Mary Beard OBE, FSA, FBA, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, is to receive an honorary degree from the University of Kent at the School of European Culture and Languages (SECL) graduation on Thursday 14 July 2016 at Canterbury Cathedral.
Mary Beard graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge and went on to do a PhD with a thesis entitled The State Religion in the Late Roman Republic: A Study Based on the Works of Cicero. She lectured in Classics at King’s College London from 1979 to 1983 and returned to Cambridge in 1984 as a fellow of Newnham College and the only women lecturer in the Classics Faculty.
She became Classics Editor of The Times Literary Supplement in 1992 and Professor of Classics at Cambridge in 2004. She has presented several historical documentaries for BBC television including Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town (2010) and Meet the Romans with Mary Beard (2012). She has published several books including Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations (Profile Books, 2013), Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up (University of California Press, 2014) and SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (Profile Books, 2016)
Additionally, BBC journalist Fi Glover, who graduated with a joint honours degree from the Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies and the Department of Philosophy, will also receive an honorary doctorate at Rochester Cathedral on Tuesday 19 July. Fi Glover returned to Kent in 2014 to talk to current students about her career in broadcasting.
For the full list of those receiving honorary doctorates, please see the page here:
www.kent.ac.uk/news/kentlife/10097/university-of-kent-honorary-degrees-for-summer-2016