SPQR (Beard) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—January 1, 1955
• Where—Much Wenlock, Shopshire, England, U.K.
• Education—B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Cambridge University
• Awards—(See "Honors" below)
• Currently—lives in England


Winifred Mary Beard is an English Classical scholar. She is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge a fellow of Newnham College, and Royal Academy of Arts Professor of ancient literature. She is also the classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog, "A Don's Life," which appears in The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist."

Youth and education
Beard, an only child, was born in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England. Her mother, Joyce Emily Beard, was a headmistress and an enthusiastic reader. Her father, Roy Whitbread Beard worked as an architect in Shrewsbury. She recalled him as "a raffish public-schoolboy type and a complete wastrel, but very engaging."

Beard attended Shrewsbury High School, a private school for girls. During the summer she participated in archaeological excavations; this was to earn money for recreational spending.

At the age of eighteen she was interviewed for a place at Newnham College, Cambridge, and sat for the then-compulsory entrance exam. She had thought of going to King's, but rejected it when she discovered the college did not offer scholarships to women.

Beard received a BA (Honors) at Newnham, which in time was converted to an MA. She remained at Cambridge for her 1982 Ph.D. thesis entitled, The state religion in the late Roman Republic: a study based on the works of Cicero.

Feminism
Beard discovered during her first year at Newnham, an all woman's school, that some men in the university held dismissive attitudes toward the academic potential of women. It was an attitude that served to strengthen her determination to succeed. She also developed feminist views that have remained "hugely important" in her later life. Although she later described "modern orthodox feminism" as partly cant, she has also said that should could not "understand what it would be to be a woman without being a feminist."

Career
From 1979 to 1983 Beard lectured in Classics at King's College London. She returned to Cambridge in 1984 as a Fellow of Newnham College—the only woman lecturer in the Classics faculty. That same year she published, with Michael Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic.

In 1992 she became Classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement.

In 2004, Beard became Professor of Classics at Cambridge. She also was elected Visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature for 2008–2009 at the University of California, Berkeley, where she delivered a series of lectures on "Roman Laughter."

In 2010, on BBC Two, Beard presented the graphic historical documentary, Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town, submitting remains from the town to forensic tests, aiming to show a snapshot of the lives of the residents prior to the eruption of Vesuvius.

In 2011 she took part in a television series, Jamie's Dream School on Channel 4, and for BBC Two in 2012 she wrote and presented the three part television series, Meet the Romans with Mary Beard, a series which attempted to show how ordinary people lived in Rome, what she called "the world's first global metropolis."

In 2013, Beard became the pin-up girl for The Oldie, the UK's version of the US's AARP magazine.

In August 2014, Beard was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to the September referendum on that issue.

Controversy
Shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Beard was one of several authors invited to contribute articles on the topic to the London Review of Books. She wrote that once "the shock had faded," many people thought "the United States had it coming," and that "[w]orld bullies, even if their heart is in the right place, will in the end pay the price" (the so-called "Roosting Chickens argument"). In a November 2007 interview, she stated that the hostility these comments provoked had still not subsided, although she believed it had become a standard viewpoint that terrorism was associated with American foreign policy.

Personal
In 1985 Beard married Robin Cormack. She had a daughter called Zoe in 1985 and a son called Raphael in 1987.

Honors
2014 - Royal Academy of Arts, Professor of Aancient Literture
2013 - Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
2013 - National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism) shortlist for Confronting the Classics
2008 - Wolfson History Prize for Pompeii: Life of a Roman Town
2005 - Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

Books
1985 -  Rome in the Late Republic (with Michael Crawford)
1989 - The Good Working Mother's Guide
1990 - Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World (editor with John North)
1995 - Classics: A Very Short Introduction (with John Henderson)
1998 - Religions of Rome (with John North and Simon Price)
2000 - The Invention of Jane Harrison
2001 - Classical Art from Greece to Rome (with John Henderson)
2005 - The Colosseum (with Keith Hopkins)
2007 - The Roman Triumph
2008 - Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
2013 - Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations
2014 - Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up
2015 - SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome
(Authior bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/3/2016.)