Tag Archives: Big questions

Sick Of It All

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Recent days saw a great number of reports, analyses, and comments on the death of Stefan Grimm, late professor of toxicology at Imperial College, London. Several of these items contained copies of emails that (allegedly) were sent in the context … Continue reading →

Posted in Carmina Epigraphica, Epigraphy, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Operation Mos Maiorum, Or: Ve Hav Vays … (Of Our Ancestors, That Is)

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

On Monday, 13 October, an EU-wide joint police operation will commence. It will last for two weeks, and its purpose is to target undocumented immigrants to the EU, to investigate their routes into the EU, and to crack down on … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Looking at War with Lucretius

Posted on July 19, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

The last few weeks and months saw the emergence of numerous new (and old) centres of conflict around the globe: Ukraine, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, and Syria are the most prominent regions that attracted, or continue to attract, attention of … Continue reading →

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Voices of Sexism: the Active, the Passive, and the Middle

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

One of the great things about being a Classics lecturer is that I get to supervise a wide range of fantastic final-year projects every year: the creativity as well as the range of interest of my students is truly astounding, … Continue reading →

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Ulpian and Cicero on Internet Security

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

A strange thing happened the other day. On one of the main Classics-related listservs, the Liverpool-based ‘Classicist list‘, an email that contained several internal, private email messages (that clearly were never intended to be seen by anyone other than their … Continue reading →

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Pygmalion Takes the Turing Test

Posted on June 13, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

A few days ago, my colleague Prof. Kevin Warwick organised a Turing test competition at the Royal Society in London (in conjunction with the University of Reading), on occasion of the 60th anniversary of Alan Turing‘s death. Hailed as a … Continue reading →

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Demagoguery and Populism

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

In the wake of recent elections, both at a local level in Britain and, more generally, for the European Parliament, there was a lot of talk about the (continued) rise of demagogues and populism, often with a backwards nationalist or … Continue reading →

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Neither the First, Nor the Wurst

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

When Conchita Wurst, the carefully designed and meticulously planned stage persona of the Austrian artist Tom Neuwirth, won the 2014 European Song Contest with his song Rise Like A Phoenix, a majority of people simply enjoyed the power of music … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Divine Riches of the Latin Language

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

My son’s interest in the Latin language, fuelled by his engaging Latin teacher, remains unbroken. Recently, for example, he wished to discuss the authenticity of some volumes of John Maddox Roberts‘s beautifully entertaining SPQR series with me (to a depth … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Epigraphy, History of Reading, Poetry, Prose | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Mortifying Teachers

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Traumatic, unbearable experiences that seem to shatter our grasp of reality trigger a simple coping mechanism: when one encounters something that seems to come close to our wildest nightmares in real life, one is inclined to narrativise, to fictionalise – … Continue reading →

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