We recently interviewed Neville Morley, Professor of Classics and Ancient History, about his academic stay as a Guest Professor at the University of Innsbruck. He also shared insights into his personal life, teaching, and academic career. 

 

"Time and again, we make sense of our world by comparing and contrasting it with the past […]."

Innsbruck...

Innsbruck is a fabulous city in a beautiful region, but what most excites me about being here as a guest professor – besides a chance to improve my German – is the opportunity for many conversations with a really interesting group of colleagues and their students, and to get a better sense of the original research that is being developed here in the study of the ancient world.

Academic Career...

My list of research interests is quite long and varied – ancient economic history, historiography, classical reception, decadence, Karl Marx, imperialism, ancient ideas about bees - because I’m constantly being attracted by new ideas or problems. One reason I still write a personal blog  is that it allows me to explore lots of different things briefly, without having to turn everything into a full publication, but I still end up taking on new projects, such as exploring the impact of Generative AI on the study of the humanities, when I ought to be focused on finishing older work…

Research…

What excites me about my current research is the opportunity to explore the continuing significance of the past for the present. Time and again, we make sense of our world by comparing and contrasting it with the past – and not just the national past, but the shared past of ancient Greece and Rome. The classical world can be an inspiration or a warning; more often than not, it is at least partly a myth or a fiction. But it is rarely an irrelevance, even in the midst of modernity.

Teaching...

A former student once bought me a mug that read ‘The simple answer is…we just don’t know’. Obviously that must be something I say a lot. When we study the ancient world, often that is the correct answer – but what I aim to teach my students is that it’s not the end of the discussion. It simply means that we need to ask better questions, and think about how to explore them – and feel more comfortable with the fact that it’s always a matter of debate and uncertainty.

Personal Insights...

The problem with academia is that it’s not healthy to spend the whole time inside one’s own head, so to speak – especially when ideas refuse to come together. Especially since I developed problems with fatigue and brain fog after contracting COVID, I try to relax and manage stress in different ways: some tai chi, but also a lot of practical activities like cooking, growing vegetables, brewing, making sausages and jams and other homecrafts. And to develop other sorts of creativity, I play jazz bass and guitar very badly, and take a weekly class in jazz composition.