Diana Spencer – författare

Rome was a building site for much of its history, a city continually reshaped and reconstituted in line with political and cultural change. In later times, the conjunction of ruins and rebuilding lent the cityscape a particularly fascinating character, much exploited by artists and writers. This layering and changing of vistas also finds expression in the literary tradition, from classical times right up to the twenty-first-century. This collection of essays offers glimpses, sideways glances and unexpected angles that open up Rome in its widest possible sense, and explores how the visible components of Rome - the hills, the Tiber, the temples, the Forums, the Colosseum, the statues and monuments - operate as, or become, the sites/sights of Rome.The analyses are informed by contemporary critical thinking and draw on ancient historical narrative, Roman poetry, Renaissance literature and cartography, art of the Grand Tour era, Russian and Soviet interpretations, and twentieth-century cinema.

Rome was a building site for much of its history, a city continually reshaped and reconstituted in line with political and cultural change. In later times, the conjunction of ruins and rebuilding lent the cityscape a particularly fascinating character, much exploited by artists and writers. This layering and changing of vistas also finds expression in the literary tradition, from classical times right up to the twenty-first-century. This collection of essays offers glimpses, sideways glances and unexpected angles that open up Rome in its widest possible sense, and explores how the visible components of Rome - the hills, the Tiber, the temples, the Forums, the Colosseum, the statues and monuments - operate as, or become, the sites/sights of Rome.The analyses are informed by contemporary critical thinking and draw on ancient historical narrative, Roman poetry, Renaissance literature and cartography, art of the Grand Tour era, Russian and Soviet interpretations, and twentieth-century cinema.

Diana Spencer, known for her scholarly focus on how ancient Romans conceptualized themselves as a people and how they responded to and helped shape the world they lived in, brings her expertise to an examination of the Roman scholar Varro and his treatise De Lingua Latina. This commentary on the origin and relationships of Latin words is an intriguing, but often puzzling, fragmentary work for classicists. Since Varro was engaged in defining how Romans saw themselves and how they talked about their world, Spencer reads along with Varro, following his themes and arcs, his poetic sparks, his political and cultural seams. Few scholars have accepted the challenge of tackling Varro and his work, and in this pioneering volume, Spencer provides a roadmap for considering these topics more thoroughly.

Diana Spencer, known for her scholarly focus on how ancient Romans conceptualized themselves as a people and how they responded to and helped shape the world they lived in, brings her expertise to an examination of the Roman scholar Varro and his treatise De Lingua Latina. This commentary on the origin and relationships of Latin words is an intriguing, but often puzzling, fragmentary work for classicists. Since Varro was engaged in defining how Romans saw themselves and how they talked about their world, Spencer reads along with Varro, following his themes and arcs, his poetic sparks, his political and cultural seams. Few scholars have accepted the challenge of tackling Varro and his work, and in this pioneering volume, Spencer provides a roadmap for considering these topics more thoroughly.

This book tackles how and why 'landscape' (farms, gardens, countryside) set the scene in the first centuries BCE and CE for Romans keen to talk up and about (but also to scrutinize and understand) what it meant to be a citizen. It investigates what 'landscape' means now and reflects upon how contemporary approaches to 'landscape' can enrich our understanding of ancient experience of the interface between natural and artificial space. It encourages examination of 'landscape' from a range of angles, suggesting alternative ways of thinking about what landscape represents. These methodological approaches (presented initially via a set of key terms and definitions and then deployed thematically across four chapters), combined with a detailed interdisciplinary bibliography and a series of case studies of literary texts and material sites, enable readers to use this survey as a starting point for developing their own in-depth study.

God is Not Like That challenges all Christians to think seriously about how the misunderstandings of the past are currently affecting Christianity worldwide.The work of the Reformation was never finished, because the various factions involved split apart from each other without finding any common resolution to the problems facing the medieval church. The conclusions reached in God is Not Like That have been formulated after years of deliberation, in an effort to stimulate thought and discussion among all denominations of Christianity today. Many problems that stem from these unresolved issues have been inherited by all denominations; for example, the author believes that the Athanasian Creed, while right in its original intent, has been misunderstood by everyone for many centuries. This has been compounded by the fact that for many years there have been growing doubts about the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, even among scholars and teachers, making it difficult for them to explain and defend the faith to an increasingly skeptical world. Meanwhile, its vocal critics do not realize that many of the ideas that they are challenging stem from mistaken assumptions from the past, not with the faith itself; it is urgent that these issues be examined and the distortions resolved.Diana Spencer is a retired Anglican priest, although the views expressed in this book are her own. It was written in the hope that all denominations of Christianity would think about, and discuss, the issues raised. Born in England in 1935, she came to Canada at the age of twenty-one, is widowed, and living in Victoria.