slide show is ready to go. That’s it, right? Well, no, there’s one last step: practice. You only get a set amount of time when you present at a conference, usually 20 to 25 minutes, and it’s important to make the most of it.

Sometimes presenters will write their paper to whatever length they feel is good – usually journal article length, to make it easy to publish later – then do slides to go with that paper, assuming that it will all fit into the timeframe. But then they run out of time, and are like, “Oh, I was going to say all this other important stuff, but I guess that’s it,” They end on a really lame note, flicking quickly through the rest of their PowerPoint. The audience sees the slides go by and knows it has missed out on a good chunk of their argument, and probably some very interesting material as well.
(Ruth Jenkins-Robertsson in the 2016 rehearsal of New Zealand Opera production of Mozart's Magic Flute, Michael Bradley; CC-BY-SA-4.0)

Getting a friend’s feedback can also help with your practice, especially if you’re going to use a costume and props.
Sometimes presenters seem to be taken completely by surprise by their slides, saying things like, “Oh, that was the slide that I was supposed to go to,” or, “Oh, there was supposed to be a slide in there that showed the thing I was talking about.” Related to this is when people stumble over names, or the pronunciation of foreign words. They get flustered, and it gets super awkward, and it undermines their confidence.
All these issues are solved with practice. When you practise your paper out loud, you will know how long it goes for, whether it needs editing, or where you might stumble. When you practise speaking while clicking along with your slides, you will know if your fonts are legible, if your pictures are clear, if the slides are in the right order or if you’re missing any, and when they should appear. It even helps to mark in your text (for example, with an asterisk) where you click to your next slide. By practising, you will speak confidently and convincingly, supported by a PowerPoint that is helpful and engaging.

Conclusion

Our conference presentations are a chance to not only present our research to our peers, but also get them excited and interested in it, almost as much as we are. PowerPoint give us an opportunity to encourage that kind of positive reception by engaging our audiences visually. Our aim is to make our work accessible and understandable, and we do this by ensuring clarity, both in our words and in our slides, making sure our audience can (literally) see what we mean. Just to recap our tips have been:
- Use a darker/simple picture background
- When you text on the screen, immediately read it out
- Visualise your point, rather than spelling it out in words
- ONLY ONE IDEA PER SLIDE
- Make sure your pictures are law-abiding
- Pictures should be visible, in size and resolution
- Show people what they should be looking at
- Keep your captions short
- Keep your transitions and animations simple
- Practice
With these in our toolkit, we can do so much more than resorting to the wall of text or the templates that PowerPoint foists on its users. Let’s get creative and see how we can use slides to our advantage, using the wide variety of visual aids at our disposal – from backgrounds, to pictures, to attention‑focussing datasets – to enhance (not overshadow) our words and shine our research star brighter.
1. David Phillips, “Death By PowerPoint”, https://youtu.be/Iwpi1Lm6dFo?si=jyIWBBfywcPJj6sy ↩︎
2. If you’re using a lighter coloured background, then the focus point will be in a darker colour (to make it stand out more), and the non-focus points in a lighter colour. ↩︎
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ASCS 2024

March 29th, 2024
Conference: ASCS 2024

The Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies (ASCS) is always an exciting event for the ancient world studies crowd in Australia, New Zealand and the surrounding regions, and 2024 was no exception. With 120 papers delivered over 3 days, hosted by Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, we walk away tired, but inspired. Here are some of the highlights of emerging research from the conference.

Keynote: The Perception of Barbarians – Aimee Turner

The conference opened with a lecture by the eminent Professor dr Harmut Leppin from Goethe-Universität (Frankfurt), whose fascinating paper explored the development of barbarian identities in the Mediterranean world of the 5th century. Professor Leppin’s outline of the construction of identity and other through the inclusion and exclusion of values and the use of language offered potential insights into modern Australia’s national identity. Just like race became less of a factor in constructing barbaric others under the Roman Empire, as Leppin argues, race and religion tend not to be the grounds for including or excluding individuals from Australian identity. This trend continued in the transition Christianity and “barbarism” then became viewed as a choice for ignorance. In particular, I found the fact that Syrians were expected to learn Greek, but no Greeks learned Syriac, resonated, for me, with the way that the majority of Australians, immigrants themselves, expect those who join Australian society to learn English but make limited attempts to learn other languages themselves. An accent or poor English language is often used to discriminate against new citizens.

Best post-graduate presentation – Dr. Ryan W. Strickler

At each ASCS conference, an award is presented for the best post-graduate paper and presentation, recognising the emerging leaders of our field. The winner of the 2024 OPTIMA Prize was “Wool, Women, and War: Reconstructing the Textile Economy of the Roman Republic” by Fenella Palanca from the University of Melbourne. Ms. Palanca’s paper was an engaging reconsideration of this controversial topic which challenged the traditionally conservative approach to textile economy which treat the production of textiles was a vital aspect of the economy but one which was limited to the local community. Palanca’s innovation was applying a quantitative analysis to the question of textile production, including estimation of the labour necessary to produce clothing- from the shearing to spinning, including the use of contemporary experimentation with drop spindle spinning and warp-weighted looms typical of the period. By incorporating this approach with surviving literary evidence, Palanca convincingly demonstrated that women, including enslaved women, could produce a high output of textiles beyond personal use to supply the demands needed for the market, and especially the demands of the army. Palanca concluded the panel with a drop spindle demonstration after the question and answer period. Her unique approach and accessible delivery earned the unanimous vote of the prize committee.

Gender and Classics – Connie Skibinski

I really enjoyed every panel that I attended, and was impressed by the great diversity in topics throughout the conference. A personal highlight for me was the Gender and Classics panel on the first day, as it prompted me to think critically about how scholars can study gender identity and expression in antiquity as well as in reception texts. Noah Wellington’s paper on elite Athenian manhood in the 5^th century BC provided a fascinating exploration of masculinity, treating ephebes as a liminal state of being that represent a transitory state towards adulthood. Noah addressed scholarship treating ephebes as “a temporary state of womanhood” but then provided his own more nuanced interpretation of ephebes as having distinct gendered expectations. Claire Ferguson’s paper on Ovidian reception in Ali Smith’s Girl Meets Boy provided insight into gender and sexuality as represented in antiquity and modernity. Claire drew our attention to key passages that challenge heteronormative paradigms, and shed light on the complexity of gendered expectations, romantic relationships and queerness in Ovid’s work and the contemporary reception.

On analysing Ovid – Shona Edwards

Ben Nagy’s paper, titled ‘A stylometric reassessment of the (pseudo?) Ovidian Nux‘, was a joy for our little cohort of Ovidian scholars at the conference. As we well know, Ovid has suffered with waxing and waning popularity through the ages, and nothing can be more devastating to any particular work than the firm condemnation of disputed authorship. It’s not Ovid? Then it isn’t worth our time. Ben gave an excellent overview of the major actors in the scholarship on the Pseudo-Ovidian Nux (or De nuce, ‘On the Walnut Tree’), and the ways their assessment of its place within the Ovidian canon are perhaps based more on personal attitudes. Scholars are quick to judge what is ‘too good’, or hesitant to make any claim due to the lack of conclusive evidence. The current consensus? This isn’t Ovid.

Ben took on this apparently closed case with enthusiasm and a straightforward attitude. Ben introduced us to the field of stylometric analysis, walking us through a series of tables which describe the metrical similarities between the Nux, other Augustan elegies, and Ovid’s other works. The basic premise is this: Every author has some style that is indigenous, and leaves traces in every work – it is measurable, and can be traced over time as metrical style develops. This was a remarkable analysis, not least of all because Ben kept those of us who chose Arts and Classics in order to avoid the numbers and tables of STEM creatively engaged.

What Ben produced was a beautiful constellation of works across authors, space and time. Ben, as our tour guide through this Latin galaxy, waved us past the belt of Ovid’s early elegiac works, including the Ars and the single Heroides, past the nearby nebula of works by Tibullus and Propertius, and over to the ‘depression cloud’ of Ovid’s exile work. Here, the Nux orbits. What Ben well demonstrated is that while Ovid is popularly understood as a ‘sad old man writing in the snow’, and while his exile works show a turn towards epistolarity, the Nux sits along with the Ibis and the double Heroides as evidence of an ongoing commitment to experimenting in more diverse genres. In another example, Ben showed how style development over time indicates revision. Therefore, the stylometric character of the Amores sits centrally in the constellation, or as Ben said, ‘goes everywhere’, due to being heavily revised. What is especially valuable, too, is that stylometry can detect imitation. There is nothing more exciting than when, as Gemma Neall said, ‘new Ovid just dropped’. This work has important implications for the way those of us who work on Ovid position his works in relation to each other. There are manuscript issues and authorship debates in many works which Ben’s work can only further clarify. We excitedly await Ben’s forthcoming article.

The underappreciated fields – Ewan Coopey

ASCS is renowned for its perceptive papers on the Roman Republic and Classical Literature. However, there are also typically a host of other areas of study on display; the quality of which are testament to the (sometimes underappreciated, including by myself in the past) conference’s wide scope. Most closely related to my own research, were the two archaeology sessions; in which a wide array of approaches and themes were on display. Rory McLennan of UQ fused archaeometry and epigraphy together to explore the changing water infrastructure at the quaint site of Signia in Italy, as well as the potential exchange networks it was operating within. Dan Osland of the University of Otago provided a succinct yet critical introduction to 5th c. CE Hispania, in which the idea of a unified ‘Suevic Kingdom’ being visible in the material record was brought into question (some more ‘left field’ burial choices incited some fun discussion afterwards as well). Jeremy Armstrong of Auckland University transported us away to the realms of experimental archaeology and ancient armour, highlighting some findings from his collaborative work with blacksmiths in New Zealand (it turns out, what you wore under and around your bronze/iron armour may have been just as important as the armour itself). Finally, throwing yet another methodological approach into the ring, Samuli Semelius of the University of Helsinki wrangled together network analysis and the Gini coefficient of inequality to map access to water in Pompeii. While demonstrating that, in regard to water access, Pompeii did not seem too unequal, Samuli astutely observed that water access is but one facet of health inequality. (I hear there was also a paper applying a multiscalar assemblage approach to the epigraphic habit in Dalmatia, but I will leave a review of that to someone else…) Whilst I could move on to other non-Republican/Literature highlights from ASCS, such as Prof. Hartmut Leppin‘s illuminating keynote on Late Antique Syriac vs Classical perceptions of ‘The Barbarian’, or the classical reception session that had papers on Kendrick Lamar and Lizzo, I think these archaeology sessions attest to the exciting and wide ranging work being done by scholars in Australasia and its wider scholarly networks. From digital archaeology and inequality, to experimenting with modern armourers, ASCS was serving it up.

Digital artefacts and collecting practices – Gemma Neall

In the final session of ASCS45 I found myself watching two talks which have stuck with me in the week since, encouraging the audience to both look forward and reflect back on museum practices and our relationships with material artefacts. Alina Kozlovski’s talk on the use of digital artefacts and their connection to material culture provided a fascinating perspective on how we use technological advancements in our study of the ancient world. I was struck by how Kozlovski noted that our interaction with technology has been carefully choreographed, and how we might seek to utilise this choreography in how digital artefacts are interacted with. We all ‘pinch to zoom’ without even thinking, yet she reminded us how recent the action itself is with a clip of Steve Job’s 2007 keynote, where the audience audibly gasped at such an action this is so commonplace for us today. I can’t help but wonder which technological marvels, particularly in the realm of museum studies, we will see become commonplace in another ten to fifteen years.

Following on from this was Candace Richard’s examination into the collecting practices of the Nicholson Museum of the University of Sydney. Richards provided a thorough and interesting analysis of the Nicholson’s collection over the course of the 20th century, from casts of classical figures to an impressive array of sherds used to teach archaeology students at the university. She also reflected on that which the university had traded away in order to boost their collection, displaying letters between past Nicholson curators and those from other institutions. I left Candace’s talk reminded that museums are not ahistorical, and the collection practices of individual curators can shape and form approaches as the museums become material culture in their own right.
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Christmas ideas for the Classicist in your life

December 9th, 2023
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Saturnalia, or one of the many other holidays of the season, it is the time of year for our last minute present ideas.

Shopping for Christmas presents can be difficult – it is often difficult to find something that we know our loved one will enjoy. We at Arke have put together a short list of gift ideas for the Classicist in your life – and a brief recap of the content so you know what you’re getting them!

Gifts that make us laugh

Saturn eating pizza t-shirt

This t-shirt draws on the iconic painting Goya, of Saturn eating a child. Saturn, or Cronus in Greek mythology, consumed his children to prevent them from overthrowing him. His wife, Rhea, eventually tricked the Titan, substituting a rock for their son Zeus (Jupiter in Roman myth).

https://www.threadless.com/shop/@mefodesign/design/pizza/mens/t-shirt/regular?color=purple#m

The Floor is Lava Championship t-shirt

In 79 CE, the volcano, Vesuvius, erupted, destroying the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. If your Classicist has a slightly darker sense of humour, this t-shirt is for them!

https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/Pompeii-Floor-is-Lava-Championship-by-GinetteLaine/119948703.UIIS2

Gifts that make us go “ooohhh”

Replica Roman Dodecahedron

This decorative piece is a replica of a common artifact found across the Western Europe. To date, there is no definitive understanding of their purpose. This decorative replica will undoubtedly impress your Classicist!

https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/1444248904/roman-dodecahedron-replica-metal-version

Roman Oil Lamp

Oil lamps were commonly used in the ancient world. This Greek replica features imagery from the great epic, The Odyssey.

Note: oil not included.

https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/1409629005/roman-terra-sigillata-oil-lamp-odysseus

Gifts that you can make for us

Wax tablet

Wax tablets were used in education from antiquity until well into the Middle Ages. This replica is one that you can make yourself for your favourite Classicist.

https://www.instructables.com/Wax-Tablet/

Cuneiform Biscuits

Cuneiform is one of the oldest forms of writing in the world, from the Near East. It was used for a variety of places, including for the Epic of Gilgamesh. This site provides instructions for how to create biscuits with decorative cuneiform shapes. A biscuit recipe is included, but you can use any recipe that will allow for shaping.

https://www.getty.edu/education/kids_families/programs/cuneiform_cookies/

If you have your own ideas, please share them with us in the comments!
2 responses to “Christmas ideas for the Classicist in your life”
1. R. Davies
  
  December 9, 2023
  
  https://www.classicgiftsaustralia.com/products/post_type-product-p-55140
  Amphora Spinning Top $14.95
  
  Reply
  
  Aimee Turner
  
  December 9, 2023
  
  Wow! That looks like a great gift for the Classics kids 🙂
  
  Reply
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Workshop: Review Writing

September 1st, 2023
On the 9th August, a workshop ran online that contained vigorous discussion about the best practice in revising academic and fictional work. These are the key points the workshop agreed upon:

Academic reviews:
1. should be balanced – neither all good or all bad. Unbalanced reviews give the impression of bias – that the reviewer was unable to be objective about the work for some reason. For this reason, the reviewer should disclose any relationship they have with the author, professionally and personally.
2. should highlight what is new, controversial or different about the research presented. This will highlight to the reader what the work is adding to the field and why they might be interested in purchasing the volume.
3. should concisely demonstrate the scholarly lineage of the scholarship – how the reviewed volume links with other literature in the field.
4. should indicate the level at which the work is pitched. The reader needs to have clear expectations about what technical level the work is written or if it is intended for a more general audience.
5. should provide some mention of the specialisation of the author(s). The reader will have a sense of how authoritative the work is likely to be based on the scholarly background of the author of the reviewed work. In addition, a footnote that provides similar information about the reviewer could be useful.
Fictional reviews:

In addition, for an edited volume, a few lines outlining the content of each chapter is important as chapter titles frequently do not clearly indicate the content of the material.

Reviews of fictional works dealing with the ancient world were also discussed. It was agreed that fictional reviews:
1. should be balanced, to avoid the impression of bias.
2. should highlight what makes the work stand-out. In the case of fiction, this would be an indication of how similar the narrative is to different styles, genres and authors.
3. should indicate the intention of the author in relation to historical accuracy. This means including an overview of the ancient sources that are used and how closely they are incorporated, and indicating if historical inaccuracies are distracting.
4. should provide an indication of what level the work is pitched for in terms of age. This is particularly important for those who may be reading the review looking for works suitable for their children.
5. should provide some mention of other works by the same author.
There was also some discussion of the need for trigger warnings in reviews, particularly for fictional work but potentially also for reviews of academic material. It was felt that further training in the area of trigger warning was needed, which would require consultation with undergraduate students as well as other colleagues.

If you have a work that you would like to review for Arke, please email aimee.l.turner@gmail.com

Workshop participants
- Dr Aimee Turner, La Trobe University, Macquarie University and Federation University
- Lachlan Mutimer, Honours student at The University of Melbourne
- R.S. Davies, University of New England
- Lauren Murphy, La Trobe University
- Bronwen MacDonald, Stellenbosch University
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She held the same place

July 1st, 2023
Ancient women in the catalogues of the Italian Renaissance

Aimee Turner

I recently had the opportunity to present at the Challenging the Patriarchy conference. Having had to rush through my paper to keep it within the 20 minute time-limit, I thought I would share record it and share it with you all as well.

NOTE: The recorded presentation below contains references to sexual violence and suicide. This content is disturbing and may be traumatising.

Need help?

If you have experienced sexual assault or sexual harassment and feel you would like to speak to someone for support or information, 1800RESPECT (Au: 1800 737 732) or Aviva (NZ: 0800 28482 669) can provide counselling 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.

If you are experiencing emotional distress, you can also reach out to Lifeline (Au: 13 11 14; NZ: 0800 543 354).
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Pedagogical Reflections: Marking for the first time in Classics and Ancient History

September 4th, 2022
Marking is often one of the first tasks undertaken by graduates in the academic world, and also one of the most fraught. I was lucky – the first time I marked undergraduate essays, I’d already had marking experience as a high school teacher. For most though, there is no training provided – just jump in and get started.

So I wanted to expand on a few points that Tegan originally raised in her blog post Tutoring for the first time and/or outside your subject area in Classics and Ancient History, with a few tips from my own experience. Hopefully, these will give you confidence, reduce your stress, and maybe even help you save time!

1. Understanding the task

Getting a good understanding of the assessment task is important for marking it – you need to know what you are looking for in the submissions. Identify what skills are being assessed (what the students need to do), as well as what knowledge needs to be demonstrated (what the students need to know).

Talk to the course or unit coordinator – they are usually the person who wrote the task, so they can clarify for you what their expectations are of how it should be completed.

I’d also recommend looking at any student queries in forums – often the instructions they don’t understand are things that you don’t get either! How these are clarified will help you figure out what to look for in their responses.

2. Using the Rubrics

Marking criteria are really important for saving you time in the long run – it should clearly outline what you need to look for in a task. So, for example, if the referencing isn’t included in the marking criteria, you can pay minimal attention to the referencing.

Similarly, if one of the criteria is worth fewer marks, spend less time looking for it in the student’s work. Staying with referencing, for example, if it is worth only 5% of the overall mark, skim through the references.

Sometimes, the marking criteria will not have been written down, and this is where talking with the unit coordinator about what they are looking for in the assessment is really important – from that conversation, you can create a list of criteria for yourself to focus on when you mark.

Using marking criteria – in rubrics or marking guides – is also really useful for your imposter syndrome. When I first started marking, no guides were provided and I felt like I was arbitrarily awarding marks. I couldn’t see that I was actually making an informed judgement on the quality of the work, and felt guilty anytime I gave a low mark. With a marking guide, however, I can justify to myself the marks I give – it doesn’t feel like I’m making it up as I go along!

3. Writing feedback

Feedback is, without a doubt, the most time-consuming part of marking. We all want to be encouraging and help students do better next time. You may want to identify:
- what they did well and should keep doing (positive feedback),
- what they didn’t do well and need to change (negative feedback),
- things they should start doing in future assignments (positive feedforward), and/or
- things they should avoid doing in future assignments (negative feedforward)
This feedback tends to take a couple of forms – there are the annotations that are added to the assignment as we read, and then the comment we provide at the end. So, how can we save time and still provide useful feedback?
- Keep your annotations brief – they should be very quick notations of problems or praise.
  - Note: when you are identifying a problem, you don’t always need to offer a solution.
- Don’t repeat yourself in the annotations – note a problem once and then ignore it when it recurs.
- Keep an annotation bank – a document with common issues that you can copy and paste into your annotations as needed.
- Research indicates that feedback is more effective when it includes both compliments and criticism, although the order in which this is delivered doesn’t matter. Many people, though, use the feedback sandwich – praise, criticism, praise.
- Final comments should be clear and specific – identify one or two of the most important areas that the student can work on to improve, and tell them how to solve their problems.
- Links to academic support services are really great for saving you time explaining an issue – instead, identify it and send them to where they can solve it themselves.
- A feedback bank can also be useful – the common issues and praise you use in final comments are ready to be personalised for each assignment.
The more you mark, the more you will develop strategies for saving yourself time when it comes to providing feedback – including having your annotation/feedback bank ready to go!

4. Moderating your marking

Moderation of assessment is about ensuring that marking is fair and equitable. There are three levels of moderation:
1. Pre-marking moderation – where you meet with the other markers and unit coordinator before you start marking, to agree on what you are looking for and what the process will be for ensuring you are all marking in the same way.
2. Self-moderation – this happens when you double-check a few of the papers you have marked. For example, you might decide to double mark any that you give high or low marks, or any that you mark after a certain time in the evening. You should definitely double-check anything you marked after that second glass of wine!
3. Post-marking moderation – this is when you double mark two or three assignments marked by other markers, to check if you have all been consistent in your marking. This might be a formal or an informal process.
While this does add time to your marking, it is an important process for building up your confidence in the accuracy and fairness of the marks you are awarding. As you get more confident, you will mark faster.

Trust your judgement

Ultimately, remember that you have the skills and experience to assess the quality of someone’s work. Trust yourself and your judgement. And if you need help, reach out – there is always someone available to help.

– Aimee
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New Directions in Classics Teaching at The University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

April 4th, 2022
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New Directions in Classics Teaching at The University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Reflecting on the effects of the pandemic on tertiary education delivery throughout 2020-2021, the Ancient History teaching staff at The University of Newcastle presented their experiences in several venues during the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022. The teaching staff consisted of Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics and Ancient History; a team of HDR students, Connie Skibinski, Tanika Koosmen, Madelaine Sacco, Thomas Sharples, and Timothy Worrad; and professional staff in the Teaching and Learning Design Unit, Paul McDonald and Adrian Merles.

The team presented at two conferences: (i) A roundtable, ‘Virtual Antiquity in the Classroom – Benefits and Pitfalls – A Mixed Presentation Roundtable’ at “What Has Antiquity Ever Done for Us?” – The Vitality of Ancient Reception Studies, Now: An international virtual conference presented by the society, Antiquity in Media Studies (AIMS); (ii) A joint presentation (Johnson and Skibinski), ‘AHIS@UON Collaborative Innovations in Online Delivery’ at ASCS 2022 panel, ‘New Directions in Classics Teaching Workshop.

Professor Marguerite Johnson and PhD Student Connie Skibinski were delighted to represent this academic team through the ASCS43 ‘New Directions in Classics Teaching Workshop’, by sharing the innovative teaching practices implemented in Semester 2, 2021. Owing to lockdown, the staff delivered two courses online at short notice: AHIS1000: Ancient Greece and AHIS2500 Greek Mythology. Due to the engaging use of online delivery and the innovative Ancient Reception pedagogy implemented in these two courses, the AHIS@UON team were proud recipients of the DVC(A) Educator Innovation and Impact Awards in 2021. You can access a snapshot of their deliver of the two online courses from 2021 here.

While the challenges were intense, they also resulted in new approaches to undergraduate teaching that have been maintained post-pandemic restrictions. In this blog post, Marguerite Johnson and Connie Skibinski address the key points they raised during the teaching workshop, and reflect on what was a successful semester of teaching in spite of unexpected adversities.

Extend your university network:

Some of the 2021 innovations that have been maintained include the extension of our university network to include experts in learning media and solutions development. As academics we are not usually trained in many of the skills required to produce learning modules characterised by effective use of technology to highlight key pedagogical material. By working as a team that includes academics and media production experts, including Ancient Reception segments to supplement specific historical or cultural course components, we have continued to introduce new facets of Ancient History in visually exciting and culturally relevant ways.

Take advantage of what Ancient Reception Studies offers:

This is very much about the vitality of current developments in pedagogy using Ancient Reception Studies in terms of both form and content. By ‘form’ we mean the delivery mode of technology per se – so much at the heart of Ancient Reception Studies – and the direct implementation of such in the vital role played by professional staff with the expertise to manage media, transform lecture content into video recordings, and combine various modes of technical enhancements. By ‘content’ we mean not only ancient history and mythological topics but also the expression of such content in relation to the currency of ‘antiquity’ in diverse media, from television, comics, video games, and film.

Examples from AHIS1000 – Ancient Greece:

In this introductory course, we incorporated video montage with an audio overlay by one of the teachers. Two of the films used were Troy and 300 to show the histories of the Iliad and the Battle of Thermopylae, respectively. These were montages of around five minutes each, and the audio commentary by the teacher pointed out highlights related to the teaching material on the topics that had already been delivered to students. Further on Thermopylae, another teacher used video game extracts to visually demonstrate the battle tactics employed. Keeping the Ancient Reception materials to a strict time limit, incorporating historical content during the videos, and focusing on promoting visualisation learning through popular media, this teaching strategy added a dynamic, relatable and informative component to the online classroom.

Examples from AHIS2500 – Myths of the Ancient Greek World:

Throughout AHIS2500 we opted to incorporate an embedded Ancient Reception approach, meaning that we utilised short case studies from contemporary media (video games, film, television, comic books) throughout the entire semester, when introducing students to ancient material they may be otherwise unfamiliar with. Examples include a case study on Wonder Woman when teaching about the Amazons, and an analysis of a scene from the television series, ‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ when teaching about Hecate. This approach was a deliberate divergence from previous iterations of the course, which left Ancient Reception to week 12 only. By incorporating Ancient Reception through practical case studies before introducing the students to Reception Theory in the final week, we found that students were very responsive and engaged with the premises of Reception Theory. The Course Experience Survey results also showed that students particularly enjoyed the references to contemporary media throughout the course, as it prompted them to consider and interrogate how their contemporary context shapes their interpretation of ancient material.
Professor Marguerite Johnson

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Connie Skibinski

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Conference reflections: Preparing to present

January 13th, 2022
Conference reflections: Preparing to present

Academic conferences are a huge part of research – they are where you share your research and get feedback from peers. A good conference leaves you feeling stimulated and psyched up to get back to your work, with new ideas and approaches and texts and people to email and things to read. And yet, there are horror stories of people’s conference experiences – particularly for post-graduates. You hear about the young researcher driven to tears by the zealous questioning of a single audience member who appears to know more and finds fault with the work. You hope that that is never you, and you prepare for your first conference with that image in mind – at least I know that I did.

I was incredibly lucky that my first conference was an AMPHORAE – an incredibly welcoming and relaxed post-graduate conference. Open minds, who were quick to point out that I did not need to apologise 20 times in my 20 minute presentation, as the research and reasoning were good. I’m not a natural presenter – the written word rather than the spoken is my forte – but I have come a long way from that first conference, and my last presentation contained no apologies at all!

So, here is my advice for those of you preparing for a conference – whether it is your 1st or 500th:

1. Start with the point you intend to make. Once you decide on the main message of your presentation, then the details you add will help you shape that message. If you don’t know what your message is, your presentation will be descriptive, not analytical, and the details won’t fit together for your audience.

2. Structure your presentation for a listener, not a reader. With a presentation, the audience do not have the option to flip back to the previous point and remind themselves of what you’ve said, so it is often necessary to remind them. It is usually expected that you will tell the audience what you are going to say at the beginning, give them the examples and evidence you told them you would in the middle, and then remind them of what you’ve said at the end.

3. Write more than you need. Although you have a limited time for presenting, and need to select your evidence clearly, most people talk faster when they get nervous and most people get nervous presenting. If you practice your paper and it comes out on time, write a bit more! Generally, 3,000 words will end up becoming a 20 minute presentation.

4. Design your slides well. Almost everyone does a PowerPoint presentation of some description these days, and yet some slides are still terrible. As David JP Philips says in this TED Talk, YOU should be the focus of your presentation, not your slides. Keep the font size large, the amount of writing small, and use the built in features to help your audience follow what you are saying. A dark background with off-white, grey or beige texts is also easier to look at than a glaring white background with dark text.

How to avoid death By PowerPoint | David JP Phillips | TEDxStockholmSalon

5. Be the expert. Your presentation is about your research – something you have been looking at in detail, and know better than you think. Even if your audience contains a scholar whose work is important to your research, they haven’t looked at the evidence the same way you have, to research the same conclusion as you. Be proud of the work you have done and take confidence in the fact that you know what you are talking about.

6. It’s okay to not know. I always get nervous about the questions at the end of my presentation, worrying that I won’t know the answer. This anxiety definitely lessened when I realised it’s okay if I don’t. If I know the answer, great. If not, I admit that as well – usually not as bluntly as saying I have no freaking idea! Instead, “I hadn’t thought about that. That’s a really interesting point and I’ll have to look into it” or “I wasn’t aware of that text. Can we talk about it more in the break/over lunch?” You may find that your audience respects you more when you acknowledge the gap in your knowledge, and you’ll walk away with more ideas than you started with.

7. Include your translation. When you are including the Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, or other language in your presentation, make sure that you include the translation on your slides or handout. This makes your presentation accessible to people who are interested but might not have the language skills needed to translate off the top of their head. You can also include any words you think you might mis-pronounce, so your audience knows what you intended to say!

Remember, conferences are made up of people who are just as passionate about your topic as you are. They want to hear what you have to say and share their knowledge with you.

– Aimee Turner
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