The ACE project has 6 official patrons who support our work and offer invaluable advice. They are:
Professor Paul Cartledge
Paul Cartledge was the inaugural A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Clare College. He has also been the Hellenic Parliament Global Distinguished Professor in the History and Theory of Democracy at New York University. He written and edited over 20 books, many of which have been translated into foreign languages. He is an honorary citizen of modern Sparta and holds the Gold Cross of the Order of Honor awarded by the President of Greece.
Natalie Haynes
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster and – according to the Washington Post – a rock star mythologist. Her first novel, The Amber Fury, was published to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, as was The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, her previous book. Her second novel, The Children of Jocasta, was published in 2017. Her retelling of the Trojan War, A Thousand Ships, was published in 2019. It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020. It has been translated into multiple languages. Her most recent non-fiction book, Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myth was published in Oct 2020, and reached number 2 in the New York Times Bestseller chart. Her novel about Medusa, Stone Blind, was published in Sep 2022 and Margaret Atwood liked it. So did Neil Gaiman.
She has spoken on the modern relevance of the classical world on three continents, from Cambridge to Chicago to Auckland.
She writes for the Guardian. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4: eight series of her show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, have been broadcast on Radio 4.
Professor Malcolm Schofield
Malcolm Schofield is Professor Emeritus of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of a number of definitive texts in his areas of expertise: Saving the City: Philosopher-Kings and Other Classical Paradigms, which provides a detailed analysis of the attempts of ancient writers and thinkers, from Homer to Cicero, to construct and recommend political ideals of statesmanship and ruling; and The Stoic Idea of the City, which offers the first systematic analysis of the Stoic School.
Dr Emma Bridges
Emma completed her PhD in Classics at the University of Durham (2000-2003), with a thesis on the ancient reception of the Persian king Xerxes. Prior to that she studied Classics, first for a BA (1995-1999) and then for an MSt (1999-2000), at Brasenose College, Oxford.
She spent three years at the Institute of Classical Studies (School of Advanced Study, University of London) as Public Engagement Fellow in Classics but has been at the Open University since 2021 as Staff Tutor and Lecturer in Classical Studies.
As well as focusing on research and teaching in Classical Studies, she is committed to making arts and humanities research accessible to audiences beyond academia, and to fostering collaboration and conversation between academics and wider communities.
Charlotte Higgins
Charlotte is the chief culture writer of the Guardian, where writes she editorials, articles for the Long Read section, and pieces for Weekend, Review, G2 and Comment. She is the author of four works of non-fiction, three of them about the classical world. Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain (Jonathan Cape), was shortlisted for the 2013 Samuel Johnson prize, among other awards, and in 2010 she won the Classical Association prize. She believes everyone, whatever their background or income, should have the chance to learn about (and through) the classical world. She is a patron of Classics for All and a former council member of the Society of Roman Studies.
Charlotte was born in the Potteries, studied Classics at Oxford, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Staffordshire University (alma mater of Clarice Cliff and Susie Cooper). She lives in London.
Professor Greg Woolf
Greg Woolf is Ronald J. Mellor Distinguished Professor of Ancient History at the University of California in Los Angeles, USA.As a cultural historian of the Roman Empire, he has a long-standing interest in the culture of empire in the ancient world. He has worked on the formation of provincial cultures, often using archaeological material, and also on the cosmopolitan cultures of the metropolis. Much of his work considers the Roman world in a global perspective.
He has written on literacy, on knowledge cultures and libraries, on ethnography, on the Roman economy, on gendered Roman history and on the emergence of religions. His latest book The Life and Death of Ancient Cities. A Natural History, reflects a growing interest in the history of the very long term. Currently he is working on a book on migration and mobility, and also on urban resilience as one aspect of the environmental history of antiquity.
Greg writes:
‘It is a privilege as well as a pleasure to be associated with Advocating Classics Education which will fight to give as many as possible the opportunities I first enjoyed in the 1970s. I learned Latin and Greek at Bexhill Sixth Form College, and then at Christ Church, Oxford. I learned to dig on the Sussex Downs as a schoolboy, and later wrote a doctorate in Cambridge. Classics is the most naturally interdisciplinary subject it is possible to study or teach. I still enjoy going back and forth between history, archaeology and classical literature in my writing which has touched on literacy, economics, imperialism, libraries, pottery and hillforts. My work takes me around the world, because academic classics is a truly international community.’
