ICS Training 2024-25

Held monthly for ICS-affiliated PhD researchers and Early Career Research Associates
Hybrid, in-person and online
Being a postgraduate or early career researcher can often feel alienating, or like a leap into the unknown. The LEAP Lab is an informal space to facilitate the sharing of ideas and experiences, gather feedback, develop networks, and contribute towards personal development. Meetings focus on publication processes and strategies; teaching techniques; developing funding and job applications; productive networking; and well-being in academia, among other topics.
 

The ICS is collaborating with the British School at Rome and British School at Athens to offer up to four Turing Scheme placements to students from the School of Advanced Study in the 2024–25 academic year. Placements and application details will be advertised here on the School of Advanced Study website from October 2024.

Online only

Dates: September 9–12, 2024
Tutors: Gabriel Bodard (London), Marta Fogagnolo (Bologna), Tamara Kalkhitashvili (Tbilisi), Polina Yordanova (Helsinki)
Cost: £80 / £40 unwaged and unfunded

We invite applications for a three-day online only, flipped training workshop in the use of EpiDoc (http://epidoc.sf.net/), the de facto standard for encoding ancient epigraphic and papyrological editions in TEI XML for online publication and interchange. The workshop will introduce the encoding of ancient texts in XML, and sources of information and support on EpiDoc. No technical knowledge is required, but participants are expected to be familiar with the transcription conventions for inscriptions and papyri (Leiden System and similar) and either Greek, Latin or other ancient languages.

The workshop will involve asynchronous training materials and exercises, and three hours of real-time support and discussion via video call, on the Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

• Monday Sep 9, 15:00 BST
• Wednesday Sep 11, 15:00 BST
• Thursday Sep 12, 15:00 BST

Book here

Following the post-REF 2021 briefings held by the ICS and CUCD for the Classics subject community in summer 2022, the ICS hosted two online workshops in 2023-24 for authors of prospective REF 2029 impact case studies, as well as unit heads who are considering how best to support impact case study development in their institutions. In each of these, authors of case studies submitted for REF 2021 will reflect informally on what they did, including challenges they encountered, conveying hints and tips for those now preparing case studies. A third workshop will be held in 2024-25 as below.

This workshop will be discursive and will be held under ‘Chatham House rules’ to enable frank discussion of the challenges and successes of impact case studies. This means that it will not be recorded. Once more definitive REF criteria have been published, we intend to follow with a workshop on ‘What does REF mean for me?’, which will cover all sections of REF and will be aimed especially at early-career researchers and those participating in REF for the first time.

Showcase 3: Heritage protection, access, reuse in local and global contexts 

11:00 – 13:00, Thursday 19 September 2024 

Online via Zoom 

• Lindsay Allen (KCL) Return of a Wandering Guard 

• Stuart Campbell (Manchester) Cultural protection in post-conflict Iraq 

• Elena Isayev (Exeter) Using lessons of ancient mobility to empower communities and transform heritage, artistic and educational practice in contexts of displacement 

• Roberta Mazza (Bologna) The Circulation of Ancient Manuscripts on the Antiquities Market: Improving the Ethical and Regulatory Practices and Standards of Market Stakeholders 

Chair: Elton Barker (Open University) 

Register here.

In conversation with Lily MacMahon (Bloomsbury Academic), Michael Sharp (Cambridge University Press), Sam Agbamu (Reading), Amber Gartrell (UCL) and Leah Lazar (Oxford).

16.00–18.00, Tuesday 8 October 

Online via Zoom 

How does one approach a publisher for their first book? What is it like to rework your doctoral thesis into a monograph manuscript? What is the best way to select a publisher for your first book? This researcher training event will tackle these questions among others in the context of the current (and future) academic book publishing landscape. 

It takes the form of a conversation with commissioning editors from several publishers across the discipline of Classics, including Ancient History, Archaeology, Reception Studies and other adjacent areas of research, as well as researchers that have recently published their first monograph. It aims foremost to demystify and break down barriers between researchers, editors and publishing houses, as well as providing a toolkit of skills and advice to go about getting your first book published. Discussion will be of use not only to those looking to publish imminently but also to graduate, postgraduate, and more experienced researchers looking to publish in different spaces and new ways. 

The moderated conversation will be followed by a Q&A with attendees; there will also be an opportunity to submit questions to the panel in advance. 

Register here

Pasts in Space: Getting started with the Pleiades Gazetteer

Event type: Research training

Event date: Monday October 21, 14:00-17:30

Speakers: Tom Elliott (New York University), Valeria Vitale (University of Sheffield)

Venue: Senate House MakerSpace (room 265)

In person.

Pasts in space is a two-day series of workshops for historians, archivists, and archaeologists. Through discussion and hands-on exploration, participants will learn about resources and techniques for using, creating, and sharing information about past places and spaces for their research, teaching, and scholarly communication. Particular emphasis will be placed on theoretical and "fuzzy” aspects: how to deal with incomplete, unlocatable, contingent, disputed, and uncertain toponyms and locations over the course of a project or investigation.

Students and scholars at all career stages and all levels of technical knowledge are welcome.

21 October: Getting started with the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

http://pleiades.stoa.org/

Part 1: Finding and using Pleiades data

• Nature, structure, and extent of data in the gazetteer.
• How to search, collect, and download place information..

Part 2: Creating and changing Pleiades data

• Modify descriptive summaries, toponyms, and connections between places
• Add more accurate or more complete spatial geometries
• Contribute notice of new bibliography
• Craft new entries for places and spaces not yet represented in the gazetteer
• Review and editorial workflow

Dr. Tom Elliott

Associate Director for Digital Programs and Senior Research Scholar, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

https://isaw.nyu.edu/people/staff/tom-elliott 

Dr. Valeria Vitale

Lecturer in Digital Humanities, School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities, University of Sheffield

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/hpdh/people/dhi-staff/valeria-vitale

Book here

Pasts in Space: Creating and curating your gazetteer

Event type: Research training

Event date: Tuesday October 22, 14:00-17:30

Speakers: Valeria Vitale (University of Sheffield), Tom Elliott (New York University)

Venue: Senate House MakerSpace (room 265)

In person.

Pasts in space is a two-day series of workshops for historians, archivists, and archaeologists. Through discussion and hands-on exploration, participants will learn about resources and techniques for using, creating, and sharing information about past places and spaces for their research, teaching, and scholarly communication. Particular emphasis will be placed on theoretical and "fuzzy” aspects: how to deal with incomplete, unlocatable, contingent, disputed, and uncertain toponyms and locations over the course of a project or investigation.

Students and scholars at all career stages and all levels of technical knowledge are welcome.

22 October: Getting started creating and curating your own "gazetteer"

Part 1: Toward usable data

• Spatial knowledge systems and models for understanding and structuring spatial data: from coordinates to relationships.
• Different definitions of the same "place"
• Machine-actionable formats for past-oriented data, including the Linked Places Format, the Text Encoding Initiative, and Comma-Separated Values (CSV).

Part 2: Creating and curating

• Incremental data collection and editing
• Tracing origins and controlling data versions over time

Dr. Valeria Vitale

Lecturer in Digital Humanities, School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities, University of Sheffield

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/hpdh/people/dhi-staff/valeria-vitale

Dr. Tom Elliott

Associate Director for Digital Programs and Senior Research Scholar, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

https://isaw.nyu.edu/people/staff/tom-elliott 

Book here

14.00–15.00, Wednesday 23 October 

Online via Zoom 

If you are a new or continuing PhD student who is keen to find out more about how the ICS’s resources, library and activities can support you in your research, please join us for this short information session. It is intended for doctoral researchers across the UK, as well as internationally. 

Register here.

4 November 2024 4.30pm-6.30pm

Benet Salway (UCL), Abigail Graham and Gabriel Bodard (ICS)

In the field of epigraphy, the peculiar term ‘squeeze’ (in English) refers to the durable and highly portable impressions of inscriptions on stone that were used by scholars of the past to facilitate the reading of texts. This session will demonstrate the technique and give participants the opportunity to make their own squeeze impression of genuine antique Roman epitaphs in UCL’s teaching collection. We shall discuss the history of squeezing, and consider practical issues including equipment, conservation, and comparisons with other imaging techniques including photography, illustration and 3D scanning.

Venue: Room B.30, 25 Gordon Square, History Department, University College London, WC1H 0AG

Note: Entrance to venue is at ground level at the rear of the building, accessible from UCL's Gordon Street entrance. 

Advance booking here is essential.

14.00–16.00, Wednesday 6 November 2024

Online via Zoom

This training event, held in collaboration with specialist staff from the Combined Classics Library at the ICS, will provide an introduction to essential resources for research in the broad fields of Classics, Archaeology and Ancient History, along with less well-known and underutilised specialist databases and collections. 

Resources and topics covered include: 

• Advanced use of catalogues, online dictionaries (e.g. OCD), lexicons, encyclopaedias (Brill’s New Pauly; LIMC), and abbreviations (OCD; L’Année philologique; papyri). 
• How to use online text-searching databases (e.g. Loeb Classical Library; PHI Latin; Greek TLG).
• Bibliographical resources (e.g. Zenon DAI; Gnomon datenbank). 
• Resources for epigraphy and papyri (e.g. CIL; IG; ZPE; Eagle). 
• How to find and use maps, gazetteers and topographical resources (e.g. Barrington Atlas; Pelagios). 
• And much more!

Booking link here.

12 November 2024, 5pm-6pm

MakerSpace, Room 265, Senate House

Alessandra Tafaro (British School at Rome)

In this seminar, we will examine the gladiatorial graffiti within the epigraphic environment of the Flavian Amphitheatre. We will investigate methodologies and approaches to the study of gladiatorial graffiti, paying particular attention to the significance of contextual perspectives for the interpretation of this epigraphic category. We will pay attention to the juxtaposition of graffiti and official inscriptions, their interaction with spatial and material surroundings and their distinctiveness as visual and material media with which to perpetuate arena performances. We will furthermore explore tools to visually and digitally reproduce graffiti and the interpretative challenges enclosed in the process. This seminar seeks to demonstrate how to combine literary criticism with methodologies devised by studies in visual and material cultures, including autoptic analysis. 

Attendees are requested to bring a laptop or tablet for practical activities during the seminar. 

Registration is required for in person attendance. 

The presentation will also be streamed. Register for online attendance for the Zoom link.

Booking details here

13.00-15.00, Wednesday 29 January 2025
Online via Zoom 

The British International Research Institutes (or BIRIs) play a vital role in supporting and sustaining Classics researchers and their work, along with offering opportunities to receive residential awards or grants, build collaborations and often house world-class archives and libraries. They are nine institutes based across the Mediterranean, Black Sea, southern Europe, Africa, Türkiye, and the Middle East, Iran and Central Asia. 

This training event focusses on four of the BIRIs: the British School at Rome (BSR), British School at Athens (BSA), British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), and British Institute for Libyan and North African Studies (BILNAS). Directors and staff from these institutes will provide information, advice and answer questions around topics such as applying for residential awards and grants, accessing and using resources and collections, building collaborative projects, and supporting personal research. By connecting researchers directly with the BIRI, this event aims to demystify what they are, what they offer and how they might support your research. It is open to researchers at all career stages, from graduates and postgraduates through to those senior and more experienced. 

Panellists include:

• British School at Rome: Stephen Kay (Archaeology Manager), Courtney Quaintance (Programmes Manager)
• British School at Athens: Rebecca Sweetman (Director), Giorgos Mouratidis (Assistant Director)
• British Institute at Ankara: TBC
• British Institute for Libyan and North African Studies: Corisande Fenwick (Outgoing Director), Nichole Sheldrick (Assistant Director)

Book here

The 2024–25 SunoikisisDC Digital Approaches to Cultural Heritage programme is available here. The programme will be taught online from January to March 2025. 

The Sunoikisis Digital Classics training videos are widely used to Masters-level teaching worldwide and can also be used as supporting materials for other kinds of courses and workshops or in independent learning at any level. The sessions cover a mix of practical methods, theoretical discussion and research applications of digital approaches to ancient languages, texts and material heritage. 

SunoikisisDC is an international consortium of Digital Classics programs originally developed by the Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Digital Humanities at the University of Leipzig in collaboration with Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies and the Institute of Classical Studies, London. 

For more information, see the Sunoikisis website here.

Spring 2025; dates and times to be confirmed. 

Online via Zoom 

The Institute of Classical Studies and the University of Oxford Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics will offer two free, online semi-intensive courses in Phoenician. One will be at beginners level, and a second at intermediate level. 

Classes will usually take place for two hours each day over one week, with daily homework. All materials will be provided by the tutor (Dr Vladimir Olivero), and for the beginners course no prior knowledge of the language will be assumed. 

These courses are aimed primarily at graduate students and more advanced researchers who will use the language for academic purposes (though not necessarily on dissertation work), but others are very welcome to apply.

7–11 April 2025 

In-person in the Senate House MakerSpace, Second Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Tutors: Alicia Walsh (Recollection Heritage) & Gabriel Bodard (University of London)

This course will introduce participants to a range of 3D technologies, from photogrammetry to 3D design software, for the imaging, modelling and analysis of ancient artefacts and buildings. We offer a mix of practical and theoretical sessions, including advice on imaging both portable objects and outdoor monuments. Drawing on the expertise and partnerships of the Institute of Classical Studies and nearby cultural institutions, this course is suitable for students, archaeologists, teachers and anyone with a general interest in these topics. No previous technical experience is required.

Booking details here.

Spring 2025; date and time to be confirmed. 

This introductory training activity will be led by Gabriel Bodard, Christopher Ohge and Megan Bushnell, held in collaboration with the Institute of Classical Studies, Institute of English Studies, and Digital Humanities Research Hub at the School of Advanced Study. 

More information will be released shortly.

Date and time to be confirmed. 

More information will be released shortly.

May 2025; date and time to be confirmed. 

Led by Gabriel Bodard and Christopher Ohge, held in collaboration with the Institute of Classical Studies and Institute of English Studies. 

More information will be released shortly.

Summer 2025; dates to be confirmed in late 2024. 

Opportunities will be advertised for students and researchers at UK institutions to participate in and build their fieldwork skills during excavations at Falerii Novi, as part of the Falerii Novi Project’s 2025 season.

Date and time to be confirmed. 

This in-conversation event provides an opportunity to learn from a panel of Classics and Archaeology experts with lengthy experiences curating public profiles to engage the public with their research. A range of formats will be covered, including social media, traditional public media (tv, radio, print), and trade publications. 

Panellists and more details to come soon.

Date and time to be confirmed. 

Online via Zoom. 

More information will be released shortly.

Date and time to be confirmed.

More information will be released shortly.