Dr Carol Atack has a new book out, having written the introduction and notes for Xenophon’s Memories of Socrates, to accompany Martin Hammond’s new translation for Oxford World’s Classics.
It’s a ‘readable and lively translation’, preserving the qualities of Xenophon’s original text. Dr Atack’s introduction places Xenophon’s thought in its historical and intellectual context in fourth-century BCE Athens, while notes explain historical characters and detail Xenophon’s engagements with Plato’s dialogues and philosophical concerns.
Dr Atack said: “It was a fascinating project which kept me happily occupied during the lockdown. And I hope it will bring Xenophon’s wise and witty work to a wider audience.”
In a busy few weeks, Dr Atack, who is Director of Studies in Classics, Praelector and Fellow at Newnham, has also had a chapter published in an edited volume. Scholarship and Controversy: Centenary Essays on the Life and Work of Sir Kenneth Dover re-examines the legacy of the controversial but important classicist.
Dr Atack said her chapter, ‘After Greek Homosexuality’ looks at the influence of that 1978 book (especially on Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality), the historical context of gay liberation and gay panics in which Dover wrote the work, and its problematic status today.
You can find more details on both books on these links:
Xenophon: Memories of Socrates, Oxford World’s Classics: translation by Martin Hammond, introduction and notes by Carol Atack.
Scholarship and Controversy: Centenary Essays on the Life and Work of Sir Kenneth Dover – editors Stephen Halliwell and Christopher Stray.
From Thursday to Sunday, Cambridge is welcoming the Classical Association to Sidgwick site for its annual conference. The programme shows the strength of Classics at Newnham. Several of our graduate students are presenting their research at the event: ‘Bodies on the brink: the art of suspense in Pseudo-Hesiod’s Shield of Herakles’ Charlie Pemberton, University of Cambridge; ‘-es and -aes: chicken or egg?’ Rhiannon Smith, University of Cambridge; ‘What kind of Latin is that? The place of hyperbaton in Latin prose’ Agnes Vendel, Uni Cambridge.
Two of the three keynote speakers are Newnham alumnae – our special supervisor Prof Caroline Vout, speaking on ‘Firing the canon: Greek and Roman art illuminated’, and high table member Prof M.M. McCabe, who is giving the annual address as President of the Classical Association. More info here.