https://thesphinxblog.com

Sphinx | Exploring Antiquity and Modernity with Neville MorleyExploring Antiquity and Modernity with Neville MorleySphinx | Exploring Antiquity and Modernity with Neville Morley Home About Me Publications Sphinx Exploring Antiquity and Modernity with Neville Morley Feeds: Posts Comments Whatever Happened To…? March 15, 2026 by NevilleMorley There was a conversation on Bluesky earlier this week about the experience of reading a great bit of research in your field from a few years ago, wondering what the author had done since, and finding that they had in fact since left academia after failing to get a permanent position anywhere. This is something that’s happened to me time and again in my role as Reviews Editor of the Journal of Roman Studies over the last three years, looking for suitable reviewers for new books. Especially when the topic is something well outside my fields of expertise, I use several different search engines to look for people who have published quality work on relevant subjects – and then spend at least twice as long trying to track them down., without success. In fact it’s rare to be able to establish definitively that someone has left academia; more commonly, searching for their name produces a series of outdated websites indicating their passage through various temporary and visiting positions, an academia.edu page that hasn’t been updated for a while, and then nothing.* Continue Reading » Posted in Musings | Tagged email, quitting, reviews | 2 Comments » Twelve Days in the Year: 27th February 2026 March 5, 2026 by NevilleMorley My normal approach to writing these journal entries is to make rough notes every so often in the course of the day, sometimes writing sections up in a bit more detail when I really don’t want to forget something. I’m so tired today that I keep getting distracted, completely forgetting that I’m supposed to be doing this. It’s a combination of things, I think; lingering after-effects of a virus over the last couple of weeks on top of my usual fatigue, poor sleeping on most nights because A. has been so stressed in work and has been very fidgety and restless (let along my inability to drop off again when she puts the radio on), and an especially bad night on Wednesday in an over-heated hotel room in Exeter after travelling down for entertaining and thought-provoking inaugural lecture by my late antiquity colleague Richard Flower. Three days later, I’m still tired, and have only the fuzziest recollection of anything much that happened on Friday. Six days later and I’ve only just to the end of this first paragraph… Continue Reading » Posted in Twelve Days in the Year | 7 Comments » Natural’s Not In It March 3, 2026 by NevilleMorley Apparently there is now a gimmick on Grammarly which, if you upload an academic paper, offers you feedback and suggestions on it from a selection of relevant scholars – the example I saw on social media, for a piece on the medieval Mediterranean, included the options of Chris Wickham and the recently deceased David Abulafia. Obviously any such comments aren’t from the real scholars, even the not-dead ones, but from GenAI that’s been trained on their work. I’m surprised that any living people are included, as the dead are a lot less likely to sue for misrepresentation, but of course the argument would be this is just producing paraphrases and interpretations of their public work in the way any student or scholar would do. The only sleight of hand is the shift from “this is a question inspired or implied by some of the ideas of the late David Abulafia” to “this is the late David Abulafia’s question on your work”. Continue Reading » Posted in Musings, Research in Progress | Tagged GenAI, Keith Hopkins, Writing | 1 Comment » It Ain’t Me, Babe February 22, 2026 by NevilleMorley Clearly the AI bots that generate flattering messages to authors as a prelude to scamming them have run out of worthwhile targets, as I’ve just received one. It’s sensible enough not to claim that a book club is keen to engage with Classics: Why It Matters, but offers several paragraphs worth of rather vacuous praise and then mentions, just in passing at the end, the possibly of further discussion of how to ensure that this important book reaches a wider audience. Apparently if I respond, this will continue with requests for money and then escalate to threats to ruin my reputation and rubbish the book in multiple fora. As if they could hope to compete with Richard Jenkyns! Continue Reading » Posted in Musings | Tagged GenAI, publishing, scams | 1 Comment » Country Feedback February 18, 2026 by NevilleMorley A basic fact of student feedback, certainly in any class bigger than ten or so, is that there will always be at least one gratuitously negative and basically unfair response. Sometimes that student will go to the trouble of writing quite extensive comments – which tend to confirm that the author’s expectations were somewhat unreasonable, or they missed the point of various things, or they objected to something specific that has no bearing on the quality of the teaching. More often it’s just a negative grade without explanation – sometimes provably untrue (e.g. 1/5 for ‘feedback returned on time’, when that’s all managed centrally, and it was all returned on the due date). Continue Reading » Posted in Musings | Tagged COVID, higher education, students | Leave a Comment » Oops… I Did It Again February 15, 2026 by NevilleMorley Reflections on having added yet another entry to the ‘Misattributed’ section of the Thucydides Wikiquote page… One of my regular complaints is that many of these quotes persist because they are disseminated, or not corrected, by people who really ought to know better. Take the still-common “Society that separates its scholars from its warriors…” line; yes, if you’d read the whole of Thucydides with attention then it would be obvious that it’s fake, but if your acquaintance with the text is only passing then it might well seem the sort of thing he (or Pericles) might have written, especially as his modern image, driven by repetition of this and similar lines, is as the sort of thinker who might well say such a thing. Continue Reading » Posted in Musings | Tagged Edith Hamilton, quotations, Thucydides | 2 Comments » Nothing Has Been Proved February 10, 2026 by NevilleMorley It’s time to get ahead of the media story. Thucydides has nothing to hide, and is completely committed to transparency. While there has been speculation about a distant family connection to Pericles, there is no intimate relationship between them that would in any way compromise his commitment to accurate reporting – and it is worth keeping in mind Pericles’ own publicly-stated determination to turn down all invitations to dinner parties and the like, and to refuse to host any of his own. As for the suggested links to Peter Mandelson or Jeffrey Epstein, the fact that figures like Niall Ferguson, Noam Chomsky and Steve Bannon have regularly asserted their familiarity with Thucydides should not be taken seriously – it should be clear from their own words that they have only a fleeting acquaintance with him… Continue Reading » Posted in Musings | Tagged Jeffrey Epstein, Thucydides | Leave a Comment » Twelve Days in the Year: 27th January 2026 February 1, 2026 by NevilleMorley It’s half past seven, and this is already one of those days that are probably best forgotten as soon as possible. Slept okay until about four, and then managed to doze fitfully, fighting off panicky thoughts of work (and, for some reason, a persistent earworm of Adele’s version of To Make You Feel My Love), until A. goes to the bathroom about half five. Get up to make tea. Outside it’s pouring with rain, with the latest storm blowing in overnight. Feeling rubbish – tired despite sleep, brain fog, rising panic at thought of trying to get any work done but at the same time feeling time slipping away (how has January been such a long month, and yet how is it the end of January already?) Continue Reading » Posted in Twelve Days in the Year | 2 Comments » All The Things She Said January 23, 2026 by NevilleMorley Once upon a time, the internet was all about hyperlinks. My first webpage, back in 1994-5, was roughly 40% links to other people’s pages about stuff I liked (if I recall correctly, an eclectic mixture of topics like chocolate, chillis and the lyrics of Bob Dylan), and other people linked to my musings on those topics. That webpage fell by the wayside quite early on, as my budding html skills were diverted towards developing a departmental webpage instead (and the start of a long process of annoyance and disillusionment, as universities implemented ever more restrictive content management systems and centralised control of webpages), but when I discovered blogging, rather late on, there was a similar feel; one blogged about other people’s blogs, engaged with their responses, linked to their ideas, and at least to some extent felt part of a community – or at any rate a network of alliances, semi-serious feuds and even friendships. Continue Reading » Posted in Musings | Tagged blogging, Deborah Cameron | 1 Comment » Space Is Deep January 22, 2026 by NevilleMorley Once again we find Thucydides at the heart of tangled questions of war, diplomacy and politics, power, life and death. I’m not thinking of Trump’s claim to Greenland/Iceland/Saarland/Greendale/delete as appropriate, or Mark Carney’s bid to claim the (currently dormant) title of Most Thucydides-Quoting Premier from Malcolm Turnbull, but rather of more pressing issues: the conclusion of The Dominion War. Continue Reading » Posted in Musings | Tagged Funeral Oration, quotations, Star Trek, Thucydides | Leave a Comment » Older Posts » Follow Sphinx on WordPress.com Recent Posts Whatever Happened To…? Twelve Days in the Year: 27th February 2026 Natural’s Not In It It Ain’t Me, Babe Country Feedback Search for: Archives Archives Select Month March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 CategoriesCategories Select Category Events music Musings Podcasts Publications Research in Progress Research Seminar Reviews Twelve Days in the Year Uncategorized User’s Guide to Thucydides Meta Create account Log in Entries feed Comments feed WordPress.com All contents (c) Neville Morley 2013-2026. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. A WordPress.com Website. WPThemes. Sphinx A WordPress.com Website. Subscribe Subscribed Sphinx Join 992 other subscribers Sign me up Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now. Privacy Sphinx Subscribe Subscribed Sign up Log in Report this content View site in Reader Manage subscriptions Collapse this bar   Loading Comments...   Write a Comment... Email (Required) Name (Required) Websiteenen1773682026https://thesphinxblog.com

Editeu el vostre lloc?

Què estàs fent?