Humanities Writing Competition
This annual competition is an opportunity for students to research and write beyond the curriculum, using one or more of the Lawrence Room museum objects, as their focus. Essays or creative responses (such as dramatic monologues or short stories) are equally welcome. We are looking for the ability to connect different areas of knowledge, to think about details and to communicate clearly.
Open to: UK students in Year 12 (or equivalent - S5/ Y13 - N.I) who have an interest in the Humanities.
Prizes: Up to £200 cash and books to the value of £200 from Cambridge University Press, the latter to be shared between the winning entrant/s and their school/s. The prize fund may be divided between winning entrants.
The competition is currently closed and will be open for 2024-25 in Winter 2024.
2023-24 Competition
Focusing on Girton’s museum collection in the Lawrence Room, the Humanities Writing Competition aims to use ancient objects as a starting point for thinking across curricular divides – about the varieties of human experience that these survivals from the past can embody and reflect and the trains of thought they can set off. We are looking to encourage the ability to connect different areas of knowledge, to think about details and to communicate clearly. A winning entry will typically draw on (and reference, if appropriate) some in-depth research on the artefact being discussed, and also introduce some ideas of the entrant’s own: it is always fascinating for us to discover unexpected perspectives on the museum’s contents.
The objects in the Lawrence Room that were chosen as starting points for this year’s competition were: the surviving half of a porphyry bowl from the second millennium BC found at Tell al Rimah in Iraq; a terracotta ‘Tanagra’ figurine from Boeotia dating from the fourth century BC, depicting a young woman holding a swan, perhaps representing the myth of Leda; a miniature terracotta stag, also from the ancient Greek world at about the same time; a Carthaginian ‘cocked hat’ clay oil lamp, from Tunisia in the first millennium BC; and a pair of bronze ‘wrist clasps’, similar to cufflinks, found at Girton in the early medieval cemetery on the site, dating from the fifth or sixth century CE.
Once again, the number of entries received was substantially up on last year’s total. All the objects inspired good and interesting work: the ‘Leda’ figurine, as perhaps the most aesthetically appealing of the objects, attracted a huge majority of the entries and this is reflected in the line-up of winners; however, there were also excellent entries on the more humdrum and enigmatic objects and we were especially pleased that the joint winners were inspired by a local object, the Girton wrist-clasps.
We do not provide detailed feedback on individual essays other than those of the winners, but we send thanks to all the competitors for taking part.
Previous competition winners
Joint First prize: Frederick Websper (St Paul's School)
'How do these Anglo-Saxon wrist clasps shape our understanding of women's experience in the Anglo-Saxon world?' This essay combined literary and archaeological understanding: it was prefixed with some lines in the style of the Anglo-Saxon poem Deor, and drew a thought-provoking parallel between the hidden buried objects and the enigmatic references to women’s lives in Old English poetry. Some good detective work too in seeking out the closest parallels to our wrist-clasps in online catalogues of similar objects.
Joint First prize: Sam Woolley (Wilson's School)
'Glimpsing post-Roman Britain through Anglo-Saxon copper wrist clasps'. This was a well organised and critically thought-out treatment of some of the archaeological questions surrounding these objects. If fifth- and sixth-century metalwork was largely made from recycled Roman objects, does this suggest a crisis in metal supply or simply an efficient use of what was available? Do objects like these say more about the origin and ethnic affiliation of the wearer or about her life stage and individual taste?
Both these essays showed a real commitment to research and a readiness to take the road less travelled.
Third prize: Leela Strathern (Woodhouse College)
'Leda and the swan across eras'. Out of the essays on the Leda figurine, this one really stood out. The author was able not just to distinguish between ancient and modern attitudes but between different stages of the past too, pointing out the contrast in the way in which classical and Renaissance artists approached mythological subject-matter; she had also looked closely at the individual figurine and had good ideas about how its status as a votive object, a private offering to a divinity made for an individual woman, might have influenced the artistic treatment.
Philippa Collins (Godalming Sixth Form College)
'Unveiling ancient Greek perspectives on gender and sexuality through "Leda with Swan"'. This was very well written and pursued a conceptually advanced argument in a mature and confident way.
Jessica Dolby (Wycombe Abbey School)
'Leda and the swan (?)’ This pursued a fascinating argument as to whether our figurine really did represent Leda and the swan, or rather Aphrodite with a goose. An enthusiastic and original piece looking at a variety of artworks..
Gavriella Epstein-Lightman (Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls)
‘Half destroyed’. This was the best piece of creative work submitted this year, a well structured and dramatic story in which the porphyry bowl plays a part at critical stages of the narrator’s life.
It was most enjoyable to welcome five of the six prizewinners to the college on 9 May to receive their prizes from the Mistress and to be given a tour of the Lawrence Room Museum and of the college. Many thanks to Girton Classics students Zara Wedgwood and Luke Quentin for leading the tour.
Girton is grateful to Cambridge University Press and The C. Anne Wilson Fund for kind sponsorship of the competition.