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Dr Naomi Scott

@drnaomiscott.bsky.social
1.4K followers 441 following 1K posts

A.G Leventis Fellow in Greek Studies at the University of Bristol. Julius Pollux superfan. Expert in Ancient Greek jokes. My research profile: tinyurl.com/2fc8fbzh My book: tinyurl.com/2x256h64

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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 2h
Pulling a small plastic baby doll out of my handbag* at the library lockers and reminding myself that someone should really write a sitcom set in an academic library because the people here** are weird AF. * not even the first time, this happens to me way more often than you’d think ** me
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Reposted by Dr Naomi Scott
Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 2h
In 2012, I stood on a stage with Anne Carson as a volunteer grad student to help her perform BRACKO, an adaptation of Sappho, where my job was to say the word "bracket" every time there was a bracket, which was more than two hundred times
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 2h
Adding ‘win the Nobel prize’ to my running list of ‘things you can do with a PhD in Ancient Greek Literature’.
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Reposted by Dr Naomi Scott
University of Exeter Special Collections @exeterunispeccoll.bsky.social · 5h
Good morning to everyone but especially to all the octopuses, for today is their special day! To celebrate World Octopus Day, here's an illustration of an octopus from the book 'The World of the Sea' by Moquin Tandon, published in 1869. 📷 Reserve 591.92 TAN #WorldOctopusDay #OctopusDay #RareBooks
Cropped image showing an engraving of an octopusFull-page engraving from a book. It shows an octopus lying on the seabed, with a squid and a cuttlefish coming towards. The cuttlefish is making a cloud. The engraving is captioned: 'Plate XI. A Poulpe. A Cuttle-Fish Making His Cloud. A Calmar'.
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Reposted by Dr Naomi Scott
Sarah Lidwell-Durnin @sarahlidwelldurnin.bsky.social · 4h
The event all Minoan scholars have been waiting for - World Octopus Day 🐙
Minoan vessel with spout, featuring a slightly stunned-looking and highly stylised painted octopus rendered in dark brown on cream.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 4h
I’d like to say I have other interests but…. Do I? Do I really?
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 4h
Maaaaaaybe this is the prod I need to finally ditch my kindle, the final thing tying me to the Amazon ecosystem of misery, spying, and general awfulness.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 4h
Sorry to report that Amazon’s entire report on me is: likes books. Reads so many books. Has basically no interests other than reading books. STRONGLY COMMITTED to reading books and also to getting her children to read books.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
It often feels like the people making the purchasing decisions don’t talk to the people who’d use these things about what would and would not actually be useful. If they did, we wouldn’t have two separate but overlapping platforms for accessing and managing student records, for example….
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Same over here in the UK, our start to term has been a *redacted* mess, apparently because a new piece of timetabling software didn’t work as promised.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Exactly FOUR HOURS after clicking the booking link, I’ve got a ticket.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
It’s estimating I’ll get in at 15:42 now. A mere 3hrs and 42mins after clicking the booking link as it went live.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
2.5hrs in, still hours to go. Again, I clicked the link at approx half of a second past noon, when the link went live.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I have been in the queue over half an hour. The number ahead of me has gone down by only c.2k. It still says more than an hour wait, the status bar has progressed v minimally. At this rate I won’t get to the booking page before I have to leave to go do the nursery pickup. Madness.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
More Bayeux tickets released to BM members today. Clicked on the booking link within LITERALLY ONE SECOND of it going live. 16k people ahead of me in the queue, queuing time estimated at over an hour. How?!?!?
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This is I swear the first thing that came up on my university travel portal
A blue hotel room with a mad naked mural and cream draped over the bed
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Ok Greek Drama peeps, who’s going to Nafplion in June? And where are we staying because there are some outstandingly bonkers hotels near the conference venue.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I will do! And shall attempt to formulate some thoughts on Pollux and the detritus of antiquity, what a cool topic!
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Oooh this looks really exciting!! Thanks for sharing!
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
No wouldn’t work, if they don’t surveil the students that might lead to them not surveilling the academics and then where would we be? Gotta keep those dangerous intellectuals On. Their. Toes.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Look at those mixed metaphors no wonder I can’t write right now 😂
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Oooff huge solidarity. My cliff face doesn’t come until August and even so that pressure of The End is weighing on me I think. So hard to write under the sword of Damocles…
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I think my basic issue is that this chapter feels less like a chapter and more like three small chapters in a trench coat 😬
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I have words I just hate them 😬😂 I do wonder if leaving it for a bit would help me come back and understand what I’m trying to do. But I also don’t have loads of time to play with for various reasons (funding, limited time before I’m teaching intensively-ish again) which makes it hard to do that!
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Bullet points is a good idea! I’m nearly 10k words into a draft chapter and I just feel like it isn’t hanging together somehow. There’s good stuff here but the overall framework just feels so so fuzzy (frustrating since this was supposed to be the ‘easy’ chapter where I had most material going in 🙄)
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Academic-sky, what’s your answer when you feel like you’re in a writing rut? Do you write through it and hope that if you can just push out a finished draft (even if you hate it!) you can then reshape it into something that works? Or do you take a break and do something else (like what?)
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I’m a classicist (like we are world class pedants at this kind of nonsense my GOD 😂) and I *still* don’t think I’d use the technically more correct mee-asma pronunciation unless I was actually reading the word in Greek 🤷‍♀️
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Teleblep is outstanding, 10/10 no notes.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
And indeed I heard this very lecture, only it concerned the word microraptor. The four year old was unmoved 😂
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Every time I ask my elder if she knows what a word means she rolls her eyes and says URGH MUMMY is it Greek?
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Overhead husband earnestly lecturing the children: you see this is why you learn Latin and Greek, so one day you too will be able to explain all the dinosaur names.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Today I procured fancy winter squash AND fancy mushrooms to make a glorious autumn stew. Now to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labour: a massive row with my children when they inevitably refuse to touch any of it 🍄‍🟫🎃🎉
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Like rationally it might make sense for a high earning dad to go down to 4 days but if he reasonably thinks he’ll be pushed out of his job for it then it’s not a smart move! Reality is messy and incentives are messy and more than just money.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
And part of that is because men are unfairly penalised in their careers by going part time after kids. It won’t make sense for him to take the hit reducing hours if he’s unfairly penalised for that because of gendered expectations. Incentives are more complex than just what’s financially rational.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
But those incentives aren’t purely financial, they’re shaped by social and gendered expectations in entirely predictable ways. Acting as if financial incentives are the only incentives created by a policy is bad policy. What’s incentivised is predictably shaped by gender.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Exactly this. People are not individual rationalist economic actors, unmoored for societal influences and cultural expectations. Policy that expects economic rationalism is bad policy.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It’s a predictable response if the policy is analysed through a feminist lens. I see it happen esp when dad is salaried and mum freelance and he expects her to juggle work and kid with minimal childcare cos his salary is a certain and hers more unpredictable & his hours set and hers more flexible.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Yes absolutely agreed on the substance! I’d just say these aren’t random or unpredictable bad or financially illogical responses, but ones rooted in patriarchy that were predictably going to harm some women, and are foreseeable responses if the policy is looked at through a feminist lens.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Tbh I think the question of taxing & calculating benefits for households vs individuals can be really dicey. There are huge issues around gender here too!! But yes it’s weird for this particular benefit that it’s not done on household.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Because dad sees it as ‘not worth the expense’ of mum working full time when it massively increases their childcare costs for her to do so. I see it happen especially where mum is freelance and he thinks she can just fit that in around the baby if they have some v minimal childcare. And she can’t.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Look I agree that in plenty families it can incentivise the higher earner to try and cut back to stay above the threshold. But we don’t live in an equal society and lack of childcare is still a feminist issue. I see this happen all the time and yes the policy incentivises it.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I hate to tell you this but I know plenty families in this situation and in some of them dad still considers childcare an expense caused by mum working, not by them both working, and doesn’t consider childcare relevant to his hours. I know. In 2026. Not all men etc etc but they’re out there.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Gender being what it is it’s often dad, and mum then massively cuts back her hours and tanks her career & thus her lifetime earnings & financial independence because he thinks childcare is a cost caused by *her* working & not by *them* working (yes, still, in 2026. Blows my mind but there it is).
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I’m an academic I will literally never earn that kind of money I think it’s stupid money & no one should earn that much BUT here in London about half my friends live in households where one person is earning over the threshold so here it’s a lot of parents. Out of London I’m sure far fewer.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
But fundamentally universal childcare is good for women. Always is. It’s a feminist issue to get rid of that cliff-face tho god knows it pains me greatly to agree with a Tory policy.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
(Obvs can exist the other way round where mum earns a lot more but lets not pretend we live in an equal society where this doesn’t happen more to women than to men)
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
There’s also a super gendered element here. Imagine a family where dad earns 100k but mum earns say 35k. Creating a situation that incentivises women to give up work and become financially dependent on their husbands is not a situation we should support.
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Universal benefits and services are always preferable because then EVERYONE is invested in the provision of quality services by govt. Give them to everyone then recoup the money from the well off in tax 🤷‍♀️
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Reposted by Dr Naomi Scott
Dr Victoria Austen @vickyausten.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
We can all just quit. Mary Jaeger already asked the most important question in 2015.
Bibliography entry circled. The title is “Why is there no cheese in Horace’s Satires? And Related questions for Vergil and Varro.”
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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Oh poor boy and poor you. We had this with Clio last year, days of worry and repeated vet visits, nothing worked, then one morning she brought up a hairball the size of her head and then proceeded to act like nothing had happened. Fingers crossed for something similarly gross but harmless ❤️
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