Mary Beard Keynote Speaker

Mary Beard OBE was a Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Newnham College. She appears frequently in the media and participates in public debate on many important political and social issues.

Mary writes the blog “A Don’s Life”, which appears in The Times as a regular column. In 2012 she wrote and presented the three part BBC2 series, Meet the Romans with Mary Beard, which focused on how ordinary people lived in Rome. In December 2010, Mary presented the historical documentary Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town, also on BBC2. The programme aimed to show a snapshot of residents’ lives prior to the eruption of Vesuvius. In 2011 she appeared in the series Jamie’s Dream School as the Classics teacher.

Mary started her academic career in 1979 at King’s College London, where she lectured up to 1983. She moved to Cambridge in 1984 as a fellow at Newnham College, becoming the only female lecturer in the Classics faculty. In the same year she published the highly acclaimed book, Rome in the Late Republic, co-written with the historian Michael Crawford. She was Visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature for 2008–2009 at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also delivered a series of lectures on the “Roman Laughter”.