Late-Night Talk: Louise O'Brien, PhD. What If Your Career Plan Needs A Plan B

Students and Graduates!

Louise O’Brien is an Egyptologist and Ancient Historian specialising in Roman Egypt.

Her research interests focus on portraiture in the ancient world, cultural interactions, and hybrid visual and material culture. She completed her PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2025, and most recently has worked with the University of Tübingen Institute for Ancient and Near Eastern Studies on the project Die Bildostraka aus Athribis, researching artistic precedents of pictorial ostraca from the Middle Egyptian site of Athribis.

Louise's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louiseobrien343/

Louise's Instagram: @egypto_lou_gist

Thank you all for tuning in, it's been a pleasure.

Transcript

Welcome And Postdoc Transition

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Louise O'Brien. Welcome to PhD Lungeon. Thank you so much for being at my guest today. And we were talking previously before the recording that you finished your postdoc or was partially finished and now you're doing your old sorts of things. So how now are you managing all of that?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, it's it's it's chaos, really. Um firstly, thank you for having me. Really fun to speak to you and and to see you again. It's it's great to see you. My pleasure. It's it's a little bit chaotic, but I feel like that that's academia in a nutshell is there. So I've just finished a research assistant position with the University of Tubingen, which was absolutely fantastic, and the opportunities I got from it were amazing. And now I'm still working on a few publications from that that are going to be hopefully published in the next you know, 12 to 18 months, probably, depending on because it's part of a much larger international project. So I'm just this tiny little cog in a huge wheel that seems to be turning rapidly, it feels like.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, it's quite a this wave of uncertainties and not knowing all what's got what will happen next. But at the same time, it feels it feels exciting to know. Okay, so I finished this level, I finished this postdoc in this case, and what what am I what is going to happen? What what what shall I do? And for that is trying to keep yourself active and trying to go work around and doing some other things. You were saying we're telling you're doing your baking, you're doing your publications, which we can ask now, what sort of publications are you currently writing on?

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah, so I've got a review article with Antiquity that's coming out in the next couple of months, I think. I only submitted it the other day. I don't know how long it'll take at the moment, but I'm excited about that because the book I'm reviewing is something that's very close to my PhD, and it's great to have been able to have a look at it. I've also got a project that I'm doing with colleagues at Liverpool and Leeds, which is a we call it Luxon, that's our kind of like acronym for it, but um I'm not saying we forced the acronym, but we've really tried. Um it's luminescence and ultraviolet examination of objects network. And basically it's we're developing sort of low-cost accessible techniques using modified cameras so that we can have kind of the multi-spectral imaging that you get, say, with much higher spec sort of systems in a much more accessible way, to the point that perhaps you don't even need Wi-Fi, you don't need kind of that huge setup that's not as portable. So we're currently still experimenting with that. We did a workshop last year funded by the University of Liverpool Midas Fund, which was great because it was kind of the seed fund for this project. So we're now working on publications that resulted from that workshop. So I'm sort of like the resident Egyptologist for that project because my colleagues are archaeological scientists, medievalists. So my my colleague who's a medievalist is really interested in like medieval manuscripts and how we can improve readability with UV and kind of with ultraviolet and kind of infrared. Whereas I'm like, I want to see what I can read on a stealer, and I want to see if we can do kind of pigment analysis. So that kind of stemmed from things I was doing with mummy portraits in particular. Then what else am I doing? I have an edited contribution to an edited publication coming out hopefully in the new year, with the Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt exhibition, which is in collaboration with the Rylands Library in Manchester. The exhibition itself is currently on display in Texas, at the University of Texas, but then it's coming back to the UK to be on display in Manchester, I think, towards the end of next year. So that'll be great. So I just got the proofs back for that.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

So hopefully that'll be happening. So there's so lots of lots of things to do then. So you must be so oh so now after after finishing the postdoc, and now I have these whole activities to to do all in once, and then meeting up deadlines, uh pressured situations, and then you need to figure it out how to can you type manage it and wow, I mean it must be now a different a different different challenges then folks. It looked like you've been on a postdoc, and then you fin you were about to finish it, and then you have most things to

Publications And The Luxon Project

SPEAKER_00 8:44

do.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, it it's it's strange because I feel like the being at Tubingen was almost like a calm period because I was just working on one thing, and I was working on this project, did build ostracker as a three biz, and it was just looking at these ostraca, so I could really focus laser focus in. And now I'm like, oh no, now all the other things that I put to one side while I was doing are coming back to bite me. Like, even the PhD book, I'm like, oh yeah, about that. I should probably start working on that now. So it's it it's kind of it's good to have so much to do, but I'm also like, wow, I said yes to a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, indeed. Looking back, looking back as well as as a PhD, and now post-phd, I'm just uh waiting for the graduation ceremony. Then oh my god, I have so much things to do. Now I'm just dealing with looking for jobs, of course, and doing this podcast as well, uh, and all sorts of things. It seems like everything we're trying to find something to to work on and to to avoid being stopped in time, basically. And I think that's with with PhD and also with postdoc, I think it's just such an incredible thing of where we can grab something to have an idea and then trying to develop it. How can we market it, and how does that fulfill our our own self oneselves, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah, that's it. It's I'm sort of the reason why I ended up where I did, whether it be research, academia, museums, is because I'm a very indecisive person. I don't like to stand still, which is to my detriment, I will admit, because then I end up with these situations where I'm like doing all these different things and going, oh no. Um, but yeah, because I I'm one of those people that like I don't like to just do research. I love to teach at the same time, I love to do museums work at the same time, and I'm going, I'm in so many places at once, but I like it. Yes as chaotic as it can be.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

So another thing as well, Luis, because you're saying that you're doing the publications and then you're doing this these projects alongside with Leeds University. Does that coincide with the upcoming late antique and medieval conference happening actually at Leeds?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Oh, the IMC? Yes. And we were going to present. I have a couple of colleagues who are presenting at the IMC, but on separate projects, but they are the same colleagues. So we're kind of all in our respective fields doing multiple things and making those connections at the same time as also having sort of side hustle of we do multi-spectral imaging. So it's great because we have so many friends who are like, oh, I have I have these objects I really want looking at. Can you do this? And we're like, hey, if you'd let us publish them, we'll you know. So it's great when it comes to comes to those connections because so many medievalists have manuscripts they they can't read because they're just so damaged, or because they're so old. So many archaeologists have objects that have pigment that we can't see with the naked eye, for example. So that's where I'm really interested. Kind of those those pigments that once you put them through the filters and through the technology, suddenly it becomes technical.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yeah, I do, I do believe that that the whole thing, this wholesome, then becomes more of a technical side, and then we are if we are not on the field, then we are not knowledgeable of what's assuming we can may have just like a small percentage, but at the same time not having the necessary tra academic training, then becomes even more hard, I'd say.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

I mean, that's what's so interesting about the project because I am not a a scientist in any shape or form, but I I know a decent amount about kind of pigment analysis just from my research because it sort of coincides. What I see is there's a lot of times there is this disconnect between the technology and the interpretation, and I think there's an opportunity there to go, okay, we have the results, what do you do with them there? Because there's so many great results out there, and I'm sitting here as someone who's more of a historian going, Yeah, I I can help you draw those connections.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Um, so it's really interesting. Oh well, and speaking of the these projects and all of that, looking back to me and you, what we've done uh with the panel, and also when we've met each other at Liverpool with the conference, how how did you how did you find it? Was the the experience, what did you notice so differently, or maybe something that oh it's just another another day at the office, don't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Yeah, I mean track 2025 was so fun. It it was very much uh we we sort of put it together, not necessarily on a whim, but it was very much uh we have this opportunity to do something really fun. And I'm so glad it went so well because the panel I think spoke to both of our research interests. You know, it was called Beyond Binaries, and I think both of us really advocate for that in history and archaeology and Egyptology. Yeah. I mean, the panelists we got were amazing. Some of the the panels were completely different to what I thought we might get, which was so fun because it was it really broadened our horizons, I feel. And it just shows how broad-ranging that sort of theme of cultural interactions can be. It's Rome, Egypt, Greece. It can go even further,

Accessible UV And Infrared Imaging

SPEAKER_01 14:12

particularly when it comes to things like I mean, we had one presenter who who did about Ireland, and I was like, I've never thought about that. It was fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah, I do still remember a few of them. I might have in even some of the notes in there. Kind of like this. Well, first it was the uh the gaming style interaction, and we would go with shit. I'm being I'm being a kid again, and it's like going going around and like interacting with the other guests and climbing up store stories through a virtual building and then going roaming around and to find your own panel. The panel was amazing, was was fine. I shouldn't say this, but there was instances whilst I was hosting and hearing, I was about to fall asleep. Not because the c not because the the themes are so exciting, but standing here for 20 plus minutes, and then I'm about to I'm about to sleep, I'm about to close my eyes, and it's oh my god, I don't want to do this, and then there was this moment when I I f I closed my eyes for a few seconds of of a with a speaker about to finish, and then when the speaker finished, and then I just woke up with oh oh fuck. I would I fell asleep for a bit, and then I said have any questions and all sorts of things that came out. I didn't have any single question to ask, but I'd say the the panel we've done was amazing, what we have what we've built, and also it was great to know some people, but at the same time, I had this kind of feeling that I had I woke up so early, and then all of a sudden this comfortable chair that I'm sitting right now gives me that um gives me that sleeping time moment and so it was a bit embarrassing to me, but at the same time, it was it was a great, it was a great, it was a great panel.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

I think I've definitely had those feelings in-person conferences, especially when it's like on flight. Oh gosh, I had a conference years ago where we had a 3 a.m. flight, and and the and so we got through the day, and and the

Conferences And Research Networks

SPEAKER_01 16:23

it was mainly just like an introductory like drinks reception and keynote, and I was like, should I go to the drinks reception when I do want to see people and say hello? So I was like, Well, I can't go to the drinks reception without going to the keynote, and I remember sitting there going, This is so interesting, but my body was like, You have been awake too long. And I was like, I should have taken a nap in the thing because I was like, I really don't want to be that person who's sitting there completely flagging. Yeah, but I was like, just get me to the drinks reception, I'll find something with sugar in it. I get my second win, but it was because it was a really warm, it was the middle of summer as well. So when it's so warm, you're just sitting there going, lovely, I'm too comfortable. Like round because they've done too good of a job here because I I don't want to move now.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

But but but that was that in in Tubingen or was it somewhere else?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Oh, I think I think it might have been in Switzerland. It was so early, and and I I love international conferences, but I hate I'm not a bowling person. So if I have a flight at 3 a.m. or 6 a.m., I'm like already, I'm like, no, please. Like I will always take the 1 p.m. flight over the the 8 a.m. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

I mean, so it's reasonable to say uh but like a flight at 3am. I never thought about that. I only know about 8 6, 7 a.m. So I had also take took one before back to my home country when I when I was admitted to my masters, and then I flew from Berlin. I stopped in Belgium and I slept there, and then going back to Faro. Yeah, it took me quite a while, so I had to sleep. I slept to sleep over my yeah, the the chairs were uncomfortable, but I need to find something. I need to find some some chairs that didn't have any arms and it was spacious, so but luckily I found something anyway.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, I I had that in Egypt recently when I was I was on site, almost like best experience ever because I'd never been to Egypt, so it was like my first time. My flight had been delayed at Manchester. Um we think Manchester are a bot. We it it's not great, and so it had there was one flight a day, and I was going from Manchester to Cairo and then from Cairo to Luxor, and the Luxor flight was the last flight of the day because it was such a long flight from Cairo uh to Cairo, yeah and they they were like they were very much like okay, we may be delayed by three hours, but you're going to make this flight. And I was sitting there going, there's not a chance in how I'm making this one. I missed this flight by 20 minutes, it was so close. So I ended up stuck in Cairo airport for I think six. Well, I ended up, they gave me a hotel, but I was only in the hotel for two hours because my next flight was at five. So I had to be back at the hotel like three hours later. I don't think I slept for about 36 hours because then I had then I got to like I was going to the site, so there was just not time to nap. Um, and I remember thinking, I I'm not put out for that much sleep depression. Uh because I was very much like, this is me. I didn't want to miss anything because it was my first time. I was like,

Travel Fatigue And Learning To Nap

SPEAKER_01 19:34

I want to see everything, I want to to like finally see this place I was studying for so long. But I remember thinking, I need the sleep, like I was running on fumes.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

So that also happens uh during when you went to Egypt. That also happened when you had to fall asleep in the midst of an event.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

No, luckily, that was I was going to the dig site in Athrebis. So luckily that wasn't an event, but I remember thinking like the just the lack of sleep that I was having. I was thinking, I don't know how I'm gonna get up at six in the morning the next day to start start work. Somehow I managed it. I mean, luckily, when I arrived, the day off was basically two days after I'd arrived. So I basically just slept all day on our day off and did not move. Um, so I managed to catch up, but I remember the first two days were difficult. I was just, yeah. Luckily, because I had that sort of adrenaline of oh my gosh, I'm here, I'm actually doing this. But if it hadn't been for that, I was like, I don't know how I managed to.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Oh my gosh. I mean, I mean, all to sum up is just part of both the PhD and obviously the postdoc experiences. This is all the best thing we we can have as as uh students.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah, and just advise any student, have a sleep schedule, yeah. Have a sleep plan, learn to napp.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, I think I think we should have like any any training for that, napping napping in PhD in postdoc as long as as long there is funding for that, of course. So so changing for nappings, and you've obviously uh most unlikely you had loads and loads of napping sessions during your PhD. But I wanted to know first and foremost uh why having this interest in Egyptology and that led you to go for both your PhD and your postdoc. And tell me a bit about what what differences did you find on both degrees?

SPEAKER_01 21:49

I mean, uh Egyptology was a weird one because it it it very much happened the way that many Egyptologists I uh it turns out have got into Egyptology, in which it all started with a big gold book. Um in fact it's currently propping up my laptop right now. So when I was like six or seven, I went to like a school fate or something, and there was like a stall with loads of books, and I was a big reader, and there was this huge gold book, which was literally just called Egyptology. And I never really looked at Egyptian history or anything like that. I wasn't like into it particularly, but I was just fascinated by this big shiny book. And I I did enjoy Greek myth because I loved the Clash of the Titans film, the Harry House, and that that was my favourite film. I was obsessed with that film, and so I think somewhere in my brain, Egyptology, I recognized it as sort of akin to Greek myth and ancient history, and I ended up buying this book for like two pounds. And it's it's an amazing book, and I and I will say, if you ask any Egyptology cohort, chances are at least half of them will have owned this book because it's still in museum shops today. So I I feel like someone needs to write to the author and say, Do you know you've birthed a generation of Egyptologists? Because it's literally just this story of an archaeologist, I think, Amelia Sands, I think her name is, trying to find the lost tomb of the Zyrus. And it, but it's it's a very interactive book. It's got like a mini Senate board, it's got like stickers and things, so it's a very tactile book, and it's but it is actually very informative. It's got kind of the layers of Tutankhamens coffins and how to write Egyptian hieroglyphs, for example. So it's it's that sort of started the obsession. And then, like many, many people who love ancient history. I read the Percy Jackson books. Yeah, I ended up. We had like a at my school, we had initiative where if you were PS7 when you were 11, they give you a free book when you started school. So I just picked that because I was like, oh Greek myth. Read it, got obsessed, then he brought out an ancient Egypt series, the Cain Chronicles, that kind of circled me back to ancient Egypt again. And I kind of didn't really engage much with Egyptology at all because I didn't know it was a field. I didn't know you could do it as a job beyond fiction, really. You know, I was obsessed with the art, I did like my art GCSE based around Egyptian art, and I ended up at Liverpool simply because I I realized they did Egyptology. I'd applied actually to do ancient history, I think, classical studies. And I went to an open day and I was like, hang on a minute, they have a talk on Egyptology. I can do Egyptology. This is real, like I can go to classes about this thing I'm obsessed with, and like the sheer joy of it, and I mean the great thing about Liverpool was that there was flexibility. I mentioned I'm a very indecisive person, and I didn't want to commit one way or another to classics

Childhood Books Spark Egyptology

SPEAKER_01 24:53

or Egyptology. So, and I actually met on my first open day there a lecturer who ended up being the person who examined my PhD, who basically said to me, Well, why don't you do both? You can do 50-50 and have the best of both worlds. And I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna do that. Um, and that sort of started the obsession because again, I thought Egyptology would just be this nice little thing on the side, I would do some hieroglyphs because that's fun. But I thought classical studies and ancient history was the way I was going to go, and it ended up being the complete opposite. I got in there and I became obsessed with ancient Egypt and with this idea of being able to study these people, and that sort of fueled it. I did my MA because I felt that I wasn't done. I really enjoyed the dissertation part of my degree. And the reason why I particularly enjoyed my degree was that sort of way I could do two sides to it. You know, I was really interested in Greco Roman Egypt, and I could use both halves of my degree to write this dissertation. But with that dissertation, I was really looking into something you're very familiar with, third space. And kind of cultural interactions. And I felt like the research I'd done was just a tiny snapshot of what could be done. And that's sort of why I ended up doing the MA. And my initial plan was to not go any further than that. I put an application for the PhD, but I had no intention of doing it because I hadn't got funding. I had applied for funding, but I hadn't got research council funding. And this was in the middle of COVID as well. So I was like, I was very much like, I've done the MA, I'm happy. Now I'm gonna go get a proper job. And that's sort of where it started going both wrong and right, depending on your perspective, because I ended up being offered a job with the National Archives. But that was in what when was it? Was it June 2020? And and there was sort of this the time, particularly with COVID, there was this sense that eventually things were gonna change, eventually we were gonna not be locked down. And then that didn't happen, it just kept going and kept going. So the job got rescinded because it was a job that had a lot of travel, it it was just not going to happen. And they were kind of like, there's not no point in us dragging you along like this when you could be out there applying for other jobs which would suit you better. Yeah, but the day after that happened, I got an email saying I have full funding for my PhD. Oh wow. Which was now that I look at it, I'm like, that's insane. Like one door closes, another one opens, quite literally. And so I kind of was like, Well, why not? I've nothing to lose, I'm not leaving the house.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

So I'm like for being unsure to be to not expecting that you would get into the PhD without any funding, and then on on a shift of wins, then the funding just came up after and after looking for jobs, basically, and you having having something that it was already almost ready, so to speak, and then you had this this change, and then okay, yeah, and and yeah, and I'm kind of I'm not a superstitious person, but I am a believer in if it's meant to be, it will happen.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

So I'm not one of those people like I wasn't massively upset about the fact that the job had fallen through because I was like, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. But then for you know, less than 24 hours later to then get this email going, hey, do you want three years of funding? And I'm going, Well, maybe it's meant to be. Yeah, exactly. And I was kind of because I was still doing the MA at that point because it was it was June 2020 and my MA finished. So I spent I loved lockdown in some in the summer of 2020 because I just wrote the dissertation and didn't leave the house. It was great. But I was coming to an end of the MA kind of in, I think it was end of September, and the offer for the PhD was was the end of September, it was like the beginning of October. And I was thinking, well, I could go straight into this PhD, you know, with what 10 days between the MA and the PhD. And I think somewhere in the back of my mind, I was like, that's that's not gonna be healthy for you. Have a brain. So I I deferred it to the January just because I thought I want to know what it's like to not be in education for five minutes. Um, I feel like I needed time to to do other things, even if it was just like write publications that might not never get published or you know, do hobbies because hobbies were not a thing at that point. Um, and that's sort of when the baking started, because I was like, oh my gosh, I have time to do things and to

Funding During COVID And Taking A Break

SPEAKER_01 29:37

be normal. And I I ended up working for a museum in Preston as a social media manager for a bit, and it was nice to just have like a normal job, like to just have that moment of this is what it's like. It's not constant, like having just set hours to work was great, you know, because you know how it is, you you work, you're thinking 24-7, yeah. And then going into something that was a bit more normal, even if it was sort of academia or adjacent. It was great to just be like, Oh, I'm only thinking about one thing between these hours, and that's it. So that was very novel, and then I jumped straight back into a PhD.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

So we're going back with the differences between we're going to later for the differences between your postdoc and your PhD. Uh, but I want to ask this one. What what was the first thing you've done in your first year of your PhD when you got the funding?

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Oh, I bought a new phone. That's what I did. I got my first payment and I bought a new phone because my my old phone was on its last legs, and I was like, it would be so nice to have something because I didn't have a smartphone. Well, it was a smartphone, but it was a very like poor smartphone, and I was like, I'm going to buy an actual phone that works. And it wasn't like a top of the range or anything, it was just a good smartphone, and I was like, wow. Because I because I also really wanted a good camera, but I didn't want to have to buy like a DLR because I was like, that's that's actually, but I wanted something because I knew I'd be taking a lot of photos. So because at the time I was a social media manager as well, I was like, I'm gonna have to start using it properly. So I did once I got the funding, I got a new phone. Because that was like the first thing I was like, this is probably something I should spend my money on. And then as soon as I actually got like started with the PhD, it's it was so weird because it was still in COVID. So I went, I sort of just sat down at my desk and was like, okay, this is day one, what do I do? Because no one tells you, no one says this is what you do, not even your supervisors, because they're just that sort of buys. Yeah, like I had an idea and I had a proposal, which it completely went to the side, the PhD, nothing to do with proposal now, but that's kind of the fun of a PhD, I think. I think if the PhD you write is the one you propose, but like you've learned as much. I I feel like you have to have that chance to kind of grow and change. But yeah, I remember sitting down and going, okay, let's start reading, figure this out. And I sort of used my MA as my sort of jumping off point and went, okay, what did I want to do in that MA that I never got the space or the time to do? What did I want to read that I never had the time to do? And sort of started from that. But yeah, it was certainly weird because for the first 10 months I didn't have like a desk space on campus. I didn't have I couldn't go to campus because we were in COVID. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Wow. So that I if I had funding, I would certainly buy something fancy. Um I didn't have. It is something. I I didn't know nothing about funding and I couldn't find anything. I only knew about funding through annual research trips to go to Oxford. The Swansea University um sponsored that.

Starting A PhD With No Handbook

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Literally, I just that's the only thing I've known so far. But yeah, but it's good to think that's like using your fund, using a bit of your funding just to invest on something that was going to be personal, and then just moving on with the with other things related to the research. Did you also use it for any trips that you went when went abroad? You were talking about Switzerland. So did you use the funding for for that trip?

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Yeah, so I was really lucky in that I had both the funding, kind of the the tuition. Well, I say tuition, I always think it's a strange word for PhD because you you're the one doing the tutoring half the time. Um the the fees and the and the stipend. And then a bit like you said about Swansea, Liverpool also offers a what do they call one? Like a travel expenses. So they would cover a certain amount of say flights or hotel for either conference or a research trip. So where did I go in my first year? I didn't really go many places in the first year because of COVID. Yeah. Um, but then in kind of the second and third year, I started kind of getting born on the conference circuit. So I went to to Basel in Switzerland for CRE and research in Egyptology. That was kind of my first international conference. That was brilliant. Because it was my first international presentation as well. So it was very nerve-wracking, but it was really fun. And then I've done Rome, the European Association of Archaeologists. That was so warm. It was like 40 degrees, it was the middle of August in Rome. It was so hot. But that was amazing because I because I had the funding, I was able to extend it beyond just the kind of the four days of the conference. So I I arrived a bit earlier and managed to get to see like the Coliseum and the Pantheon, which was great because I've never been to Italy, let alone to Rome. Where else have we been? Um, obviously now I've been to Germany a lot because that's where my book's based. Yeah, and then things like research trips to London quite a lot, particularly to the British Museum, because a lot of the portraits that I look at are based there, also to the Petrie Museum, where they've sort of got the largest collection of them. So I was really lucky that a lot of that was covered, travel expenses-wise.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Oh wow. So a lot excuse me, uh lots of things to do then with the funding, which is which is great. And then did you get did you apply for more funding when you started your postdoc?

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Um, no, so I was kind of lucky in that um I ended up being offered the research assistant post prior to the end of my PhD. So I sort of knew that that was coming. And then once I started the role, then I started applying for things like Lever Hume, mainly just like research and teaching posts a lot of the time, because the time I felt like all of my effort and all of my brain power was going on this one role of this these publications. So I wanted to spend time doing that before I started looking at my other ideas, you know, my my sort of research projects. So I'm still sort of they're not on the back burner now, I'm finally kind of getting back around to them. So it's nice to be like I have time for ideas again. That's what it feels like.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

I see. So and and the postdoc is around this the the same subject as you said previously, no one is junior PhD. So in this case, what what differences did you find between PhD and postdoc?

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Well, so the the research system post was actually on it it's kind of interesting because it's sort of similar but different. So my my PhD was on mommy portraits, thinking about how hybrid art and syncretic art is conceptualized, but also how we can figure out who these people were, because a lot of the time they have no context because of various colonial

Travel Funding And Conference Firsts

SPEAKER_01 37:53

archaeologists, and also what that tells us about how we interpret them now. So their treatment in museums, their treatment in kind of art galleries, and whether they should be in one or the other, or both, and sort of really advocating for a holistic approach that kind of combines classics Egyptology archaeology, because a lot of the times when people look at those objects, they think of them as one or the other, and actually they're all of those things at once, you can't really separate them out into different parts and different labels. But when it comes to my postdoctoral work, the the project at the University of Tubingen is called the Athrebus Project. It's it's this middle Egyptian site called Athibus or Atreep, and it's essentially the temple of the goddess Repi, who was this kind of lioness goddess who was married to Min, who was the god of the city of Achmin. And then they had son uh Kalanses. So this temple was excavated over the past, I think, 12 to 15 years. They've been working on it for a really long time. Really, the temple itself is beautiful, it's fully excavated now. But what they've been finding is so many ostrachar. I think this year it's

Athrebus Postdoc And 43,000 Ostraca

SPEAKER_01 43:29

43,000 that they hit. I remember seeing the press release for it and going, wow, that's a lot. It's it's so many. And most of them, ostrachar are tiny little, well, not always tiny, shards of pottery that are inscribed. The majority of them are inscribed with demotic or Greek. There's also a few Coptic. I think there's a couple of Arabic ones as well, and they really they date from between the Ptolemaic period well up into through through the Roman times, through Coptic, and even into kind of the medieval era, because this temple was reused. So it was, we think it was built during the Ptolemaic times, and then it was still used into Roman times. We have artwork of Nero and Hadrian, but then we also have evidence of its reuse, so it was reused as a monastery for female monks, which links to the nearby red and white monasteries with the Apa Shinute. But then we also get its reuse again, kind of more during medieval times, where it's it's used for like stabling animals, and it's used essentially just as a place to put things, so it's had a very interesting life because it started out as this very, you know, pagan religious site, and then it's reused in a Christian context and then eventually abandoned. But there's also another temple, the Pylon temple, which is still being excavated, and then possibly an even further temple, because all of this is essentially built in the shadow of a mountain, and it seems like there may have been some structure built into the mountain as well. And so all of this is sort of underscored by these ostraca, which just keep turning up. I mean, there's thousands upon thousands, and the project that I worked on was really looking at imagery, so figure a figure ostraca. The ones that I was looking at particular were representations of humans, so I think it's a stretch to call it portraiture, but it's you, you know, drawings of faces and what we can tell about them because part of the problem is that all of these ostraca mainly come from rubbish dumps. So the Sebakin, who were kind of much later, so we're talking like I think 18th, 19th century, um, they were essentially going to the site and taking um unfired mud brick because it was a great fertilizer for the soil. So they likely were finding all of these objects and finding all of these ostrica, and they essentially discarded them. So then we just keep finding these caches of Ostraca, what they have essentially discarded them into the site. So it's really interesting, and I'm looking at what we can tell about artistic precedence when it comes to the people who are drawn there, because a lot of some of them are actually like copied from the temple walls, so they might link the scribal school because we know that scribes were educated there from the text that we have, so yeah, it's it's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

And speaking of because it was monastery, then there was loads of copies, handwritten copies, and then we don't know whether that is quite actually accurate or not, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Yeah, that's that's so much.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

But it is fascinating, which thought which because you've you you told me you explore particularly Roman Egyptian portraiture, but it's so fascinating at the same time. The multitude of cultures that has been interacting throughout the centuries, talking from Ptolemaics, uh let's say the Coptic language, even the Nubian, the Nubian kingdom that was nearby nearby the nearby the the nearby the Ptolemies and then the Roman intervention and this this multitude of cultures evidenced by the inscriptions that were left there, including the rest of the material culture, uh uh the character material culture uh objects, and so I believe it is it is fascinating that specific uh geographical area. I would say also with with my research about the Near East and using the same terminologies as we as you use as well, but I do wonder as well how fascinating is Roman Egyptian portraiture. We know both of us know already that those portraits are rather uh idealized, but for the general audience who's trying to understand a bit of the context, could you give to us what is so fascinating about them?

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Yeah, I mean I think their sheer uniqueness is is what really draws people to them initially because they are very enigmatic, and I think we recognize something of ourselves in them because they're so naturalistic. Because if you compare kind of Roman Egyptian mummy portraits to what came before, we have these 3,000 plus years of Egyptian art. But particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, the fascination with mummy portraits comes in because the Western world recognises it as art that's similar to their own, uh, for better or for worse, that is, because the techniques that are used are so naturalistic. And that doesn't make them any more or less beautiful than what came before, but the fact that you can look someone in the eye and recognize them and kind of have that connection with them, I think is is really poignant in comparison because they're they're almost photographic. Every time I do a talk about them, people say, like, oh well, that person looks like someone I know. That or like they genuinely I've had people come up to me and say, Oh, well, that guy looks like Mo Salah from from okay, like because of the hairstyle and the fact the the way that people look. And I'm like, you it's much easier for particularly people in the West to look at art that looks similar to what we know. And I think there's that recognition there, particularly because the techniques that are used were then used by Renaissance artists, so we have that recognition of, oh well, this looks like something Da Vinci did or Michelangelo did. I mean, when they were originally discovered, they kind of the consensus was that they were kind of this missing link in the history of portraiture. I'm not entirely convinced by that, but there is that recognition there. But what I find so interesting is that those cultural interactions, because there are only, you know, about a thousand of these portraits in the world, and they only come from this one sort of specific region. I mean, we have some from slightly outside, but generally they're very specific to this region, and they only really appear for about 300 years of history. So it's like, what is going on in this region that's so culturally significant, whether it be the artistic techniques, the materials available, there's this like perfect storm that's happening in the Fayoum that creates this environment that these people are able to do this. And you know, I have my own theories about why they did it, but there's clearly that element of personal choice. People are choosing to be depicted in this way, despite the fact that you could have a plethora of different sort of commemoration methods. So it's it's a very poignant way of being remembered, I think, particularly because there's that sort of link to immortality and the idea that you don't die a second death if you are remembered forever.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

I mean, it kind of it makes a good point, Luis, because if you see like the the the way how they wanted to portray themselves and say this sense of immortality through uh pictorial depiction, right? This also comes to the influence of showing uh state social status with Roman elite, Ptolemaic elite, right? But at the same time, uh this multitude of cult fruit that come from cultural interactions, if you gotta see the context, there

Why Fayoum Portraits Captivate Us

SPEAKER_00 51:26

was a huge market hub, right? In uh in cities like Alexandria or even in Palmyra, and they also most people many people of the ancient world at the time they would concentrate, they would focus and encounter not say trying to find the word, they would encounter into those marketplaces, and there was this sort of uh diversity that existed in those marketplaces, and people from uh Jewish culture, from uh Egyptian culture, from Greek culture, they would they would mingle themselves, they would interact, mingle their own cultures, they would receive this different types of cultural characteristics and then implement into their own context with their own knowledge with their own technique. And I think that I think that was also that's also brings the fact that these depictions on Roman portraiture which we are used we are rather used to see on the tele or on online in this case the the portraits of Tuton Camon or the of or even the famous bust of Nefertiti, which uh for me I'm I was lucky lucky to see the original one in in Berlin while I lived there. And if you guys have the opportunity, there's the museum night in August. It's really good, by the way. No, no advertising. Tisman intended. And so those those I think that's also what makes it fa fascinating. And the context, as you said, also does really matter.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Yeah, and I think that's what's so interesting because, like you said, cities like Alexandria have this sort of the metropolitan situation going on, but the Fayoum is Fayum is it's an oasis. It to an extent it's a man-made oasis, you know, because there's canals that were dug from the Nile to Lake Karun, which created this fertile land, which only really happened during the Ptolemaic period. So it's it's and that was done so that Greco-Macedonian mercenaries could settle in that land. So it's almost a man-made melting pot, you know. These mercenaries and these people were settled there because they they were gifted this land, and you get that natural integration between peoples and between cultures, and that I think is what is perhaps portrayed quite nicely in these portraits, because you're getting a sense of just how selective people can be with how they want to be portrayed. You know, they're mummified at the end of the day, they have these Egyptian beliefs, but when you look at the portraits in isolation, you recognise those classical elements, and I think perhaps that's what's been a problem in particular 200 years, because a lot of the time people have just looked at the portraits in isolation when actually the entire mummy is something that should be looked at and celebrated, particularly because of that separation.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Yeah, I think that that's also a valid point, and just like how the process cut uh the process and of mummification and how it's the portrait representation of of it and then how it's depicted afterwards because what we see is what comes afterwards, isn't it? So uh and because of because of that, talking about context, how we perceive that, how the public eye perceives it, I do wonder, and I I watched this on social media, and I watched the whole the whole video on YouTube a long time ago when you I think it was weeks after you've released it on your Instagram and YouTube about you being telling in your postdoc project telling about lives and literature literacy in ancient Egypt. How is it to how was it to present? What was it like to be on the on set and tell to a broader audience who isn't knowledgeable about Roman portraiture in Egypt? How was it like?

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Yeah, it was really fun. So this is the Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt exhibition that I mentioned before that's in Texas at the moment. But it's really an initiative that started with Jeremy Penner at the University of Manchester, the Rhyland Library, because the Rhyland has this fascinating patrological collection. So it was really just great to be able to get those papari out and they're now on display. But the fun thing about the Lions and Literary Exhibition is that they include portraiture as well from Manchester Museum, which I'm very well acquainted with. I did a research visit there during my PhD, so I really got hands on with these portraits. So it was great to be able to sort of make use of that research. The actual process itself was really interesting because it started out as just the publication, just the book, which should be coming in the next sort of hopefully in the new year. But then there was this desire to have a bit more visual engagement, particularly because the portraits are so beautiful and because the papyri are, yeah, we have them, which is great. It's it's better than just showing photos of them. So it was really fun to sort of have that experience of firstly being with everyone on the day. We had a filming day in Islands, I think it was February. It was January or February, and January, beginning of February. And I have never done any kind of TV work, any kind of filming. I was terrified. I was like, you know, so badly, I will just stumble over my words, it won't happen. But what I have done is quite a bit of kind of public lecturing and guest lectures. So I I feel like I've got a good grasp of being able to condense my research down for a broader audience, particularly because I do so much museum work. You've got to be really good at adapting when it comes to museum tours because you will get questions from people that are. I mean, have you even worked in a museum with Egyptian artifacts and you don't get the aliens question? Um that's always always the case.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Always even even with children, even with children, I gotta I gotta say that too. Because even popular go on and I'll explain. I'll explain a bit later.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Yeah, it's it's so you've got to be really adaptable with that. When it comes to V, it's it's you it's kind of a balancing act. You want to firstly be able to condense five years was worth of research into five minutes, which is difficult. But then you also want to have that balancing act of being authoritative and being informative, but not overwhelming the viewer, because you know that many people who'll be viewing it in the exhibition won't have that prior knowledge. So you don't want to start using terms they don't know, but you also don't want to not be technical because you don't want to come across as too informal. So that balance is really difficult. But the filming itself was brilliant. The company that did it was called Eastern Block. The guys were amazing. They gave me the best backdrop, like I had the backdrop of Ryland's library, and the setup was great, and they were just like, Yep, we're just gonna sit you here, you just talk, and we'll work for it. Looking at the teleprompter and the no no teleprompter, no teleprompter, no, which was slightly terrifying because I had like notes, but it's one of those things that as soon as you sit down, everything evaporates and you just talk and hope that it makes sense. Luckily, I kind of I think public lecturing probably gave me this

Filming Museum Research For The Public

SPEAKER_01 58:58

sort of skill of like I can just rattle it out, I feel it was kind of a blur. I was just like, okay, go. And then they were like, Yeah, that's great. I was like, Oh, I I made sense, and they were like, Yeah, we'll we'll do another take just in case, but like, don't worry. I was like, Oh, amazing. Because yeah, it very much it I felt like I built it up quite a lot in my manner than I did it. I was like, Oh, this is actually really enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Yeah, they would then they will be able to edit. So, how many attempts did you did you have? Oh, only two, only two attempts. That's that that's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

I know, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna need at least like because they allocated like half an hour, 45 minutes per person. I was like, I'm all of this time, like it's gonna be touching go, and because I was one of the only people who didn't have the objects with me, because I because of course the the portraits are in Manchester Museum, and we were at the Royal's library, so I was having to remember what these portraits look like and go, okay, well, she wears a emerald necklace, or at least what we think is an emerald necklace. And I was kind of once I hit the key points, I was like, I know I know my descriptors, and then really get into the context. But yeah, it was really fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

Oh, nice. I think even on even on that on that time time frame, you get so pressured, and it's okay, I need to nail this, so you're nearly done, you need it at a second try, and so that that is really impressive. But I mean, think being on the set and then just sharing what you know, sharing your knowledge is so amazing, but at the same time, as you said, you said it right, you have to have that balance, and maybe adding a bit of recreational skills, representational skills, sorry, to to disseminate your knowledge appropriately to a certain audience, and the the skill know your audience, you'll develop that during your PhD. And even if you had public speaking, public skip public speaking events before during your undergraduate, during your masters, I mean in events in the sense of oh, you have to do an oral presentation to the whole class, and you talk about this specific portrait of Agrippina in or in the in Roman Egypt, and then you have to present that. And I think that's that's a great skill that you'll develop as arts and humanities students, but at the same time, as well, using those representational skills to talk about this certain that certain uh aspect towards children, uh teenagers, adults. It's it's so fascinating. I was saying, I wanted to to to also to give that because you spoke about aliens, and I had that as well. But I had this one, it was so funny because I thought it was for primary school children, and this was during my time as a volunteer guide tour at uh at a Roman site in Portugal, and we had to look at the the tapestry, the mosaic tapestry of a hallway of the Dominous. And then one I asked them, so what shapes do you see here? Like rectangle, rhombuses, triangle, etc. And then one of them just out of the blue said, Oh, I see a Renault here. I mean, as in the Renault, the symbol car, the car, the symbol, right? And I I I burst out in la I didn't want to break character, but I just had a bit of a laugh, and it's just pointing out Renault. And interestingly, they the kid the children saw a fiat behind them, and then okay, this oh, there's the room, there's a roman car too. Amazing. It's so funny that it that that was a long time ago. It's I mean, it's now you spoke about that, just remember that looking back, yeah. F fun fun memories, and um, but as you said, is that type of skill, know your audience is so important when speaking about history, ancient history in particular, when there's a lot of uh conspiracy theories around, aliens, uh false narratives, fake news, uh, misinformation. Is that a that they there's this amplification where the brain just of that of untrained people in ancient history absorbs?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

I mean, it's interesting as well how you say untrained, because I found particularly with my research on the portraits, that also does in the history of the portraits, at least, there's also this history of people co-opting them for their own purposes. So particularly in it's a little bit dark, but in the 1930s and 40s, the portraits were used to perpetuate extreme anti-Semitism because essentially you had so-called culture historians, kind of people who were working for German politicians at the time, who were essentially trying to prove certain things about race and certain things about ethnicity, and essentially just justify their extreme views using archaeology, but misusing archaeology. And I think that's something that resonates still because there is in certain fields, particularly when you say about conspiracy theories and everything, people are still misusing aspects of history and aspects of historical artifacts, often for their own views, or even if it's just to get clicks and likes, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:42

Yeah, mostly attention. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you that's true. And this is also comes with you've probably heard of Flet Double, because he is teaching at Cardiff. And then he was being on Joe Rogan podcast like two years ago, and he was talking about that, and because we're we're speaking about the context and all that, he gave that context of the marketplace to a Greek Kylix, I think. It was a Kylix, or is it like another plate, a plate? I'm not can't remember. But yeah, it's just again, just telling about that and bring awareness and also the reason how this inheritance of alienship or conspiracy theories gets into pop culture and saying something a thousand times and then it becomes true. Yeah. So but I think even though you can rebut that, but it's so difficult.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

And I think that's why things like public research and public history and open access are so important because a lot of the time in academia we are a little bit like an ivory tower at times, and I think the more open access research we can put out is we're giving people the resources and the information to make their own decisions about history and to make their own inferences. So I'm I'm a big believer in public history being a tool of public information.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:01

Yeah, I agree with you. Even for those who are history enthusiasts and they don't need to have a but they have a degree, a great degree of knowledge to research thoroughly. But the issue is even with public access, not many people will have that access or uh have a limited knowledge of getting to that, or just people they don't know or they don't want to go to to seek out to those those knowledge and just stick up in their minds what they actually see and what they hear from those what we call attention seekers. Yeah, right. So uh then what happened afterwards when he did the the setting? Just completely okay. You did that and it was all stop, you can have a drink.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

Yeah, exactly. I went to lunch. Um I I did actually stay for the day because my I was like the second person of the day. So I I had colleagues who were also kind of doing filming, so I stayed for the day just to see them for one, because I haven't seen them in a while, because we've all been flitting about across

Misused Archaeology And Misinformation

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

the world. So it was great to be like, oh my god, it's nice to see you. Um but also just to see their research as well, because it it's great reading their research and you know, chatting over coffee and things, but being able to support your colleagues and support your friends and go, that's my friend, they do really cool stuff. Yeah, that's always amazing. So yeah, it was great to catch up, and then yeah, we got the edits back a while back and kind of the behind-the-scenes photos, and then yeah, it was published and it's out there and it's at the exhibition now, which is scary. I mean, in a year it'll be at the Rylands, so it's it'll be great to see it all together.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:45

Did you see the whole documentary by yourself afterwards?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:49

Yeah, so um it which was great because some people I obviously were my colleagues, but some I I hadn't met before or I hadn't interacted with their research before. So it was great to see just how different sides of research and different sides of the study of the artifacts were, particularly the conservation side as well, because the the conservation lab at the Rylands is so sort of important. So seeing that side was really interesting as well.

unknown 1:08:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

So I guess so. At the end of the day, it was a great project. And I mean, if any art out there listening to, I will put the the link on the show notes, and then you can have access to it. I believe you also have on the link on your uh Instagram profile, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:30

Yeah, I think it should still be there.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

Yeah, I'll do I'll do definitely put then. So you were mentioning about baking, and you see baking. Have you heard of the bake your feces competition before?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

So I when you mentioned it to me, I looked it up and I was like, I've never seen this before, and I wish I'd have known. I didn't know, I never looked at it, I've never heard of it in relation to to my institution, and I was like, damn, I wish I'd have known that. That could have been so cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:59

Wow, no, but we had this in Swansea University once. Uh no. The first time I heard of it was three years ago when I was at the 3MT final, of of obviously of at the campus at Singleton campus, and so they had this bake your thesis competition. And yeah, and there is like kind of PhDs doing baking their thesis with their own research. And so I I wonder if you if you had the chance to to go to to participate in one of those competitions, what cake would you would you make and the theme? Obviously, Roman portraits, but how how would you do it?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:42

Oh, I mean, so I will say I I technically well I didn't bake it, but I did have my thesis made into a cake for my graduation party. So I had like the actual like the you know, you can print your own cake. So I had that as like the white cake with the front cover of my thesis printed on it, which was very cathartic being able to stick a knife into the thesis after like five years of boring. Um so I highly recommend doing that. It's really fun. But I think I think I'd probably try and paint a portrait on a cake because I I feel like I I'm no you know professional artist, but I I I can paint. So I feel like I'd I'd probably do. I mean, my favorite cakes are Victoria Sponge. I'm really boring, I'm not a chocolate cake kind of person. So I'd just go with like a really nice Victoria sponge, like fresh cream, strawberries, and then I'd do maybe like do a big square cake with well, rectangular cake, and maybe try and paint a portrait on it because I feel like I know the techniques pretty well, so I'm sure I could get some like cocoa butter and colour it to be the pigments.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:45

Yeah, I feel like it could be done. No, you I mean if you knew about this, it was really it would be really cool. Uh to maybe you just could propose Liverpool University to do something because I'm sure I'm sure you they would do the three the three-minute thesis. Yeah, they just yeah, they do that, but they don't do any bake your thesis, that's so weird.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:06

I'll have to I'll have to get on with some more.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:08

Maybe you just have to propose and then okay, let me just swerve a bit and let me be in my PhD student again, and just for that day, and then put your uh Roman Roman Egypt portrait of them cake. Yeah, oh no, I think uh the best out of it, as you say, the having these experiences uh and these side activities that also fulfill your doctoral experience, your postdoctoral experience. Uh what sorts of other things would you like would you like to try now that you've uh finished your postdoc and your PhD in order to keep yourself active aside from the academic demands and aside from your baking, what what what what sorts of things would you would you dare to try?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

Honestly, I I'm so glad that I get to go back to reading again. It sounds really boring, but uh after kind of I mean you know how it is, you spend four or five years reading

Baking Reading And Staying Human

SPEAKER_01 1:12:20

academic text for for a living, essentially, and then you're like, finally, I can free up the brain space, I can free up my attention to just lose myself in worlds and lose myself in different books. So that's something I've definitely been wanting to get back into finally, because I have the book collection, I have the TBR list, finally, I'm starting to work my way through it. But also, I I really enjoy my museum's work. That's something that I no matter what I end up doing, I see myself staying in museums, hopefully, even though sometimes it seems like a more chaotic field than academia. Um but I think that's that's certainly kind of where my passion lies. My passion is for material culture and also for like just teaching people about it, whether it be actually you know teaching classes or leading sessions, giving tours. It's something that I definitely see myself continuing with.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

So, students and graduates, uh, we're back after this short break. So, Louise, we were talking about these your reading habits.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:28

Yes, oh gosh, so much to read. I'm a huge Terry Pratchett fan. I'm working my way through the Discord series. Also, huge Agas Christie fan. Love love a crime novel. Yeah, try it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:41

Will you share your uh your reviews and uh and your analysis on Substack? Because now now they now at the recently, I think it's recently or fairly recent that scholars, non-academics, maybe I think it's mostly scholars that uh they are shifting from Twitter to Substack to share their own research and maybe getting monetized.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:05

Maybe I I have sort of been toying with the idea for a while. I think because I've been like wearing so many hats and doing so much so much different stuff, but now that I have time, I might start actually getting back to to sharing the research because it it's it is just sitting there at the moment, and you know, I I need to start editing and get it back into shape and into a format that I want it to. So yeah, it's something I'm I'm playing with at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:31

How do you find it?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:33

I've I haven't it's it's kind of strange because I a lot of my research does sort of engage with that public engagement aspect and kind of museums and things. So it's it's a world I'm very familiar with, but it's a bit like the TV TV work and the documentary. It's it's that balancing act of. making something interesting but informative but also not spending all your time kind of throwing facts at people.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:59

Yeah. So maybe just just something that is more informative and then can call up people to to open discussions.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:09

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:11

Yeah. Well I think Louise it's been a great talk about talking about your PhD, your postdoc, experiences in between, your baking skills and uh reminiscing what we have what we have done since we since we've met at at the com at a liverpool conference and doing the TR the TRAC I do want to know what would like to ask you as well then can share with anyone who's listening to to to our talk any advice that you have to those who want to do a PhD and to those who are thinking in are thinking going thinking of going for a postdoc I think my advice might be unpopular so I preface it with that but I think if you're considering doing a PhD you really need to think about why and whether that is do you just want a PhD for the sake of the PhD and that is fine as long as you have a plan.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:14

That like don't ever I I feel like people who say you you're only doing a PhD for the doctor title it's fine to do that as long as you know that you're going into that doing it and you have a plan and you have like the backing I think particularly when it comes to funding I I always I I think it's great when people self-fund but I think always have a plan to get funding first. Particularly if you're going straight from MA to PhD. I think something I learned was it's great to take a year or two out to have a normal job and just be normal and and not just stick in education the whole time because I wish I'd have taken a bit longer to do that. But also don't just do it because it seems like a natural progression. Something I've seen is a lot of MA programs in particular have this set way of teaching people where they expect you to go into a PhD. And I don't think anyone should ever feel like they should go blindly into it because even though it is a natural progression for a lot of people I think institutions in particular are rather opaque about the PhD process and also what comes after. And if you want to do a PhD just for the sake of it or just because you feel you have research too, absolutely that's great. But something I found particularly with new PhDs recently with people who used to be my students is there's very little information about what comes afterwards. People a lot of the time will get into a PhD thinking oh I can get an academic job. Gonna be honest the academic job market is shit. It's horrendous it's so bad. And I feel like sometimes we need to shout from the rooftops how bad it is you know because it's okay to want to be an academic but you have to go into it with your eyes open particularly when it comes to things like postdocs. And at PhD level I think the best thing to have is stability whether that's financial stability, emotional stability, get a therapist you'll need it you know like have your ducks in a row. It's okay to not have a plan of what your PhD is going to be but as long as you understand that you need that stability in a good environment around you I think that's really important. And that includes supervisors like talk to people who are your supervisors' current students who have been your supervisor students because that gives you an idea of what the experience is like. And yeah just don't assume that you're going to go into academia because that's what everyone else seems to do. Something I was talking about with a colleague is that there's survivorship bias. The people who are currently in academia are the people who survived the chaos of the job market but there's not many of them and it's okay to not go into that field. But if you do want to go into that field resilience is key. You know

Advice For PhDs And Postdocs

SPEAKER_01 1:18:56

you you've got to be able to take rejection after rejection after rejection because it's rough and it's never personal. It's never anything to do with you as a scholar or you as a as a researcher it's always to do with the fact that there are not enough jobs and there are too many people many of the people who are applying for those jobs tenured academics who are people who are far ahead in their career than you are. So it can be very difficult. But also if you can hack that resistance that resilience and be and not take it personally I think it is possible. It's just there's a lot of patience involved and don't put all your eggs in one basket and definitely build those connections and build those academic networks definitely but have a backup plan whether that's like for me my backup plan is baking, museums, just education in general not necessarily related to academia but having that keeps me sane knowing that if everything else goes wrong I have something I still love to do that isn't just academia on its own.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:56

Yeah I think it's just it's is uh in one word is just to have the mindset as well and broaden your your job prospects and not just only to obtain the not the knowledge and apply it afterwards but also have apply it where yeah where appropriate doing doing side jobs just to keep you afloat and until something until something happens. And you stand it as well it's all about networking is all about whether you're likable as well that also plays a big part and it's it's just who you know and as you said as well as it's nothing personal. Recently I've been rejected to to an interview and that's okay so I just keep doing this as a as a side and see see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:47

But having recognition having the recognition to do something that you've done it it's also it's also great and gives you boosts your morale and can boost also your expectation because we are we have the right to do that and we expect that as well for us to have expectations in getting something afterwards into the into this shitty marketplace at the moment I think as well the academia is always marketed as kind of the gold standard of of what comes after but I think people forget that you've just spent five years or four years doing a project you have managed that yourself you've had this independence that's a skill in itself people particularly when it comes the normal job market it it's it sometimes feels like oh I I definitely felt this at the beginning it's kind of like oh I have a PhD and nothing else and it's like no you have a PhD but this means more than just the piece of paper or the doctor title it's you've spent several years honing skills that are useful to other people it's just academia has taught you that it's only useful to them. So I think there's something to be said about recognizing your worth outside of academia because certainly academia spends a lot of time telling us we're not worth much yeah that's yeah that is that is still that cognitive bias. Yeah it's the same thing the same advice you have also for for postdocs yeah I I think resilience is key and again the fact that it's not personal whether it is you know the big funding bodies um my god it is the most competitive thing we go through I feel you know I know of people who are fully tenured who are you know mid to late career academics who don't get that funding and you think how can I get the funding if you can't because you're so much further ahead of your career than you. And also I think just staying active even if you have institutional affiliation or if you don't being able to carve out time to go to conferences even if they're online to publish where you can just keeping that door open if that's something you want to do is something that's really useful because the more people you know and the more people you get chatting with chances are they might have something coming up or they might want to collaborate. You know the fact that we're talking now is a collaboration that we ended up making you know well over a year or 18 months ago now. So just being available and being active I think is really important.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:15

Yeah. And I do think that's that sums up the talk. I like to know you you speak you spoke about the your previous projects and do you have any upcoming ones as well?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:26

So yeah I have my upcoming antiquity article that's out I think yeah I think it's the July or the August issue I'm not quite sure. Got the lives and literacy chapters that are coming out in the new year. Luxon will eventually have its publications out but just finalizing them now so we're hoping to submit them in the next month or two and yeah that's that's me at the moment. Any other upcoming cakes you're also doing I'm I'm actually I am baking a birthday cake this weekend um this this will go out after his birthday so it's fun but it's a surprise birthday cake for a friend that I'm baking over the weekend also before before we wrap up you're looking for for the World Cup oh I am but I don't know supporting because I know I should support England I really want the Scots to do well. Because I I thought now you were speaking about Egypt and saying maybe you support Egypt maybe I should support maybe I mean when I was in Egypt that was the way I communicated with people because I don't speak Arabic but as soon as someone introduced me as being from Liverpool people like Mo Salah and I was like yes we can speak football and ask Holmus on at the same time the African combinations for there was this so it was great because I was able to communicate with the workers and with kind of the people I was working with simply through football like the only language we both spoke.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:51

Wow I definitely but have you seen this um these things and I know we're gonna I'm going to release the the talk and and and and when the World Cup has already started but there's been like such many news about people getting getting banned from entering the US uh and including Canada I've seen as well uh people getting um having checkups yeah you know but obviously there's there's a lot of things going on isn't so so much drama oh yeah I suspect it's only gonna get more dramatic yes so such such a thing well well it's it's the US any anyhow anyway but where then where can the listeners follow your work and contact you then so I am Egyptologist on most social media um sorry it's egypto dash or underscore depending on the social media loom and then dash or underscore gist on blue sky linkedin not linkedin sorry x although I don't really use it much I will admit Instagram where else am I I think that's most places yeah so that's that's my little social hub and eventually there will be some sort of blog or substack situation coming when I get the time and attention to do so I think I think I'll make sure to put all your socials and uh including your buy on the show notes and Luis I mean it was an amazing talk and it's great to see you again and I mean if you want to do another one we can have another one schedule it soon and like talking about the near plates and more more stuff about your uh your PhD and your postdoc that uh that you might you might have missed and then we we just didn't remember just maybe having having another talk soon but it would be great to have another one soon as well that's the frustrating thing because so much of the the tubing and work is embargoed because it's so new so I'm like I'm like I can tell you about the site but I can't tell you specifically what I'm doing because we haven't published it yet and I'm like it's really cool but I can't anything in I can just tell you what's already available. Oh but we we'll do another one when when everything we got when it's when is the embargo when does the embargo last?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:23

I genuinely don't know because we've got to publish the book so we're publishing a catalogue of all of the Ostra car up to a

Upcoming Work And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_01 1:27:30

point because we keep finding more and then there's gonna be a book an edited book with like interpretation of it but I have no idea when that's going to happen as of yet so who knows oh well but when everything gets when everything gets published then we'll shall do another one then.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:47

Amazing all right Luis so thank you so much for for the great talk we had and for the students and graduates out there tuning in thank you all for tuning in and it's been a pleasure