When the pandemic began to take hold in March, international students were faced with a tough choice: To remain with their friends at Brown, or to return to their home countries before borders were shut.  Christopher (PhD, Classics) opted to leave, but has remained just as active within the department as ever.

The first few months of lockdown in the UK were spent preparing for the department's first ever Zoom orals, completed in May. Since then, he has been preparing his prospectus with Prof. Johanna Hanink. Remote research from such a great distance does present its problems, but it is an interesting challenge to see how much can be written out of the scholarship that's available! As well as working towards the prospectus, he is preparing for his first ever conference via Zoom, scheduled to take place in Athens September 24-26, and is very excited to have been selected to present at SCS for the first time in January (also remotely). Like many of us, he is also adjusting to the challenges of leading undergraduate sections from several hours ahead of Providence. Just in case all of that isn't enough to keep him occupied, since April he has been working as a contributor in Medieval and Modern Greek literature for the MLA International Bibliography, which is an exciting opportunity to help provide other scholars with an up-to-date survey of work on the topics which interest him most.

Christopher writes: “Outside of academia, it has been possible to travel a little within England this summer. A real highlight of the year so far has been the chance to go seal-watching on the Farne Islands of the northeast coast of England. Watching these beautiful animals, you can almost forget the pandemic for a few moments!  It can be difficult to keep up motivation and momentum when you're so far from Brown and all the people there, but Brown Classics has done a wonderful job of maintaining a sense of community in the grimmest of circumstances.”