Researcher Spotlight: Dr Fiona Radford

We are proud to introduce Dr Fiona Radford. Fiona is one of the Pymble Ladies’ College team who uses her PhD in her daily work, outside the bounds of academia. Fiona is the Acting Head of Learning Area – History, Society and Ethics, and a dynamic history teacher. Fiona’s academic pursuits – including her podcast – indicate some of the many ways a PhD can be put to good use to promote enjoyment of learning in the wider community.

Tell us about your career journey and your role at Pymble?

For as long as I can remember, I was absolutely certain that I was going to be an actress and would have won my first Oscar by the age of 30. Clearly, my confidence wasn’t a problem! However, I had an amazing history teacher when I was in Year 11 and 12. She made me fall in love with ancient Rome and so I decided to enter teaching as a ‘back-up career’. I hated teaching when I first started but I really enjoyed the history, so I just kept studying. By the time I had been at university for ten years, I tried teaching again, and I loved it. Turns out, I just needed a decade or so for it to grow on me.

In what field was your PhD and what did you learn most from that process?

I did my PhD in reception studies, which is a fancy way of saying that I studied history on film. My thesis focused on the production of the 1960 classic Spartacus and how the production impacted the construction of the history. I learnt how important it is to be able to access archival material, as I needed to travel and visit several archives to find the primary material that became crucial to my research. Without this source material, I would not have been able to fully understand the history or find new insights into the film.

How do you apply your PhD skills in your current role?

I enjoy analysing historical films with my classes waaaay too much! But, students are generally interested in looking at different forms of history these days, such as video games, apps, social media and film. Reception studies works well for all of those! I find that it is also most useful in courses like Extension History, which is one of my favourite things to teach.

Do you have a commitment to bringing history into the public sphere? How would you describe the process of ‘making history visible’?

My friend from university and I knew that it was unlikely that we would become academics, but we didn’t want to lose touch with Ancient Rome. We decided to start our podcast, The Partial Historians. We named it after Jane Austen’s quote from History of England, which she says was written by a “partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian”.

Podcasting was still fairly new back then, and we would just sit down and record our conversations. Since then, podcasting has exploded, so we have had to learn how to edit, how best to record, how to promote ourselves, source guests – all sorts of things! It took us a little while as it’s hard to balance with work sometimes, but I think we do a pretty good job for a totally independent podcast. We are committed to open access, so whilst people can donate to our show for early release episodes, everyone will eventually be able to listen to all of our shows.

The Partial Historians blends academia and popular history. It is academic because we look at things in close detail (we are currently moving through the history of Rome a year at a time) and we research each episode using academic material and primary sources. However, we then try to translate that to our audience in a light-hearted and relatable way, without too much jargon. Just as well, as I am a pop culture junkie, so I find it hard not to work in references to The Godfather or RuPaul’s Drag Race in any conversation that I have.

We find the Romans pretty hilarious most of the time, because they are relentlessly serious in their histories, and we aim to make that clear to our audience. It’s been incredibly rewarding to see our audience grow and realise what an appetite there is for history, which is a hobby for most people (crazy). Doing the podcast has allowed us to present at conferences and write two books together, both of which also are written for a general audience, but based on academic sources. So far, the most popular part of our recent book is the section we called, ‘We Built This City on Rock and Roads’, which is all about the walls, roads and aqueducts of Rome. We had no idea people liked aqueducts so much, but it turns out there is a real thirst for that knowledge 😉

If you would like to find out more about The Partial Historians, follow Fiona and her colleague, Dr Peta Greenfield, on their website or wherever you listen to fantastic podcasts!