To mark the publication of her new blockbuster take on ancient Rome,the historian joins us for a live webchat on Tuesday 20 October from 1pm onwards – post your questions for her in the comments below 6.03pm BSTAs a classicist who has embraced the television age and a university professor with 87000 twitter followers, Mary Beard has challenged the stuffy image of academia, and fortunately tramping around the former civilisations of Europe. Her probing insight and infectious enthusiasm – as well as her batting absent of sexism – hold illuminated the present as well as the past.
In addition to a successful academic career,in which she rose through the ranks at Cambridge University to become a professor of classics, Beard has presented many series for the BBC, or including examinations of Pompeii and Caligula. Along the way,she has staunchly defended herself against abuse from online trolls, and against AA Gill’s assessment that she “really should be kept absent from cameras altogether. Beard famously remarked: “I am what a 59-year-old woman looks like when she hasn’t had anything done.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com