iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Some delightfully catty Housman reading this morning…

Black text on white page, reading: THe authors of the Culex and Ciris and Aetna were mediocre poets, and worse; and the gods and men and booksellers whom they affronted by existing allotted them for transcription to worse than mediocre scribes.
The Ciris was indited by & twaddler, and the Culex and Aetna by stutterers: but what they stuttered and twaddled was Latin, not double-Dutch; and great part of it is now double-Dutch, and Latin no more. The deep corruption of the MSS is certified not merely by the jargon which they offer us, but by other and external proofs. For 150

Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Having a lot of fun writing about Horace and Aristotle today… but it’s going in unexpected (entirely expected) directions…

A pile of books, all by trans theorist Paul B. Preciado.

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Durham Classics and Ancient History @durhamclassics.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

🎉 Hearty congratulations to former Durham student Dr Joe Watson, who has been awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Warwick University. 📖 Dr Watson's Durham PhD thesis will be published soon with Cambridge University Press. 🤩 Very many congratulations to Dr Watson!

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

In short: I’ll be spending the next 3 years writing a new book about the Appendix Virgiliana, in addition to working on a few other, related projects. Plus, I’ll be teaching a module on the Appendix next academic year! (5/5)

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Further, it interrogates both the methodologies of philological research and the (masculinist political) traditions of classical scholarship on the Appendix. (4/5)

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

an understanding of their queerness, atypically treating them in the round as texts that speak to one another. It asks what queer theory can reveal about specific under-studied poems, but also what the study of appendiceal texts can bring to queer theory. (3/5)

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

‘Queer Appendages’ develops a radically new approach to reading the Appendix Virgiliana, 26-30 Latin poems of unknown date and authorship, through a queer theoretical lens. The project moves past debates surrounding the poems’ origins and authorship, towards (2/5)

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Now that the ink is dry, I’m delighted to announce that, from September, I will be embarking on a 36-month @leverhulme.ac.uk Early Career Fellowship for my project ‘Queer Appendages’, remaining at Warwick! (1/5)

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

However, it is not impossible, and our resources remain at: queeringthepasts.com 3/3

queeringthepasts.com

Queering the Past(s)

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

It’s strangely timely and also outpaced by events. QTPs’ resources were designed for a world where teaching LGBTQ+ history in schools was mandated by the government. Increasingly, as I discuss in the article, it is becoming illegal. 2/3

queeringthepasts.com

Queering the Past(s)

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

My short article on LGBTQ+ teaching resources and UK education policy, “Beyond Gay History Month: Queering the Past with ‘Queering the Past(s)’”, is in this new issue of JCT, Open Access. You can find it here: tinyurl.com/2kxs9hdj 1/3

cambridge.org

Beyond gay history month: queering the past with ‘Queering the Past(s)’ | Journal of Classics Teaching | Cambridge Core

Beyond gay history month: queering the past with ‘Queering the Past(s)’ - Volume 27 Issue 53

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Back in Durham today for a fun conference on ancient authorship and marginality. I’ll be talking about the Dirae and how to read marginalised poems with authorship, but no authors!

Photograph of the Durham skyline. The cathedral is visible against a wash of blue sky and a lush green foreground containing some houses.

Two bits of white paper on a wooden background containing text for an academic talk entitled Queer Eye for the Dirae

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

It is once again proofs day—this time for a piece, forthcoming in Mnemosyne, on the meaning of ‘incest’ at Rome. It’s also the first day of term and ‘move offices’ day; all in all a busy day.

Photograph of some article proofs. Tightly spaced writing on an A4 page.

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I’m having what can only be described as a productive research day…

Image of four things: two books (kayachev’s commentary on the Dirae and on the Lydia), a cup of black coffee and a large, four tier slice of cake.

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Lovely to receive my contributor copies of this smart new volume on Cavafy as World Literature. I have a short chapter about the uses to which Classicists put Cavafy in their scholarship.

Photograph of the cover of a book. Largely black with the title (Cavafy as World Literature) and the names of the editors (Takis Kayalis and Vicente Fernández González).

Photograph of a page of a book. Easily readable is the title (Classical Cavafy and Cavafy among the Classicists).

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Yale Classics Library @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 115 (2025) www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @theromansoc.bsky.social @darcytuttle.bsky.social @profyarrow.bsky.social

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

these queer cycles to be instructive in our study of intertextuality—all too often understood as a linear, teleological process. [3/3]

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

that leads poets (Ennius, Catullus, Calvus, Gallus, Ovid, Tibullus, Domitius Marsus and Statius) to queer normative conceptions of time. Thus, characters become shared cyclically between poems from vastly different chronological eras. In all, I argue that we should take [2/3]

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Delighted that my latest article, ‘Hell is Other Poets: Tibullus, Ovid and Statius in Queer Elysium’ is out in the Journal of Roman Studies: doi.org/10.1017/S007.... In it, I argue that the Underworld operates, for Latin poetics, as a multiply-accessible ‘shared space’ [1/3]

doi.org

Hell is other poets: Tibullus, Ovid and Statius in queer Elysium | The Journal of Roman Studies | Cambridge Core

Hell is other poets: Tibullus, Ovid and Statius in queer Elysium - Volume 115

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Excited to be back in Durham for my talk this afternoon @durhamclassics.bsky.social, titled ‘When Sappho Met Lydia’. It’s a reading of the Lydia through the lenses of both Sapphic intertextuality (philologically understood) and through Sapphic desire (via Sedgwick), in time for #LGBTHistoryMonth.

Photograph of Durham cathedral and castle above the river Wear.

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JACT Durham Greek & Latin Summer School @jactdurham.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

📣 Places on @jactdurham.bsky.social are filling up fast 📣 Join us in July at St John’s College, Durham University for a week of #Latin and/or #AncientGreek! New for 2026: Classical Civilisation - Women: The Reality Behind the Myth! Register online: www.durhamglss.org

durhamglss.org

Home | JACT Durham Greek & Latin Summer School

Welcome - The 32nd JACT Durham Greek & Latin Summer School will take place at St John's College, Durham University from 25th July - 1st August 2026

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

schools, esp. UK schools. As I discuss, the landscape of UK LGBTQ+ education (esp. trans education) is in a lot of flux, but hopefully, for those who are able to use them, QTP's resources provide helpful, tailored and scholarly information about LGBTQ+ ancient history [2/2]

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Lovely to see this out (in FirstView): "Beyond gay history month: queering the past with ‘Queering the Past(s)’" (tinyurl.com/4vrskdw2), my new article in the Journal of Classics Teaching about using resources from queeringthepasts.com to provide LGBTQ+ education in [1/2]

tinyurl.com

Beyond gay history month: queering the past with ‘Queering the Past(s)’ | Journal of Classics Teaching | Cambridge Core

Beyond gay history month: queering the past with ‘Queering the Past(s)’

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Lovely to receive my author copies of CP 120.3, containing my recent article on the Carmina Priapea, obscenity and space!

Photograph of a hand holding an academic journal, emblazoned with an image of a fish.

Photograph of a Page of an academic article, titled “Down the Garden Path: Divinity, Space, and Poetics in the Carmina Priapea”

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Lovely to get my author copies of the Alaudae translation cooked up by Michael Lombardi-Nash. I hadn’t read my translation (of Issue 7) since I sent it off in 2021, so it was delightful to revisit it this morning!

Front cover of a book in yellow, entitled Alaudae, edited by Llewelyn Morgan and Michael Lombardi-Nash.

Photo of a double page of a book. The left page gives a Latin text of Issue 7 of the Alaudae, while the right page gives the same text in English.

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Dr Cora Beth Fraser @corabeth.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

A big thank-you to @joewatstein.bsky.social for pulling this together!

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

resources and examples of good practice across secondary and university-level Latin teaching in the UK! Co-authored with @esthermeijer.bsky.social , Lottie Mortimer, @cressidaryan.bsky.social, @corabeth.bsky.social, Francesca Modini and Vlada Oulitskaia. 2/2

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Lovely to see this out in the world: cucd.blogs.sas.ac.uk/files/2025/0.... My report of a workshop I organised at the 2024 CA on the intersection between EDI and Latin language teaching, out now in the @cucdbulletin.bsky.social Read for an overview of the discussions had, but also for a lot of 1/2

cucd.blogs.sas.ac.uk

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Yale Classics Library @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

New issue of Classical Philology Vol. 120, No. 3 (2025) www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/cp/2025/... @chicagojournals.bsky.social

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Dr Victoria Austen @vickyausten.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Very happy to see this out in the world!

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

I’ve been working with various versions of this article for five years. It argues for a collective/unitarian reading of the CP that attends to their spatial poetics as cause and consequence of Priapus’ split personality: at once divine and earthly, sacred and profane.

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Clearly, ‘tis the season, for it is once again proofs’ day! This time, I am working on proofs for a short chapter, ‘Classical Cavafy and Cavafy among the Classicists’, for the forthcoming Bloomsbury volume, ‘Cavafy as World Literature’! Due out at the end of this year.

Black text of an academic article on white paper. Title: Classical Cavafy and Cavafy among the classicists.

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

It is once again proofs day! This time for my piece on queering Latin love poetry in the Underworld, out in this year’s JRS. Hell is Other Poets: Tibullus, Ovid and Statius in Queer Elysium

Printout of article proofs. Black font on white paper.

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Dr Elaine C. Sanderson @elainam42.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Off to Warwick to talk about some nice(ish) things in Lucan! Thanks for the invitation @joewatstein.bsky.social 😊

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Thank you! I was sure someone would make me excise that….

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Proofs day! Forthcoming in July in Classical Philology: 'Down the Gardem Path: Divinity, Space and Poetics in the Carmina Priapea'.

Screenshot of the first page of an academic article (black text on white page), entitled 'Down the Garden Path: Divinity, Space and Poetics in the Carmina Priapea'.

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

A nice little haul of discount philology from this weekend’s shopping trip:

Five books;

The first two volumes of the newish Loeb translation of Fragmentary Republican Latin (Ennius)
Lafaye’s Budé of Catullus
Butler’s Loeb of Quintilian, vol. 4
Gow and Page’s commentary on the Hellenistic epigrams of the Greek Anthology.

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Esther Meijer @esthermeijer.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Hello! My new article is now out in Arethusa: '(Re)Producing The Egyptian: Arboricultural Cultivation Of The Roman State In Lucan’s Civil War'. I consider the epic's tree imagery as metaphor for the Roman state, pointing to the protagonists' attempts at cultivation & propagation.

Screenshot. Text reads: (Re)Producing The Egyptian: Arboricultural Cultivation Of The Roman State In Lucan’s Civil War. Esther Meijer. Abstract: This article examines the changing relationship between Rome and Egypt in Lucan’s Civil War. It applies philological and ideological analyses to the epic’s destabilisation and restabilisation of the body politic of the Roman state as discernible from two interrelated sets of imagery: firstly, the language of arboriculture and propagation as evoked by Virgil’s Georgics and Theocritus’s 17th Idyll; and, secondly, the mortuary treatments applied to Pompey’s body parts. Key to the restabilisation of the res publica is Caesar’s interpretation of Pompey’s remains, which reproduces Egypt as “Other” in relation to Rome while acknowledging its now enduring presence within the empire.

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

After a wonderful weekend with @esthermeijer.bsky.social in London (seeing sites and enjoying theatre), I’m quite proud of my wide-ranging haul—some new, some second, third, fourth or fifth hand!

Seven books on a multi coloured carpet.

Studien zum Corpus Priapeorum
queer ecologies
Bad Education
Petronii satirae et liber priapeorum
Powerplay in Tibullus
the Roman poetry of love
Amor: roma. Love and Latin literature

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Tony Potter @tony-potter.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Join me & the rest of the team this summer in Durham for the 31st JACT Durham Greek & Latin Summer School! Who’s planning on attending? Please share widely 🙏 @joewatstein.bsky.social @nicholsone99.bsky.social @theclassicslibrary.bsky.social @workingclassicists.bsky.social

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 19/01/2024

After a fairly heavy week, I’m very excited to be gifting myself with the new(ish) Kristen’s to enjoy over the next few weeks!

Most of the image is dominated by a book. The book is mostly white, with a dark blue chevron at the bottom and a photograph of Dostoevsky in the middle. The title is Dostoevsky in the Face of Death or Language Haunted By Death by Julia Kristeva

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Dr Joe Watson @joewatstein.bsky.social · 16/12/2023

Had the rare experience yesterday of receiving wonderful peer reviews from reviewer 1 *and* reviewer 2 for a forthcoming piece! Apparently, my work is “stunning”, “stellar”, “exquisite” and “radical”. Words to be remembered when reviewer 2 returns to their usual tricks…

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