Today, the Faculty Board has forwarded the request by the Chancellor and the co-directors, addressed to all departments, to draw up a report in view of the general well-being of their members, teaching staff, research fellows, administrators and students. Our particular attention is asked for the situation of the doctoral students and the postdoctoral fellows, due to some recent commotion in the press. You all know the background and it would be useless to come back to the case itself, but, nonetheless, we will have to take a position on what was transmitted to the press and mainly on how to avoid similar things from happening in our department. This report will constitute one of the preparatory documents to be handed over to those responsible for the risk analysis that our department will be subjected to as a result of the recent events. As this risk analysis ought to start before the end of this month, we are obliged to convene a department meeting at the beginning of next week. Our meeting is planned for Monday, and we start early, at 10 am, because we need a true discussion in order to have a first draft of the report.Both by email and during a quick and improvised discussion, a number of colleagues have tried to single out some of the more urgent points and problems in view of the risk analysis. They particularly paid attention to the difficulties PhD students encounter in their relationship with their supervisors. They could take as a basis the recent PhD survey as it was conducted among

This article seeks to underline the importance of the image of Medusa in Statius' Thebaid.The Gorgon is explicitly introduced in an ekphrasis of a sacred goblet in the programmaticfirst book. This ekphrasis seems to function as a narrating mechanism that enablesthe reader to activate Medusa's presence, which may then remain lingering throughoutthe entire epic poem. Stimulated by echoes of words and scenes, that evoke the ekphrasis,the reader gradually creates his own fictional network in which the Gorgon continuouslyappears. Her (implicit) presence is illustrated in the passage that describes the marriageof Adrastus' daughters to Polynices and Tydeus in the second book, and in the tragic passagein the fifth book in which Opheltes prematurely dies.

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