Dr Penny Goodman

@pjgoodman

Senior lecturer in Roman history. Appreciator of the Gothic. Lib Dem. She / her.

1,261 Following1,884 Followers285 Posts

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Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· 7d

This is genuinely just right there in the railway station in Cluj, Romania! It had Suetonius' Twelve Caesars in stock. 😁

A book vending machine containing five rows of five books each. All the signage on it is in Romanian, as are the books.

A book inside the vending machine entitled Viețile Celor 12 Cezari (The Lives of the Twelve Caesars). It has a picture of the Prima Porta statue of Augustus in its original full colours on the front.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Aug 3

I happen to be sitting in the pub with a plastic figurine of Ager and my boyfriend (thus two phones between us), so we've just done this with your picture. 😁

A plastic figurine of William Ager in front of an image of his house displayed on a mobile phone screen.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Jun 20

Tickled by this wedding party forever having their photos taken in Regent Square in Doncaster. They got two photos for their money - one from the photographer and one from Google maps. 📸 😉 maps.app.goo.gl/fpgRcXjEpGMf...

A screen shot from Google maps showing a photographer taking a picture of a wedding party in a park. There is a bride, a groom, an adult bridesmaid, a child bridesmaid and a best man.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Jun 4

Very striking indeed to come across this introduction to an academic book about the use of Classics in the era of Fascism and Nazism today. It sounds like the author is drawing a parallel with Trumpian politics, doesn't it? But actually it was written in 2003 in the Bush era.

Clip from a book review reading, "This has been an interesting time in which to read a book such as the one under review. Many US academics who have felt uneasy or worse about the rise in nationalism evident in the last two years have also felt a pressure to conform and either to acquiesce in the policies of the current administration, or at least to be silent. One advantage, however, of reading a book such as this at a time such as this is that we are thereby helped to imagine the enormously greater pressures that must be felt when rabid nationalism actually results in tyranny."

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· May 20

Absolutely infuriating that the University of Leeds should be having to send this sort of message out to its staff! According to the rest of the item, we should expect delays in ordering new laptops, especially anything high-performance, and costs are rising all the time.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· May 10

Yes, it's clearly the agreed line right from the top. This was on the party Facebook page yesterday.

A picture of Ed Davey with activists. Above is a fake copy of The Guardian with a headline reading "Lib Dems can counter extremes of Reform and Greens, Davey says."

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· May 6

Today I learned that the Norwegian word for lecture is 'foredrag', and I think we could all usefully adopt that.

Snippet from a Norwegian newspaper which reads "17.30: Keisar Augustus og Romerriket. Eit 2000-års minne. Foredrag av professor Eiliv Skard."

The English translation is "17.30: Emperor Augustus and the Roman Empire. A 2000-year commemoration. Lecture by Professor Eiliv Skard."

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Mar 15

Which one tho?

Newspaper headline from the Express reading "Legendary long-lost city of Alexandria has finally been found after thousands of years", with a picture of Alexander the Great.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Feb 11

Our Head of School, @emmacayley.bsky.social, has just sent me this fab additional picture of Clare and Rasha. 😊

Rasha Soliman (left) and Clare Wright (right) standing together at the reception after their lecture.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Feb 11

A great pleasure this evening to attend the inaugural lecture of two @lcsleeds.bsky.social colleagues, Clare Wright and Rasha Soliman. But I didn't expect to learn that one of Clare's earliest jobs had been as a copy typist for the "right on" Paddy Ashdown MP. I'll have to grill her about that! 😁

Emma Cayley, Head of School, congratulating both Clare and Rasha.

A reconstruction of the advert for the copy typing job which Clare answered, complete with the glorious typo: Right On Paddy Ashdown MP.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Jan 13

Yep, I agree. I just Googled "sparta spear shield", and a lot of the results look very similar to this, e.g. this one. Came to Bluesky to check whether other Classicists had clocked this, and here you are! 😉

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Nov 19

Just picked up my contributor's copy of The Cambridge Urban History of Europe, a MIGHTY three-volume tome extending from antiquity to the present day in which I am lucky enough to have a chapter co-authored with @cpdickenson.bsky.social on Zoning the City.

The front cover of the book, showing the title.

The spines of the three volumes, which cover ancient Europe, medieval and early modern, and modern and contemporary.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Nov 11

Yes, that was a career highlight! 😁

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Nov 11

Update: CUP have also signed! 😁

Screenshot from an email.

Header: eSignature request from Cambridge

Body: All parties have signed the contract.

It is fully executed and attached to this email.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Nov 11

A little milestone moment today: I have signed the contract with Cambridge University Press for my book, 'Augustus Around the World: The Bimillennial Commemorations of 1938'. 🥳

An image showing just one of the events covered in the book: the dedication of a replica statue of Augustus in São Paulo, Brazil in 1938. A crowd of people stand around the statue, which is on a raised pedestal in an open piazza.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Oct 13

Classics friends may enjoy this. Some of the Latin pronunciation is a bit weird, but the essence is spot on! 😆

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Aug 30

Thank you to @lindsaypowell.bsky.social for the signed copy of his new biography of Tiberius! I wrote the foreword for it, and was pleased to do so, especially as it's the first biography of Tiberius to give serious attention to his reception history. Congratulations to Lindsay on the publication. 😊

A picture of me smiling and holding up a copy of Lindsay's book.

The frontispiece of Lindsay's book which he has signed for me.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Aug 6

Sudden realisation: the original poster for The Wicker Man owes quite a visual debt to the one for Hammer's The Mummy. It's mostly the glowing hole in the figure's chest, but also the angle of the body, the shape of the fingers, the small figures to the left and the watery background.

Poster for The Wicker Man, showing the titular wicker man figure in silhouette against a setting sun which is shining through a hole in its chest. Small human figures are visible to the left on the cliff top, and the sea is behind.

Poster for The Mummy showing the titular mummy figure with a gaping hole in its chest. Torchlight from a torch held by a small policeman figure in the distance to the left is shining through the hole. A swamp lies behind them.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Aug 3

I believe there's been Discourse lately about how much social media helps authors sell books, so worth mentioning that it was my birthday yesterday and I got these two books by @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social and @pjrobichaud.bsky.social because I'd learnt of their existence here and requested them.

Picture of two books. Left - Shades of Rome by F. K. Young. Right - Pan: The Great God's Modern Return by Paul Robichaud.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Jun 18

Matthew Lewis looking good for his age. 😉

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Feb 13

If you see this, post a photo from your device with no explanation.

A cuddly toy sloth wearing a hoodie with a picture of Christopher Lee in Scars of Dracula next to the word 'Whitby' on the front. He is tucked into the gap between a car seat and the window, looking relaxed with one arm stretched out over the back of the car seat and the other resting on the window ledge.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Feb 8

I'm watching The Red King at the moment, a six-part Wicker Man-esque murder series set on a remote island. Was tickled to learn in ep 5 last night that Gruffudd's daughter, Bethan, is at the University of Leeds doing our very real degree in Sustainable Fashion: courses.leeds.ac.uk/j391/sustain...

A picture of Gruffudd Prosser, played by Mark Lewis Jones. He is a white man in his sixties, holding a tankard in a pub.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Jan 14

Nosferatu in Love by Jim Shepard has been my most striking read of recent years. It's a fictional biography of F. W. Murnau, with lots of great thinking about queer love, the impact of war, and the nature and possibilities of film as an art form. Stylistically clever too, but not pretentious.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Jan 12

The 1979 Yorkshire TV production of 'Casting the Runes' begins with shots of a snowy landscape featuring a canal lock and railway arch, where we see John Harrington dying in the fields of his brother's farm. The recent UK weather meant this was the perfect weekend for a spot of location matching.

Screenshot from Yorkshire TV's Casting the Runes showing a canal lock just where the canal meets a river, in a snowy landscape with hazy light.

Present-day picture of the same canal lock, again in a snowy landscape though with a slightly brighter sky.

Screenshot from Yorkshire TV's Casting the Runes showing a man and a dog at the arched mouth of a tunnel running under a railway embankment in the snow.

A present-day picture of the same railway embankment archway in the snow, though from the other side of the line and seen from some distance away.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Dec 9

Not really! Here's one my brother-in-law made a few years ago. It's not chunks of steak in a sauce, but a joint of best beef, so that each individual slice of the beef wellington is like a steak in its own right. Incredibly flavoursome and tender. I'm sure a mushroom-substitute can be found, too.

A sliced beef wellington showing part of an individual portion. It is like a rare steak encased in a mushroom and pastry crust. The beef in the centre is pink, moist and tender.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Dec 6

This comment immediately made me think of this picture.

A robin with outstretched wings drop-kicking a blue-tit off a seed table.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Dec 5

The block where I live does advent windows, and today is my day. So here's this year's design - a nice cheery Mari Lwyd. 😊

A window design created with black sugar paper and coloured tissue paper, shown from the outside so that the light shines through the tissue paper. It shows a Mari Lwyd - a horse's skull wearing a cloak, with a holly wreath and streaming red ribbons. There's a green number 5 in the lower left corner.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Nov 24

I spent a very congenial afternoon yesterday in the Red Deer pub in Sheffield. They had a roaring fire, good food, and a massive collection of beer-mats on the ceiling. Here are a few of the Classically-themed ones.

Oval beer-mat from Milton Brewery for a beer called Minerva, featuring a picture of the goddess in the centre. This brewery obviously specialises in Classically themed beers, as we spotted other mats for beers called Nero and Zenobia from them as well.

Oval beer-mat from Maxim Brewery for a beer called Maximus. It features a gladiator's short sword in the centre, and the words 'Decimus Meridius' appear at the bottom, underneath the main name.

Rectangular beer mat from a company called Salamander for a beer called Augustine of Hippo, featuring an image of Augustine with his bishop's mitre on sipping a pint of beer.

Oval beer-mat from Neepsend Brew Co for a beer called Demeter. It's a minimalist design, with just a black edge and yellowish interior plus the written text.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Nov 18

3. What I think of as 'The Surprisingly Buff Augustus', set into the retaining wall of the square outside the Quirinal Palace, built by Pius IX in 1866. It's clearly modelled on the recently-discovered Prima Porta statue, but through a weirdly idealising, aestheticising, perhaps homoerotic lens.

A marble statue of Augustus wearing a loose drape around his waist and legs, but with a bare chest, carrying a cornucopia and a scroll or short rod. It is set into a niche in a red brick wall.

Dr Penny Goodman@pjgoodman· Nov 18

2. The bronze statue of Augustus erected by the Fascist regime in the early 1930s in front of the remains of his forum. It's based on an ancient marble statue found at Prima Porta in 1863, but tries to be more 'authentic' than that by recreating the appearance of a presumed lost bronze original.