Intellectual Wanderings

Current Interests and Roles

Having researched and taught in several departments at UCL and other universities, I have been in UCL's Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching since 2003. My role in CALT currently sees me work with academics across BEAMS (Faculties of Engineering, Maths and Physical Sciences and the Bartlett School of Architecture) to explore teaching and learning of all kinds.

With a background in ancient languages, history, history of religion and medicine, I moved into interdisciplinarity and higher Education as my fields of study and teaching, which shows in my predominantly reflexive approach, with an emphasis on supporting disciplinary integrity.

My work in CALT has also seen me lead MAs in Education and Academic Practice before moving to a more strategic role supporting teaching and learning across UCL. I continue to teach on interdisciplinary courses such as the postgraduate trans-UCL module Investigating Research and a graduate course on Interdisciplinary Studies of Evidence, amongst others and publish on interdisciplinary themes.

Keywords: interdisciplinarity, disciplinarily, teaching and learning, reflective practice, academic practice

Education

1994-98 PhD: History, UCL
1992-93 M.A. Classics: Greek & Latin, UCL
1988-91 B.A. (Hons): Classical Studies (Major Greek), University of Reading (First Class)

Employment History

2007-Present: Senior Teaching Fellow, CALT, UCL
2003-07 Research Fellow, jointly in:
- Leverhulme & ESRC-funded Interdisciplinary Programme on Evidence, Inference and Enquiry at UCL (History & Interdisciplinary Projects)
- UCL's Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT)
2000-03 Post-doctoral Fellow: Wellcome Trust for the History of Medicine at UCL (Affiliate Fellow 2003-7)

Publications

Monograph

2004 Rome's Religious History: Livy, Tacitus and Ammianus on their Gods (Cambridge University Press)

Chapters/articles

2009 'Religion in Ancient Historiography', in the Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians (ed. Dr Andrew Feldherr), 166-180
2009 'The messiness of academics 'speaking across the disciplines'' in Collaborative Working in Higher Education: The Social Academy (eds. L. Walsh and P. Kahn, Routledge), 111-118
2011 'Disciplining the Disciplines' in Evidence, Inference and Enquiry (Proceedings of the British Academy 171, eds. Dawid, Twining, Vasilaki, Oxford University Press), 37-72
2011 'Believing the Evidence' in Evidence, Inference and Enquiry (Proceedings of the British Academy 171, eds. Dawid, Twining, Vasilaki, Oxford University Press), 395-434

Formal and QA roles

Departmental

2010-present Chair, Combined Postgraduate Board of Examiners (deputy 2007-10)
2008-present MA Education Programme Leader (also with responsibility for MA Academic Practice, Adult Learning and Professional Development; deputy 2007)
2008-11 Departmental Graduate Tutor

National

External examiner

2010-2012 Text and Communication (year 1)
2008-2012 Creative Enquiry Project (year 4) within Glasgow University's School of Interdisciplinary Studies MA Liberal Arts

Rapporteur (ESRC)}

I have served as a rapporteur for the ESRC for a project on Technology-enhanced interdisciplinary learning.

National Rep

As of 2012, I am the National Representative for Universities Association for Lifelong Learning at the European Association for Lifelong Learning (EUCEN)

European: Lifelong Learning

I am a partner on the IMPLEMENT project (2010-2012) for UCL, which focuses on embedding lifelong learning in universities.

Accredited Teaching

Postgraduate Teaching

30 credits M-level

Higher Education and Academic Identity aimed at facilitating established and senior lecturers' explorations of interdisciplinarity and academic identity.
Practical Learning Environments an exploration (despite the title) of virtual and cultural environments as a locus for teaching.
Exploring Learning and Higher Education (as course tutor) -- aimed at probationary lecturers in HE, taking a reflexive approach to the nature of teaching to assist participants to develop their approach to teaching their discipline.

15 credits M-level

Investigating Research is a 'transferable skills' module offered to MRes students across UCL across more than ten disciplines. It draws heavily on history of science and medicine. The course has participants reflect on the role of research within society (eg engagement with the public and other stakeholders, ethics and research, actor-network theory, policy issues, interdisciplinarity and trans-institutional working).
Policy and Perspectives in Adult Education the long view on adult education: grounded in historical surveys, participants nominate an area of relevance and interest for their essays.
Quality, Consistency and Cost-Effectiveness explores the understanding and deployment of elegant curriculum design with a deliberate focus on maintaining standards within constraints, drawing on a variety of discourses (particularly ethics and professionalism).
Researching Practice where participants undertake an iterative research project into their practice.
Reflective Practice: Theory and Practice exploring and cultivating the reflexive (habitually reflective) practitioner.
Directed Reading (as supervisor) involved 'distance' supervision of literature review on a negotiated topic.

MA Dissertations: MAs Academic Practice, Education, Adult Learning & Professional Development

As programme leader and module tutor, I designed a framework for the dissertations and supervised many participants. Titles include: - The Impact of Students' Learning Styles on Learning Outcomes and Student Satisfaction in Traditional and Blended Learning - The Establishment and Use of Significant Event Analysis (SEA) for General Practitioners - Can Critical Thinking Skills Be Taught and Assessed? An Exploratory Investigation into a Critical Thinking Training Programme

Interdisciplinarity and Education (2003-present)

Non-credit bearing

2007-12 Interdisciplinary Studies of Evidence is a non credit-bearing UCL Graduate School course which I organise and have taught on for several years. Participants are introduced to essential methodologies and approaches to evidence from a wide range of disciplines (Anthropology, Economics, Statistics, Astronomy, Fine Art, Law, Archaeology and History were offeredrecently).
I generally offer the opening session on Disciplinarity and a closing one on Interdisciplinarity to link the different fields presented, as well as offering the History session myself. The last is built around the ancient world and the variety of approaches to evidence in Roman literature, religion and medicine.

Undergraduate
During my PhD and for some time afterwards, I built a broad portfolio of classical courses in a number of universities: though my specialisms were Roman religion and historiography, I also taught both languages regularly as well as broader courses on literature and culture in both the Greek and the Roman spheres.
2012- Postmodernism, Genre and Discipline as part of UCL BASc foundation year
2006-7 BA interdisciplinary dissertation joint supervision in UCL (Anthropology), 'Evidence and Medical Concepts' for Human Sciences Seminar Project (ancient and modern medicine)
2000 & 2001 UCL (History) Religious Conversion in Late Antiquity
2000-01 Birkbeck Beginners' Greek
2000-01 UCL (History) The Romans and Their Past
2000 UCL (Greek & Latin) Latin Unseens
1999-00 Birkbeck Roman Religion
1998-00 City Literary Institute (for Birkbeck) Beginners' Latin
1999 Bristol University Literary Sources for Greek and Roman History (with Mr E. McQueen)
1997-99 UCL (Greek & Latin) Beginners' Greek
1998 Exeter University Latin Literature and Texts (Tacitus Annals 4)
1998-00 Birkbeck Study Skills
1998 Birkbeck Augustan Rome (with Dr Emmanuele Curti)
1997-98 Birkbeck Latin Literature -- Tacitus Annals 4 & 14
1996 Birkbeck Other People in Greek & Roman Thought (with Dr E. Curti)
1996-00 Summer School in Classics (KCL/UCL; Latin and Greek, all levels)
1995-97 PG Teaching Assistant for UCL (History):
- Reading Historians & Concepts and Categories;
- The Roman Empire from Augustus to Theodosius
1995-2000 A level marker for JACT Classical Civilisations

Talks, Presentations and Research Seminars

Chair/Organiser

2006-10 Debates in Higher Education
2006 Dreams in History within Evidence, Inference and Inquiry and in partnership with The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL (8 presentations)
2004-5 Prediction and Forecasting, within Evidence, Inference and Inquiry
1996-7 Postgraduate Work-in-Progress Seminar, Institute of Classical Studies

Individual Talks

2012 June 'Locked Doors: Threshold Concepts as Guardians of the Disciplines' Biennial Thresholds Conference, NAIRTL, Trinity College Dublin
2012 May Workshop on Curriculum in Partnership (IMPLEMENT project), University of Graz, Austra
2012 Mar 'IMPLEMENT/EUCEN project - making lifelong learning a reality', UALL National Conference 2012, Cambridge
2010 Nov 'Inferring the obvious: belief and other unrepresentables', Corpus Christi Classical Seminar, Oxford
2010 Apr '"Living on the ceiling": how and why interdisciplinarity turns everything upside down', Society for Research into Higher Education Academic Practice Network on The challenges of collaborative work in the academy
2010 July 'Professional Doctorates: a symposium' (with Sue Cross) Teaching and Learning Conference, UCL
2008 Oct "'Gloves off'': ''religion'', ''belief'' and discourse -- a polemic on deprecating Cicero's De Diuinatione', St Andrews Research Seminar
2008 July 'Thinking Inside the Box: Disciplinarity, culture, -isms, problems/solutions and Education', Critical Realism and Education, Institute of Education
2008 Apr 'Interdisciplinarity & Teaching: After the Leverhulme Evidence Project', Teaching and Learning Conference, UCL
2007 May 'Believing in Ancient Rome', Symposium on ancient religion, St Paul's Cathedral study group
2007 Dec 'Evidence: a Case Study of Interdisciplinarity', Evidence Satellite Conference', UCL
2007 Dec 'Foucault's Tourist: Interdisciplinarity', Enquiry, Evidence and Facts: An Interdisciplinary Conference, British Academy
2007 Dec '''Not like Us"; the real problem with old alterity', Evidence Satellite Conference', UCL
2006 May 'Travelling Prejudice: ''Belief'' and Religion'', LSE Interdisciplinary Programme How Well Do Facts Travel?
2006 July 'Postmodernism: an Introduction', Debates in Higher Education (CALT, UCL)
2006 Feb 'Belief, Dreams and Managing Significance', Colloquium on Roman Religion, Erfurt (Germany)
2005 June 'The Failure of Knowledge: The Place of Ignorance (an Anthropological Perspective)', Evidence Programme, UCL
2005 Dec 'How to use a wiki ', UCL (general audience)
2004 Oct 'The Trouble With Prediction', Evidence Programme, UCL
2004 Nov 'Interdisciplinarity'(with Stephen Rowland), Evidence Programme, UCL
2004 June 'The Risks the Romans Ran', Provost's Dinner, UCL
2004 Jan 'Causation in Ancient Roman Religion/Medicine'
2003 Oct 'Evidence and Context' Colloquium on Transitions, UCL Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies
2003 Mar 'Medicine and Magic in the Roman Empire: the Evidence of Galen', Classical Association, Warwick
2003 Feb 'Making Evidence out of Data in the Ancient World: Proving the Rôle of the Gods Beyond Doubt', Evidence Programme, UCL
2002 Nov 'Whose Dream is it Anyway? (part II)', University of Reading Seminar
2002 Dec 'Whose Dream is it Anyway? (part III)', The Dream and the Sciences of the Human, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL/Warburg Institute
2001 Mar 'Why One Should Not Read Livy', London Association of Classical Teachers (A level audience)
1999 May 'Suicide in Livy and Tacitus', UCL Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Suicide
1998 Nov 'Ammianus Marcellinus and the End of Expiation' (Institute of Classical Studies PG Seminar)
1998 Mar 'The Historian and the Incredible: Livy and Tacitus on Religious Crisis', European Social Science and History Conference, Amsterdam
1997 Nov 'multa alia ludibria nuntiata : did Livy believe in prodigies?' (Institute of Classical Studies PG Seminar)
1997 Jan 'Religious Codes in Roman Annalistic History' (Oxford Classics PG Series)
1997 Feb 'The Gods of War: or why the Romans were always right' (Oxford/London PG Colloquium, Institute of Classical Studies)
1996 Oct 'Talking about the Gods of the Past: the Case of Tacitus' (Institute of Classical Studies Ancient History Seminars)
1996 Nov 'The Religious Experience of (Some) Ancient Peoples' (Institute of Classical Studies PG Seminar)
1996 Mar 'Reasons to be Cheerful: Tacitus on the gods', Loxbridge, London
1995 Oct 'Orthodox Miracles: the Appropriation of Religious Charisma in Tacitus' Histories ', (South of England & Wales Postgraduate Series): also presented later at Institute of Classical Studies PG Seminar
1993 Nov 'Underground ''christians'' in Pagan Rome: Analysing the Underground Basilica of the Porta Maggiora' (Institute of Classical Studies PG Seminar)

Reviews (classical/ancient history)

M. Lipka (2009) Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 167). Leiden/Boston: Brill,, JRS 101 (2011), 257-8
J. Scheid (2005) 'Quand faire, c'est croire. Les Rites sacrificiels des Romains', (Paris), Classical Review (2008), 58
Green C.M.C. Roman Religion and the cult of Diana at Aricia (2007) and C.E. Schultz, and Paul B. Harvey jr (2007) Religion in Republican Italy (CUP), Journal of Roman Studies 99, (2009), 245-7
M.-L. Haack Les Haruspices dans le monde romain (Pessac, 2003), JRS 97 (2007), 283-4
B. Näf (2004) Traum und Traumdeutung im Altertum (Darmstadt), Classical Review
G. Hart (2000) Asclepius, the god of medicince, (London), Medical History 47 (3) (July 2003)
I. Gradel (2002) Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford), JACT Review 33 (Summer 2003)
R. Valantasis (ed.) (2000) Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice (Oxford), Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003)
H.-F. Mueller (2002) Roman Religion in Valerius Maximus (Routledge), Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003)
H. W. Benario (ed. & tr.) (1999) Tacitus' 'Germany' (Warminster) & J. B. Rives (ed. & tr.) (1999) Tacitus' Germania (Oxford), Phoenix 2001.4
J. A. North (2000) Roman Religion (Oxford: Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 30), JACT Review 30 (Autumn 2001)
E. Craik (2000) Hippocrates: Places in Man (Oxford), JACT Review 30 (Autumn 2001)
T. E. H. Harrison (2000) Divinity and History: the Religion of Herodotus (Oxford), JACT Review 30 (Autumn 2001)
J. Gould (2001) Myth, Ritual Memory, and Exchange: Essays in Greek Literature and Culture (Oxford), JACT Review 30 (Autumn 2001)
K. Dowden (2000) European Paganism: the Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (London & NY), JACT Review 30 (Autumn 2001)
G. E. R. Lloyd (1999) Science, Folklore and Ideology: Studies in the Life Sciences in Ancient Greece (Bristol: reissue of 1983 edition by Cambridge University Press), JACT Review 29 (Summer 2001)
J. F. Healy (1999) Pliny The Elder on Science and Technology (Oxford), JACT Review 29 (Summer 2001)
M. Edwards, M. Goodman & S. Price (eds) (1999) Apologetics in the Roman Empire (Oxford), BMCR 00.07.07
R. Ash (1999) Ordering Anarchy: Armies and Leaders in Tacitus' Histories (London), BMCR 00.05.21
V. Rosenberger (1998) Gezähmte Götter: Das Prodigienwesen der römischen Republik} (Stuttgart 1998), *Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000)
D. Felton (1999) Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity (Austin, Texas), Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000)
N. Morley (1999) Writing Ancient History (London), JACT Review 27 (Summer 2000)
M. Grant (1999) The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire (London & New York), JACT Review 27 (Summer 2000)
R. Miles (1999) Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity (London & New York), JACT Review 27 (Summer 2000)
B. Levick (1999) Vespasian (London & New York), JACT Review 27 (Summer 2000)
R. Mellor (1999) The Roman Historians (London & New York), BMCR 99.6.24
A. J. Woodman (1998) Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford), BMCR 99.7.22
T. P. Wiseman (1998) Roman Drama and Roman History (Exeter), JACT Review 1999
A. Feldherr (1998) Spectacle and Society in Livy's History (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London), JACT Review 1999
F. Graf (1997) Magic in the Ancient World (Cambridge Mass.), JACT Review 1999
E. Orlin (1997) Temples, Politics and Religion in Republican Rome (Leiden), BMCR 99.1.11
J. Rabinowitz (1998) The Rotting Witch (New York), BMCR 98.5.11
T. Habinek & A. Schiesaro (eds) (1997) The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge), JACT Review 1998
W. Hansen (ed.) (1996) The Amazing Stories of Phlegon of Tralles (Exeter), BMCR 97.5.8
P. G. Walsh (1996) Livy XL (Warminster), \textit{BMCR} 96.12.13