Happy birthday Classics - 100 years old

Friday, 28 October 2011

Trownley Discobolus

This year Reading's Classics Department celebrates the centenary of the establishment of a Chair of Classical Studies at Reading: Percy Neville Ure was appointed as the first Professor of Classics at University College Reading in 1911 - 15 years before the University received its Royal Charter in 1926.

Classics may be one of the oldest and original departments in the University but the Department in its current shape, resting firmly on its well-established tradition, still aspires to the same high standards of academic excellence as it did from its humble origins.

Classics at Reading is unthinkable without the efforts of Percy Ure, name patron of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology (formally established in 1922), as well as his wife, and former pupil, Annie D Ure. Annie Ure remained the Curator of the Department's Museum of Greek Archaeology until her death in 1976.

Under the leadership of Percy Ure, Reading's Classics Department became a place of inspiration and academic excellence. An interesting characteristic of the Department in its first decades is its readiness to provide an intellectual home for academics that found it difficult to stay within the firm and traditional boundaries of their discipline elsewhere such as Greek scholar E. R. Dodds and Art Historian Jocelyn Toynbee.

Of course, over the years, there are very many more names in Reading's ancestral gallery that are a credit to the Department in its role as a stepping stone for young academics. The list includes many famous Latin and Greek scholars.

Professor Peter Kruschwitz, Head of Classics, said: ""Looking back on one-hundred years of history of excellence in Classics research and teaching at Reading, it makes me feel very proud to be part of this remarkable department. Reading always has been a place at which it was possible to pursue visionary, groundbreaking research, pushing the boundaries of a traditional discipline.

"My colleagues and I are driven by the desire to drive the research agenda of our discipline even further. One hundred years after its formal establishment, the Department of Classics is a beautifully diverse, vibrant, and creative community of academics and students, driven by their shared passion for the ancient world, its rich cultural and linguistic heritage, and its reception."

It is apparent that the Department's current configuration is designed to maintain the breadth of approaches to the study of the ancient world and its rich cultural and intellectual heritage as well as to support creative and innovative research excellence well beyond traditional confines. The Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology also remains at the heart of the Department's vibrant research culture.

It is also clear that several lines of inquiry that were introduced at previous stages - from linguistics to the study of Greek religion, from historiography to reception studies, from ancient technology and music to the study of Roman late antiquity - live on in the Department in 2011.

For more details of the many illustrious members of the Department and their contribution to Classics at Reading, please visit: http://www.reading.ac.uk/classics/about/class-history.aspx