This post is part of our ‘mountain research spotlights’ series, sharing the work and insights of colleagues working on mountains across the humanities (and beyond). Name and institution: Christian Quendler, University of Innsbruck Research summary: My research project “Delocating Montains: Cinematic Landscape and the Alpine Model” contributes to a new cultural and media history of … Read more
We are delighted to announce that our edited volume, Mountain Dialogues from Antiquity to Modernity, is now available in paperback! We are really honoured by this, as well as by the reviews the book has received thus far (see for example Terry Gifford’s generous take in The Classical Review). The volume contains contributions from scholars across … Read more
Jason discusses some examples of early Christian representations of mountain peoples, and their relationship with their ancient and modern equivalents. I have spent quite a lot of time recently looking at the early Christian saints’ lives of the fourth century CE and after, and thinking about how they fit in with the history of mountains … Read more
Dawn shares examples from early modern literature presenting mountains as spaces of isolation, and reflects on whether the future of mountain engagement might learn valuable lessons from the past. In the middle of March, before the UK even went into lockdown, the Everest climbing season was cancelled. Base camp might be strangely empty this year, … Read more
Dawn shares a link to her latest article, unpicking the myth that Europeans feared and disliked mountains before the advent of modernity. Although the blog has been quiet, quite a lot has happened with the mountains project over the past few months. Book proposals have been submitted (watch this space), articles published… and a new … Read more
Dawn reports on yet another mountain trip, this time to the Appalachians. As my post about attending Thinking Mountains 2018 in Banff, Canada, may have suggested, one of the real advantages of studying mountains is getting to visit them. A few months ago, our mountains project was privileged to be invited to participate in the … Read more
As mentioned in a recent blog post, one of the big events of the summer for our mountains project was the ‘Celtic Conference in Classics’, taking place at St Andrews in July, and for which we hosted a panel on ‘approaching landscape in the classical tradition’. As anticipated, the three-day panel proved to be an … Read more
At the time of writing, it is now less than a week until the 11th Celtic Conference in Classics opens in St Andrews. The ‘CCC’ – which has been running at a different institution each year since 1998 – will feature fourteen distinct panels on different topics within classical scholarship. We are extremely excited to … Read more
Jason explores the nature of environmental attitudes in antiquity. How do ancient Greek and Roman attitudes to the environment relate to our own? There has been a tendency to answer that question in very sweeping terms. In some cases, Greek and Roman culture are viewed as the starting-points for modern willingness to exploit the environment … Read more