Bettany Hughes

Bettany Hughes
Born	1968 (age 43–44)
Education	Notting Hill & Ealing High School
Alma mater	St Hilda's College, University of Oxford
Occupation	broadcaster and writer
Known for	Television history; radio broadcasting
Spouse	Adrian Evans
Children	2
Parents	Peter Hughes, Erica Hughes
Relatives	Simon Hughes (brother)
Website
http://www.bettanyhughes.co.uk/

Bettany Hughes (born 1968) is an English academic historian, author and broadcaster. Her speciality is classical history.

Hughes' father is the actor Peter Hughes and her brother is the cricketer and journalist Simon Hughes. Hughes was educated at the private Notting Hill & Ealing High School, in Ealing and won a scholarship to read Ancient and Modern History at St Hilda's College, University of Oxford where she received an upper second degree.

She has taught at Bristol, Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge universities and is a currently a Research Fellow of King's College London and an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University. Her first book Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore has now been translated into ten languages. Her second book The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life was Book of The Week on BBC Radio 4. The Hemlock Cup has been extremely enthusiastically reviewed and was chosen as Book of the Year in a wide range of publications for 2010.^{[citation needed]} In 2010 Hughes was awarded the Naomi Sargent Prize for Broadcast Excellence and was given a Special Award for services to Hellenic Culture and Heritage. She has written and presented documentary films and series for National Geographic, BBC, Discovery, PBS, The History Channel and Channel 4. Her television programmes have now been seen by over 100 million worldwide.

In 2010 she gave the Hellenic Institute's Tenth Annual lecture 'TA EROTIKA: THE THINGS OF LOVE. She was also asked to chair the 2011 Orange prize for Fiction, the UK's only annual book award for fiction written by a woman. In 2012 Bettany will be hosting the 'Real Olympics in London' and curating an Olympiad Exhibition at the British Library that explores the theme of 'Idea'.

She is a long-standing patron and supporter of educational and campaigning charity The Iris Project, which has been promoting and teaching Latin and Greek in state schools since 2006. She is also an honorary patron of Classics For All, a national campaign to get classical languages and the study of classical civilisations back into state schools in the UK launched in 2010. She is also an advisor to the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation which fosters large-scale collaborative projects between East and West.

Her husband is Adrian Evans, the producer of Archaos in the UK and the director of the South Bank Thames Festival. The couple have two children.

Works

Television

• Breaking the Seal (2000). BBC/OU
• Mysteries of the Ancients (2002).
• The Spartans (2002) - produced by Lion TV, three 60-minute episodes.
• Ancient Discoveries (2003) - produced by the History Channel.
• Seven Ages of Britain (2003) — a social history from the Ice Age to the Industrial Revolution.
• The Minotaur's Island (2003) - produced by Lion TV.
• The Minoans (2004) - produced by Lion TV.
• Helen of Troy (2005) — produced by Lion TV.
• When The Moors Ruled In Europe (2005).
• Athens: the Dawn of Democracy (2007). Former title Athens: the Truth about Democracy.
• Engineering Ancient Egypt (2008).
• The Roman Invasion of Britain (2009).
• The Bible: A History - (2010) Channel 4: one episode (4 of 7) titled Daughters of Eve.
• Time Team (2010) Channel 4: season 17, episode 1
• Atlantis: the Evidence (2010): A Timewatch special about the lost continent being the volcanic island of Santorini
• Alexandria, City of Dreams, More 4, 2010
• The Day Jesus Died, BBC One, 2010
• Countrywise, ITV, 2009–2011
• Forgiveness, BBC One, 2011
• The Seven Wonders of the Buddhist World, BBC Two, 2011
• The Story of the East, Channel 4, 2011
• Nefertiti - The True Face, Discovery Channel, forthcoming

Radio

• There's Something About Eleanor of Aquitaine - BBC Radio 3, 2004
• Amongst the Medici - 3 parts, BBC Radio 4, February–March 2006.
• Sisters of Aphrodite - BBC Radio 3, 2007
• Byzantium Unearthed - 3 parts, BBC Radio 4, October 2008
• Call Yourself a Feminist - 3 parts, BBC Radio 4, 2009
• Great Lives - Sappho episode 2 of series 22, BBC Radio 4, 10 August 2010
• In Search of the Aryans Sunday Special - BBC Radio 3, 2010
• Banishing Eve - 3 parts, BBC Radio 4, 2010

Books

• Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore, 2005. ISBN 0-224-07177-7.
• The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life, 2010. ISBN 0-224-07178-5

Academic Publications

• "Terrible, Excruciating, Wrong-Headed And Ineffectual": The Perils and Pleasures of Presenting Antiquity to a Television Audience - Dunstan Lowe, Kim Shahabudin (ed.), Classics for All: Reworking Antiquity in Mass Culture. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• "Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore - European Cultural Centre of Delphi, XIII International Meeting On Ancient Drama 2007, The Women in Ancient Drama, Symposium Proceedings

External links

• Bettany Hughes Official Website
• Bettany Hughes at the Internet Movie Database