The renowned classicist and documentary presenter, Professor Mary Beard, was presented with the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Public Discourse by the College Historical Society (Hist) on February 6th to celebrate her outstanding contribution to academia and public life.
Beard’s discussion began with a personal anecdote of when she was five years old in the 1960s, and her mother, a schoolmistress, brought her to see the “Egyptian mummies” in the British Museum. She recalled a memory of looking at an exhibit – “at the back of that case there is a 4,000 year old piece of bread” – and that is what she wanted to look at more closely. She remembered that the curator took the piece of bread out of the case to show her. “I can’t tell you how amazing that was … I have never forgotten this little piece of bread,” she said. This experience fundamentally influenced her belief that an academic’s purpose is “to share knowledge,” and to open “museum cases for other people”.
Beard joked that “historians are not really good at explaining what the point of history is,” however she maintains that the study of history “helps us think about ourselves differently,” and “helps us see different perspectives on the world.” For this reason Beard believes that “humanities degrees are crucial if we want to think about what it would be like to not be like us, and to think differently to us,” which in turn would “contribute to responsible citizenship.” Beard argued that “the world of public debate is dominated by those who have never thought about what it would be like to think differently,” and it is for this reason that we need people who study humanities degrees. However, later on in the discussion, Beard also quipped that “some of the monsters of world history have studied Latin”, although she argued that they “need to learn a bit more about the [Roman] conflicts themselves,” often stemming from class conflict. In 2015, Mary Beard, on the side of Ancient Rome, debated former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on the side of Ancient Greece, over which culture should be most championed. Since then, the Conservative Party has commented that they want to reduce funding and places for humanities degrees. “Politicians think the humanities are a luxury,” but Beard contended that, “the humanities are absolutely essential.”
Beard, a Trustee with the British Museum, was asked about her stance on the direction of conservation and curation. She posits that, too often, conservation “caps every other aim.” Beard is a proponent of the idea that artefacts should be touched by people. Isn’t there a risk? Yes. “It’s a risk I’m prepared to take,” Beard said defiantly, “the value in changing those kids’ minds is worth losing a pot … Artefacts are part of our world.” She voiced that she often passed around original Ancient Roman pottery to her students when she was lecturing at Cambridge University, for example.
Following this, Beard was asked about her views on Ancient Classics being made into films. She explained that the “history of cinema is bound up in representing ancient Rome,” and that it is generally positive to keep stories alive through cinema adaptations, even if they are not fully true. She admits that in “modern adaptations of the Classics, you can go beyond the truth,” and it also means that “more people are going to read the Odyssey in 2026 than ever”, because of Christopher Nolan’s new adaptation. Certain costumes, for example, are said to be historically inaccurate in Nolan’s film. The Odyssey was allegedly written by Homer circa the 8th to 6th centuries BCE. This connects to Beard’s belief that there is no objective truth in history, and that “there is no objective explanation.” She declared that this is something positive because when the untruths are cut out of historical narratives we are left with “boring” information, and the untruths actually reveal to us what society perceives as valuable and worthwhile to tell. Beard went on to discuss that she is a “post-truth historian,” and she is “increasingly interested in what’s not literally true.”
Beard wittily said that “I am quite glad I retired before AI, ” but that “university represents debate” and those who use AI in their humanities degrees do not see their point and value. However, Beard, in fact, recently used AI herself to “write an essay on the death of Nero in the style of Mary Beard,” and “it revealed … my clichés,” she added. However, in a way, Beard is glad to have her own unique style. She revealed that in the first 10 to 15 years of her academic career she didn’t feel like she had her “voice,” and she tried to sound too much like her academic peers. She recalled a story of how one of her colleagues commented, advisedly, that an essay of hers sounded “boring,” which became a turning point for Beard to find her own voice. Now, what makes Beard’s writing so popular is her ability to engage the reader by creating exciting and accessible narratives from Classical history that connect to the modern human condition.
Of course, Beard is often asked by journalists how Classical history can help us understand world culture’s apparent drift to authoritarianism, and a question that somewhat irks her: “Which Roman Emperor is Donald Trump?” to which she responds “Elagabalus,” because journalists often do not know who he is. This relates to Beard’s belief that there is no one Roman personality who can equally equate to another modern personality. Elagabalus was a short-lived Roman Emperor between 218 to 222 CE, assassinated when he was 18 years old. However, Beard explained how some trends of imperial power, the ability to demonstrate military might and the potential to govern other territories, were as similar in Ancient Rome as it is in the United States today.
Professor Beard invites us all to be curious about what makes us ourselves, and incites academics to “speak the truth more often.”
