Postgraduate Research

Current PhD students and research topics

Margarita Alexandrou: Commentary on Hipponax
Giulia Biffis: Lycophron's Alexandra
Ljuba Bortolani: Greek magical hymns: Egyptian voices in Greek dress? The nature of the divine in Graeco-Egyptian syncretism
Manuela Dal Borgo: Thucydides and his Games
Joyce Datiles: Heroism on Screen
Beatrice Da Vela: Donatus’ Commentary on Terence’s Adelphoe
Daisy Dunn: Ecphrasis from Hellenistic Poetry to Cinquecento Venetian painting
Rithu Fernando: the Mirror: a comparative literary, cultural and art-historical study
Nicholas Freer: Vergil and Philodemus
Iphigeneia Giannadaki: A Commentary on Demosthenes’ Speech Against Androtion (Dem. 22)
Nikolina Hadjigiorgi: the reception of Sophocles in Later Antiquity
Maria Kanellou: Erotic epigram: archetypal motifs driving the poetic process
Ioannis Lambrou: Homeric methodology of critical reception
Anastasia Lazani: the Aeschylean chorus
Adam Lecznar: Postcolonial readings of ancient Greek drama
Skye McAlpine: Ovid's Ars Amatoria in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England
Kleanthis Mantzouranis: Archaic moral values in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics of Aristotle
Katerina Mikellidou: Fifth-century drama and the underworld
Hamutal Minkowich: Between divination and philosophy: a post-Freudian perspective on Herodotean and biblical dreams
Annette Mitchell: Freud's ancient chronology
Carlotta Montagna: Freedom of thought, speech and action in the early imperial period
Giada Orlietti: an edition of selected literary and documentary papyri
Styliani Papastamati: The Poetics of Marriage in archaic and classical Greek Poetry
Emily Proctor: a comparison of Ovid's Fasti and Metamorphoses
Luke Richardson: Albert Camus and classical reception in Algeria
Andreas Serafim: Theatrical features in Demosthenes and Aeschines
Ben Temblett: Deleuze and Platonism
Michael Waters: the reception of the Electra/Orestes stories in the 18th-19th centuries
Chris Webb: oikeios polemos and the collective: towards a new understanding of stasis and the Sophoclean chorus
Bobby Xinyue: the divinity of Augustus in Augustan literature

Margarita ALEXANDROU
email: m.alexandrou@ucl.ac.uk

Research Interests: Homer, Archaic Greek Lyric, Ancient Greek Drama (especially Comedy), Hellenistic Poetry, Greek Literary Papyri
Thesis title: Commentary on Hipponax

Brief Biography: After a BA in Greek Philology (with a focus in Classics) from the University of Athens and an MA in Classics at UCL, I am currently working on a PhD under the supervision of Professor Chris Carey.

Thesis abstract: Hipponax is one of the most neglected poets of Archaic Lyric. However, he is one of the most fascinating as he distances himself from the mainstream of iambus (Archilochus and Semonides) in many respects. His social register is different from the rest of Archaic Lyric, and especially from the rest of archaic iambus; his poetry opens up broader narratological questions such as the role/identity of the poetic persona and larger literary-historical questions such as the nature of the genre of iambos and its audience in particular. His iambography is also distinctive as far as his linguistic scope, register and tone of his poetry are concerned. He is also compelling for his reworking of the past literature (especially of Homeric epic which is frequently an object of parody in his poems) as well as for the major influence that he has exercised on later literature and especially on Hellenistic poets such as Callimachus and Herodas, who were as Hipponax himself fond of exploring exotic areas of literature and unusual modes of poetry. However, Hipponax not only depicts, but also remains himself a ‘scapegoat’ of Greek Literature, wronged both by the tradition (his work has been very fragmentarily preserved) and by recent scholarship, as he has been very little studied.

The absence of commentaries on Hipponax is generally acknowledged, along with the need to fill this gap and to provide an essential tool for a detailed study of his iambography. Masson’s commentary (1962) is brief and in many aspects outdated, and West’s publication (1974), despite its scholarly merits, is very limited in scale and cover, restricted to brief notes on a handful of selected passages. Finally the most important twentieth century student of Hipponax, Degani (1984) despite his long-term devotion to the iambographer, has not left us with a commentary.

Therefore, my aim is to provide a literary lemmatic commentary on the main fragments of the iambic poet Hipponax and subsequently a considerable bibliographical reference which will at last fill this gap in Classical bibliography.

Ljuba Merlina BORTOLANI
email: l.bortolani@ucl.ac.uk

Studies: Graduated in Classics at the University of Bologna in July 2004 (thesis title 'Traces of Orphic tradition in a Greek magical papyrus: P. Mich. III, 154/PGM LXX').
Graduated in Languages and Cultures of Near and Middle-East (Egyptology) at the University of Pisa in July 2007 (thesis title 'Bes and the headless god: PGM and Egyptian documents').
PhD UCL 2008-ongoing (AHRC funded) under the supervision of Dr. Nikolaos Gonis and Professor John Tait (Institute of Archaeology).

Thesis title: Greek magical hymns: Egyptian voices in Greek dress? The nature of the divine in Graeco-Egyptian syncretism.

Thesis abstract: My research aims at investigating the nature of the most representative deities of the so-called Greek magical hymns (the metrical sections of the Greek magical papyri) in order to find out how many and which aspects and attributes can be ascribed either to a Greek or an Egyptian background. The final goal is to discuss the reasons that underlie the particular evolution of the deities in question within the magical literature of the Graeco-Roman period. How much are we allowed to talk about Greek or Egyptian culture dealing with the Greek magical hymns? Why were some Greek or Egyptian divine features preserved and others not? And, are the reasons strictly related to the appearance of these gods in a magical context? Can these reasons tell us anything about the mutual reception of the two cultures? Which most important meeting points promoted this complex assimilation?
This study is text-based: every hymn will be analysed line by line and overall following a compound approach which takes into consideration religious concepts, ritual practice, style, and language at the same time, and goes through both the Greek and the Egyptian sources in order to find possible textual or conceptual parallels.

Main research interests: Greek and Egyptian (especially Demotic) papyrology, ancient magic, history of religions.

Giulia BIFFIS
email: g.biffis@ucl.ac.uk

Brief biography: In 2004 I graduated from the University of Padova, where I wrote a thesis in Historical Linguistics in which I studied the ethnic variation revealed by early inscriptions from Latium. In 2005 I completed my MA in Classics at the Department of Greek and Latin of UCL, where I focused on the study of the poetic influences that enrich Thucydides’ work. In 2007 I started my Mphil/Phd in the same department, working under the supervision of Prof. Simon Hornblower. My research project is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Research interests: Greek poetry and historiography.

Thesis title: 'Female perspectives in Lycophron’s Alexandra'

Abstract: my thesis focuses on Lycophron’s Alexandra. This Hellenistic poem is famous for the obscurities of its language and of its mythological subject-matter and not least because of the mysterious identity of the author. My research is based on the assumption that in the poem each detail is a piece of a puzzle, where only the sum of its parts conveys the full meaning of it. By avoiding looking at the poem from a specific angle, my approach shows that heterogeneous elements of the poem, traditionally belonging to different fields of study (literary, historical, archaeological) are in reality markedly interconnected. Thus different aspects of the poem suggest that Alexandra shows a special interest in Greek female status.

Publications:

‘La Battaglia delle Epipole (Tucidide VII 44, 1-7)’, Hesperìa 22 (2008): 91-101.

Review: ‘Lycophron, Alexandra, Texte établi, traduit, présenté at annoté par Cédric Chauvin et Christophe Cusset, Paris 2008’, Revue de philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes 2007, vol. 2: forthcoming.

‘In search of an iconographical confirmation for the ritual of the Daunian virgins (Al. 1126-1140)’, in Lycophron et les images (table ronde Paris INHA, 17 décembre 2009, ANR CAIM - UMR 7041 équipe ESPRI) ed. by É. Prioux, Cl. Pouzadoux: forthcoming.

Manuela DAL BORGO
email: m.borgo@ucl.ac.uk

Research interests: Thucydides and Game Theory.

Thesis title: Thucydides and his Games

Brief biography: I am a first year M.Phil./PhD candidate in the Department of Greek and Latin engaged in cross disciplinary research with the UCL Department of Economics. My supervisors are Simon Hornblower, Professor of Classics and of Ancient History, and Steffen Huck, Professor of Economics. My research is funded by the UCL Graduate School Research Scholarship (GSRS) and the UCL Overseas Research Students Award (ORS). I completed the MA in Classics at UCL in Sept. 2008, supervised by Simon Hornblower, and the MA in Humanities from Florida State University in 2007. During and after my studies in Sao Paulo, Brazil (BA, FASM 2005), I worked in the private sector and in non-profit volunteer services.

Thesis abstract: I intend to interpret Thucydides by utilizing modern
game theory, which uncovers the counterfactuals and sequences of actions,
to distill the abstract strategic structures that Thucydides illuminates.

Iphigeneia GIANNADAKI
email: i.giannadaki@ucl.ac.uk

Thesis title: A Commentary on Demosthenes’ Speech Against Androtion (Dem. 22).

Brief Biography: Born in Rethymnon, I began my BA in Classical Philology at the University of Crete, where my fascination with the Attic Orators originates. Then I moved to London and I continued my studies obtaining a MA in Classics at UCL and I have been lucky enough to be able to remain here for a PhD since. I am currently working on my research project "A Commentary on Demosthenes’ Speech Against Androtion" ―a fascinating speech (concerning a graphe paranomon brought against a very active politician of the 4th c. and equally exciting personality, Androtion) but relatively neglected by modern commentators―under the supervision of Professor Chris Carey. My project is funded by the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (IKY).

Research interests so far: Besides Greek oratory, rhetoric and law, my interests lie in Greek lyric poetry, Aristophanic comedy and Greek historiography (especially Herodotus, Thucydides and Atthis).

Maria KANELLOU
email: m.kanellou@ucl.ac.uk

Research interests: Hellenistic poetry; lyric poetry; Old, Middle and New Comedy

Thesis title: Erotic epigram: archetypal motifs driving the poetic process.

Brief biography: I studied Classical Philology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and obtained my MA in Classics at UCL. Inspired by the high quality of the Department of Greek and Latin I decided to do a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Chris Carey. I am currently on my first year of my MPhil/ PhD studies at UCL.

Thesis abstract: My thesis will focus on the erotic epigrams in the Pallatine and Planudean Anthologies. The ancient epigram is surprisingly an under-researched field and current research focuses mostly on individual epigrammatists shunning the larger trends in the genre. My thesis aims to fill in part this lacuna in research.
Since the body of material is vast, the thesis will explore five recurring themes both in the preceding (mainly lyric and comic) tradition and erotic epigram. The themes were chosen for their ability to demonstrate the hallmark-trade of the epigram, i.e. its versatility stemming from the clever reworking of traditional motifs within tight space constraints, and moreover, for their capability to serve as archetypes for similar research in other epigram-families.

Ioannis LAMBROU

email: ioannis.lambrou.10@ucl.ac.uk

Studies: During my undergraduate studies in Classical Philology at the University of Athens, my alma mater (I graduated with a BA (Ptychion) in 2009), I became increasingly fascinated by Homer’s obvious debt to epic tradition and I grew intrigued about the complexity which even today underscores the nexus of the pre-Homeric epic tradition, the Homeric epics and the Epic Cycle, and merits further investigation. The in-depth study of this interrelationship has become the focus of my postgraduate research ever since. In June 2010, I earned my M.Phil. degree in Classics from the University of Cambridge (Clare College) under the guidance of Professor James Diggle and Dr Renaud Gagné. Today, still furthering my passion for Classics and being mentored by Professor Christopher Carey, I have been continuing my research at UCL towards the completion of my doctoral thesis since September of 2010. My M.Phil. and Ph.D. research has been supported by the Cambridge European Trust, the A. G. Leventis Foundation, and the UCL Graduate School. Recent and forthcoming conference presentations include papers on aspects of the dialogical and competitive dynamics of Greek epic performance poetry. My other research interests cluster around the comparative study of agonistic poetics of oral performance, the Trojan War images in visual art, and the reception of the Trojan myth in lyric poetry and drama.

Research Project: Homer and the Epic Cycle: From Dialogical Dynamics to Challenge

Given that the Trojan War Cyclic epics survive only in isolated fragments and summaries, so far a collective and multi-faceted appreciation of the connections between the Homeric epics and the traditions represented in the Epic Cycle has not yet been attempted. Though suggestive, the Neoanalytic ‘source-and-recipient model’ in focusing on specific ‘intertextual’ echoes missed the larger dialogue in play between the Homeric epics and the Cyclic tradition, insofar as a linear analysis approach was applied to determine complex non-linear associations: ‘Homer’ was seen as having re-contextualised motifs taken from pre-Homeric epics which narrated stories which ultimately came to crystallise in the Epic Cycle, thereby putting old wine in new wineskins. This thesis, focusing closely on the competitive framework of epic performance, sets out to investigate the broad set of multilateral two-way dynamics between ‘Homer’ and the traditions represented in the Epic Cycle, i.e., how epic poets reflect back upon, thereby positioning themselves within, epic tradition: by examining anew all the available fragments and summaries therein this thesis traces how specific narrative patterns and methodology at work in the Cyclic poems find their way, through established dynamics both dialogical and competitive, into the texture of the Homeric epics and vice versa. This research project will potentially contribute to a better knowledge and understanding of Homeric artistry, and can also provide a basis to suggest that the Cyclic Epics may not have been as inelegant and tasteless as often supposed.

Adam LECZNAR
email: a.lecznar@ucl.ac.uk

Studies: I undertook my undergraduate studies at UCL and was awarded my BA in 2009, having completed a final year dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy under the supervision of Miriam Leonard. I proceeded to jump ship to Cambridge for a year where I completed an MPhil in Classics by writing a dissertation on the concept of performance in Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and other shorter essays on Hegel's Antigone, Matthew Arnold's pastoral poetry and Friedrich Nietzsche's Prometheus. Bored by the provincial life, I returned to UCL in September 2010 to start my PhD, again under the supervision of Miriam Leonard.

Thesis title: Wole Soyinka's adaptation of the Bacchae in its performative, cultural and political contexts

Brief description: In 1973, the National Theatre of Great Britain put on a production of Euripides' Bacchae using a translation which they had commissioned from the Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka. Though this translation has received a certain amount of critical attention, especially in light of the recent increase of interest in African, and more generally postcolonial, adaptations of ancient Greek tragedy, it has not yet been read in light of the dual African and European cultural contexts which underpin it. I will explore the popularity of Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of Dionysus in the West during the 1960s and 1970s and how this gave birth to Soyinka's drama in the European theatrical context of its genesis. I argue that Soyinka's version of the Bacchae is informed at all stages by these two contexts, and that it is impossible to adapt an ancient Greek tragedy without engaging with all the various traditions surround it, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

Research interests: Nineteenth/Twentieth-Century intellectual history and its use of Graeco-Roman antiquity; the reception of ancient Greek tragedy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (philosophy and literature); Friedrich Nietzsche's appropriation of antiquity; Vergilian pastoral and its Nachleben.

Kleanthis MANTZOURANIS
email: k.mantzouranis@ucl.ac.uk

Research interests: Ancient values as expressed in different literary genres; Homer, Τhucydides, Aristotle.

Thesis Title: (provisional) Archaic Moral Values in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics of Aristotle.

Studies: I graduated from the University of Athens (B.A. in Classical Philology, 2001), and then I moved to the University of Ioannina (2002-2004), where I obtained a M.A. in Classics. Now I’ m just beginning my MPhil/PhD at UCL.

Thesis abstract: “for what seems to all to be the case that we assert to be the case” (ΕΝ 1172b36-1173al). In his attempt to define what the “human good” is Aristotle proceeds by examining existing views. In his ethical works he finds himself in a constant debate between ideas of the past and those generally accepted by his contemporaries, upon which he contributes his own unique thought. Those general ideas which valued man and his position and behaviour within his social background as well as the vocabulary that expressed those ideas, were not shaped during Aristotle’s time. Fundamental words of the philosopher’s ethical vocabulary such as aretē, timē, dikē, aischron, kalon etc are significant value terms already in the Homeric Epics, though, of course, with a different connotation as a result of the different social, political and economic conditions. The aim of my research is to examine the values discussed by Aristotle and find out which among them are rooted back in the Homeric era, as long as to seek in which cases Aristotle adopted the traditional values as they were, and in which he altered or enriched moral terms with a new connotation, according to his own philosophical teaching. I intend to focus into two works: the Nicomachean Ethics, which is considered to be Aristotle’s most mature work on morality, and the Politics, since in Aristotle’s mind moral and political philosophy are closely related and constitute a unified study which he calls “philosophy of human life”.

Katerina MIKELLIDOU

email: katerina.mikellidou.10@ucl.ac.uk

Studies: In 2005 I moved from Cyprus to Athens in order to undertake my BA degree in Greek Philology and, more specifically, in Classical Studies. Four years later, after I obtained my Diploma I read for a Masters degree in Greek and Roman Languages and Literature in Oxford University. There, I studied Greek Comedy and Tragedy as well as Greek and Latin Literary Papyrology, and I wrote a thesis on the motif of the Intruder-scenes in the Aristophanic corpus under the supervision of Dr Angus Bowie. In 2010 I started my PhD in UCL under the supervision of Professor Chris Carey. Both my MA and PhD degrees are funded by the A. G. Leventis Foundation.
Thesis title: Crossing Boundaries. The representation of the Underworld in fifth-century Attic Drama

Brief Description: It is perhaps paradoxical that Attic drama, a genre primarily focusing on behaviours and decisions relevant to the earthly life, exhibits in all of its three forms – tragedy, comedy, and satyr drama – a vigorous concern with the idea of the Underworld and everything this place contains. The texture of the unseen realm, the personality of its divine rulers, and the state of its mortal inhabitants constitute themes of recurrent treatment and are introduced in the dramatic plot under various forms and shapes. What this thesis aims at is to explore a range of motifs whereby the dramatist challenges the distinction between life and death, elides the boundaries of the two spheres, and allows his heroes to move notionally or literally from the world of the living to the world of the dead and vice versa. The temporary resurrection of the dead for consultation (psychagogia), the descent to Hades (katabasis), the spontaneous ghost apparitions, the addresses to the dead and the infernal gods, or even the tragic persona of the moribund, establish a nexus of interactions between the two realms and provide insights into the idea of what lies beyond and beneath. Fifth-century drama, one could assert, stages a series of fascinating actions, reactions, and interactions that illuminate diverse, often startling, facets of the Underworld: place of inspiration and support, revelation and knowledge, destruction and revenge, misery and insubstantiality, idyllic life and supreme bliss.

Research Interests: Greek Tragedy, Greek Comedy, Archaic poetry, Greek Religion, Ancient Ritual, Greek Literary Papyrology.

Styliani PAPASTAMATI
email: uclcstp@ucl.ac.uk

Research Interests: Epic, Lyric Poetry, Drama

Thesis title: (provisional) 'The Poetics of Marriage in archaic and classical Greek Poetry'

Thesis Abstract: My thesis entails a detailed study of the dramatic use of marriage in poetry of the archaic and classical periods from epic to new comedy. In Greek literature across centuries this institution, which was central to Greek life and culture, was loaded with certain values and associations which allowed it to be put to varied dramatic uses. It ranges from being a central thread to a plot device, central or marginal, or a vein of imagery. From marriage and discord in the Iliad, or marriage and absence in the Odyssey (where it is a central thread of the narrative), marriage is constantly shape-shifting, to figure for instance as an image for the victor’s achievement in Pindaric epinician odes. It often appears in contradictory form, for instance in Euripides’ Andromache, where the wife Hermione is given a pronouncedly negative characterisation, while the concubine Andromache turns out to be the perfect wife. Potential marriages, which are central to the plot of plays such as Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Aulis and Sophocles’ Antigone, are cancelled. The dramatic use of marriage shifts again in comedy, where it figures as the telos: goal, resolution, restoration.

Brief Biography: I hold a BA from the University of Thessaloniki and an MA from King's College London. I am working on my PhD under the supervision of Prof. C. Carey.

Andreas SERAFIM
email: andreas.serafim.10@ucl.ac.uk

http://classicsserandreas.weebly.com/

http://ucl.academia.edu/AndreasSeraphim

Research interests: Ancient Greek Oratory and Rhetoric, Performance culture, Ancient Medicine (especially the Hippocratic Corpus).

Description: my name is Andreas Serafim and I come from Cyprus. I read Classics at the University of Cyprus, where I awarded a BA in 2008. Then I pursued my postgraduate studies (MA 2010) at the University of Texas at Austin, under the supervision of Professor Michael Gagarin. While at UT Austin, I was Teaching (and Research) Assistant for ancient Greek and Latin language and literature classes. I am currently a PhD candidate (and Teaching Assistant) at the University College London (UCL).

Main research project:

Performing Justice: aspects of performance in selected speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes

My study centres on the examination of performance in specific speeches of Greek oratory. All we have from the courts and assembly of ancient Athens is inert text. Can we get back beyond it to the moment of performance? I argue that despite the inevitable limitations and the fair amount of speculation involved in an enterprise of this sort, various features of the transmitted text reveal a great about the law-court performance, enabling us to reconstruct a basic image. Performance approach is significant, if not inevitable, for oratory: for the Greeks, oratory was not primarily something they wrote, but something they performed before the audience. To be able to reconstruct a basic image about the way orators (Aeschines and Demosthenes in particular) perform their speeches before the law-court audience invigorates and enriches our understanding of Greek oratory.

My research work purposes to incite the scholarly interest and to stimulate further work on the analysis of oratorical texts as pieces of energetic oral persuasion. Four speeches of the forensic oratory form the research focus of this research work: Demosthenes’ On the Crown (speech 18) and On the False Embassy (speech 19) and Aeschines’ On the False Embassy (speech 2) and Against Ctesiphon (speech 3). I discuss the strategies, means, and modes of the communication between the speaker and the audience that can be extracted from the text and that shed light on the performance held at the original time. Three elements of performance that can be extracted from the oratorical text are under examination in this research work: specific techniques used by the speaker in order to engage and win over the audience, the portrayal of litigants’ character (ēthopoiia) and hypocrisis.

Publications: Book review (forthcoming): Journal of Hellenic Studies 132 (2012) - Sundahl, Mark, David Mirhady, and Ilias Arnaoutoglou (eds). A new working bibliography of ancient Greek law 7th - 4th centuries BC (Athens 2011)

Additional academic experience: Conference co-organizer - “A theatre of Justice: aspects performance in Greco-Roman oratory and rhetoric”, University College London, 19-20 April 2012

Mike WATERS
email: m.waters@ucl.ac.uk

Research interests: By ‘reception’ of ancient Greek tragedies I mean the reasons why they were relevant to people in the place and time that I am studying, how responses to them interacted with the intellectual and cultural context of that place and time, the various ways in which they were ‘used’ or ‘appropriated’ by contemporary writers, and how the plays impacted on them and the culture of the period. To that end, I am studying attitudes to ancient Greek tragedy in a number of areas of intellectual and cultural history in late C17 and early C18 England, including discussions of the nature and theory of tragedy, the ancients v moderns debate, Jeremy Collier’s attack on the immorality and profaneness of the Restoration stage, translations, adaptations of ancient plays for the English stage and the history of scholarship. Scholars have not usually studied the connections between those areas, including how they reflect attitudes to the past which will be an overarching theme of my thesis.

Brief biography: I took early retirement from the Inland Revenue in September 2005 and completed a BA in Ancient History and Egyptology, and an MA in Ancient History, at UCL, based in the History Department and the Institute of Archaeology. One of my MA modules was Ancient Greek Theatre and its Reception with Dr. Miriam Leonard, who agreed to be my supervisor when I found the subject so enjoyable and interesting that I decided to cross Gordon Street to the Greek and Latin Department to start postgraduate research in September 2010. I am also supervised by Dr. Paul Davis in the Department of English Language and Literature.

Chris WEBB
email: christopher.webb.09@ucl.ac.uk

Thesis title (provisional): oikeios polemos and the collective: Towards a new understanding of stasis and the Sophoclean chorus

Abstract: My research topic engages with the concept of ‘stasis’ in tragedy. This kind of civil strife and its divisive nature has most commonly been applied to the political disorder of late 5th century Athens. In modern scholarship, hypothesises that contrast opposing forces that at once conflict and bind are used to interpret the internal machinations of the Athenian civic sphere. In my thesis I am aiming to suggest an original alternative function for using this accepted conceptual model of internal stasis. Consisting of a renegotiation of the terms from which we examine civil strife, my aim is to re-contextualise and then apply this concept of division to the chorus of tragedy. Engaging primarily with Nicole Loraux’s research on anthropology and political historiography my intention is to illustrate that within tragedy, and more specifically, within the choruses of Sophocles’ Antigone and Electra, we find a similar conflict, internal division and friction.

Research interests: Alongside Tragedy, my interests include Homer, mythology and its representation in art, and Greek law.

Brief Academic biography: Having trained and worked as a Chef since leaving secondary school, I returned to higher education (part-time) taking my BA hons (Classical Studies), from Birkbeck, University of London, where I wrote my dissertation on gender in the Iliad. I stayed at Birkbeck for my Masters (Classical Civilisation), writing my dissertation on xenia laws in the Odyssey. In January 2010 I moved to UCL, under the supervision of Dr Miriam Leonard, and again, am to be found on the part-time route.

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