National stereotypes such as bowler-hatted English gents and pasta-cooking Italian mammas are nothing new; the Ancient Greeks had just as many preconceptions about their neighbours, as Year 12 girls have been discovering during a Cultural Literacy Day at Newnham College, Cambridge.

The event on Wednesday (June 16) was organised by Newnham College's admissions office to showcase a selection of the arts subjects Cambridge offers and to give girls who will be applying to university next year a taster of the academic side of undergraduate life.

As well as cultural stereotypes in Ancient Greece, the topics up for discussion included modern British sculpture, attitudes towards money in different parts of the world, the way dreams were interpreted in the Bible and the Koran and the oddities and idiosyncracies of language, with sessions being led by Cambridge academics and current undergraduates.


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