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How a late-blossoming classics don became Britain’s most beloved intellectual
- unixhero 9y agoA great long read, and I had never heard of her! But what does "don" mean on this context? It's repeatedly used, but not explored or explained.
- moopling 9y agoEach college has a don for each subject, who is responsible for all students taking that subject within that college
- unixhero 9y agoAha! Thanks for that. That may well be in the higher echelons. I never heard about such at universities in Australia, Norway and Denmark.
- Doctor_Fegg 9y agoTo be honest it’s slightly misused in the article, because Beard is from Cambridge, where “don” is less commonly used (or at least was when I was there 20 years ago). It’s more an Oxford word.
- ocfnash 9y agoEven at Oxford I only ever heard it used humorously.
- rusk 9y agoIs that the same as the term "Dean" that's used elsewhere?
- arethuza 9y agoOnly time I've seen "Dean" used was for the head of a faculty within a university (a collection of departments in the same field e.g. engineering).
- dm319 9y agoIn my Cambridge college there is one 'dean' (not the same as the Master or Mistress of the college - who is essentially the figure-head of the college) - who is responsible for the students welfare. Any member of staff formally associated with the college is a 'fellow'. Each speciality have 'tutors' and 'senior tutors' as well as one 'director of studies'. Wikipedia says that a 'don' would apply to a 'fellow' or 'tutor'.
- psergeant 9y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_don https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_don
- vilhelm_s 9y agoIt just means a faculty member at Oxford (or less commonly Cambridge). The word has associations to some kind of pre-war idyllic college life... > Don: A professor, a lecturer or a Fellow. https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisation/history/oxford-glossary?wssl=1 https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisation/history/oxford-gloss...
- sien 9y agoNassim Taleb on his interactions with Mary Beard: https://medium.com/east-med-project-history-philology-and-genetics/something-is-broken-in-the-uk-intellectual-sphere-7efc9a1f154a https://medium.com/east-med-project-history-philology-and-ge...
- iainmerrick 9y agoTaleb isn't painting himself in a very flattering light with these attacks. They're very weird and bitter. And I can't tell what his actual point is! He furiously complains that the BBC and Mary Beard are "bullshitters" but I can't figure out exactly what corrections he wants made.
- Red_Tarsius 9y ago> I can't figure out exactly what corrections he wants made. The UK intellectual sphere shouldn't misrepresent history to suit modern sensibilities.
- foldr 9y agoBeard is an expert on the history of the Roman Empire, and says that this is not a misrepresentation. She wrote a good article about it here: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/roman-britain-black-white/ https://www.the-tls.co.uk/roman-britain-black-white/
- bergoid 9y ago> Beard is an expert on the history of the Roman Empire, and says that this is not a misrepresentation. Her academic credentials are the very reason why she got criticized for what she said. Saying that the BBC school video is accurate is an extraordinary claim. And as a historian you might want to back that up with some evidence. > She wrote a good article about it here: > https://www.the-tls.co.uk/roman-britain-black-white/ https://www.the-tls.co.uk/roman-britain-black-white/ In which she dwells on twitter bullying and provides zero evidence for her claims.
- mturmon 9y agoWhat a writer, and what a speaker. See her if you get a chance. Rather than dragging through some uninteresting confrontation with Taleb, spend that time reading her review essays at NYRB - http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/beard-mary/ http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/beard-mary/ . Some are subscriber-only, but many are open.
- flother 9y agoThere are also her essays in the London Review of Books [1] and, as mentioned in the article, her long-running blog for the Times Literary Supplement, A Don's Life [2]. [1]: https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/mary-beard https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/mary-beard [2]: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/category/a-dons-life/ https://www.the-tls.co.uk/category/a-dons-life/
- iorrus 9y agoSeems to be mostly pretentious over written prose with little to say: e.g. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/01/12/do-classics-have-future/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/01/12/do-classics-have-...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- MaxBarraclough 9y agoMary Beard is "Britain’s most beloved intellectual"? Not Brian Cox? Not David Attenborough? Please let's keep HackerNews free of the media's usual hyperbolic nonsense.
- Noos 9y agoC.S.Lewis probably has the best claim, and I thought they were referring to him at the first.
- pjc50 9y agoAttenborough is deeply beloved but (and possibly because) few people would describe him as an "intellectual"; his career has been one of "professional" broadcaster but "enthusiastic amateur" naturalist. (There's an interesting sub-discussion to be had here on what "intellectual" means in English public life and why it's not a popular category)