Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts

@elliemackinroberts

Mid runner. Historian of Ancient Greek religion. Amateur sewist. Free Palestine. #ActuallyAutistic. 🏳️‍🌈 🇦🇺in🇬🇧: Immigrant, not expat. Ursine mode of being.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· 27d

I've decided that with my last year of academia - assuming this will be my last year given the market - I'm going to just stop writing things I think will get published and start writing all the weird ideas that live in my head, and that's how I ended up writing the sentence:

screenshot reads: Agrilogistics is, here, ‘fun to think with’ rather than necessarily being a presentation of ‘a correct’ interpretation of the frieze, and that through this reading we can uncover something of the society which produced the frieze – the Classical Athenians – but not necessarily about the intentions of the artists who created it.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jul 9

Here's the email I just sent to my MP about the cuts to the teaching grant for universities. In case it's helpful to others.

Letter to MP: email me for a full copy - too many words for alt-text.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jun 29

Had a full Maximus Decimus Meridius moment on my run today.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jun 25

Oh here’s another one:

One of the ways that early career academics in teaching-focused roles are disadvantaged in the hopeful move to permanent teaching and research roles is that we are not given the time to discover.

We don't have the time to read, and think, and ponder as we begin new projects, we don't have the time to reflect. As such, we are rushed into research - and remember even though we aren't paid for it, we are *judged* on it in job applications.

And because of that actually it can take a lot longer for us to move though ideas, to come to new understandings of our evidence - and also to realise that theoretical approaches, methods, bodies of evidence that we've been working with aren't working for us anymore.

In one respect I really appreciate the move away from 'Teaching Fellow' to 'Lecturer' for fixed-term teaching appointments. In another - greater - respect I think is masks a deep inequality in the field of candidates where some have paid research time and some do not.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jun 25

Cleaning out my photos and found this, which may be a helpful guide at this time of year, when discussing jobs with the precarious academic in your life:

Screenshot reads: Things I don't want to hear when I say I feel like I've failed in my career (which, frankly, is more than likely):
1. "You haven't failed: academia failed you." Makes literally zero difference.
2. "You should be really proud of what you've achieved." Who says I'm not?
3. "But you succeeded in writing two books!" Good for me, didn't set out to write books, set out to get a permanent academic job.
4. "The system is unfair. Yeah, again: makes zero difference. Doesn't matter that mediocre posh white men from Oxbridge are gonna hire mediocre posh white men from Oxbridge and not a weird, Autistic, queer, tattooed Australian woman does it?
5. "You're brilliant"/"You're amazing" or similar. Obviously not in the ways that count, which are literally the only ways.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jun 17

FINAL PROOFS!!! 🥳

Screenshot of proofs for an article titled Frames in stone: The Parthenon frieze and the sequential choreography of architectural sculpture

Abstract reads: This article argues that the Parthenon frieze was conceived as a choreographed sequences designed to be experienced though ambulatory viewing rather than a static composition. Building on well-established work demonstrating the frieze required oblique viewing through the colonnade, that viewing was conceptually positive, and such viewing was practically achievable, this article asks what the designers gained from these viewing conditions rather than what was lost. To develop this argument, the analysis employs the zoetrope as a heuristic framework—not suggesting the frieze functions literally as a proto-cinematic or cinematic de-vice, but using these principles to illuminate how architectural sculpture engages the moving body and constructs narrative through sequential visual experience, utilizing five structural principles: sequentially, kinetic activation, rhythmic structuring, compressed duration, and embodied spectatorship. Drawing on phenomenological approaches to ancient art, embodied cognition, and the archaeology of the senses, the article offers a new reading of the peplos scene, the compositional rhythm of the cavalcade, and the temporal structure of the frieze as a whole, demonstrating how the frieze's restricted visibility and fragmented sight-lines are not obstacles to comprehension but features integral to its design.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jun 12

At least this year I have a job for next year?

TimeHop screenshot: the top, in an orange bar, reads ‘1 year ago’. Underneath Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts
Myself, in a stable and long-term position, in which I don't have to PANIC WRITE all the things because I'm terrified of wasting my research year and having nothing to show for it, but also don't really have institutional support, and an overwhelming and looming lack of employement for next year...
In response to Jo VanEvery What one thing do you want to get out there against all the odds? A book? One specific article?

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jun 9

Friend-shaped little guy

Faience aryballos (oil flask) in the form of a hedgehog

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jun 1

Please enjoy my cat in her bookshelf

A tabby cat sleeping on a red blanket in a bookshelf.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· Jun 1

You are very lucky. 😂

Photo of a man in a knitted vest holding a basket of fake vegetables with faces

Photo of a man in a spotted waistcoat with a yellow anthropomorphic triangle and blue anthropomorphic square behind him.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 31

As a runner and a writer, I heartily co-sign this message.

Twitter screenshot reads I wanted to run the London Marathon but training takes too long and is too hard as a pudgy 47yo woman, so I got an Uber to the finish line. It's not fair that athletic people get to gatekeep long-distance running. I'm still a Marathon runner!
This is what Al 'writers' sound like

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 29

Proofs!!!

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 24

Just FYI: a hundred kilometers is a really long way.

A white woman wearing running attire stands in front of a sign that reads Finisher London2Brighton. She holds a sign that’s says 100km.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 23

Now I get to do that again!

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 20

Hey also look at my gorgeous cat!

A tabby cat sits loaf style on a blue chair.

A yawning tabby cat sits loaf style on a blue chair

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 20

I’ve just watched a reel by a conventionally-attractive, small-bodied, straight-sized white woman* that lent dangerously close to claiming the fat experience. As a small-bodied, straight-sized, white woman who used to be (small) fat I have some thoughts on this. Here are my credentials:

Photo of a thin white woman in a pink singlet and denim miniskirt

Photo of a fat white woman in a black and white skirt suit.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 20

It’s starting to feel so real that I will be running One Hundred Kilometres on Saturday. I can’t believe it but I feel so ready.

Pair of white trainers with blue laces, beads in the laces spell out This is the fun part.

Pair of orange trainers with orange laces, beads in the laces spell out This is the fun part.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 16

Ignore my messy kitchen.

A plate of risotto with peas and three spears of asparagus on top

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 4

Hey look. I ran to Brauron.

A picture of a ruined Ancient Greek stoa.

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 4

Look what I found at WHSmith at Athens Airport!!!

Photograph of a book display prominently featuring a brown covered book titled “Ancient Greece” by Ellie Mackin Roberts

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts· May 3

This was my slowest run in a very long while but, in my defence, I stopped and took a lot of photos at basically every ancient thing I came across and, if that’s not what being a runner in a city you love is about then I don’t know what is!