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Associate Professor in Classics (Teaching) / Senior Fellow HEA
Email: a.makrinos@ucl.ac.uk
Office hours: online Thursdays 12-1pm and Fridays 4-5pm
Research interests: Homer, scholarship in Byzantium (esp. Eustathius of Thessalonica and reception of the Homeric text with emphasis on allegorical interpretation), reception studies (esp. modern reception of Homer in cinema and modern poetry).
I was born and educated in Chios (Greece). I studied Classics at the University of Athens and then moved to UCL with a private scholarship in 1998-9 in order to complete a one-year MA in Classics at the Department of Greek and Latin. In 2000, I was offered a scholarship for a PhD in Classics on "Eustathius' Commentary on Homer's Odyssey (ch. 1379-97)" under the supervision of Prof. R. Janko and Prof. C. Carey which I completed in 2004, and in the following years I continued my research on this subject as a Postdoc Research Fellow. Since then I have worked as a Lecturer in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London and as a Research and Teaching Fellow at KCL and UCL. Since 2012 I have been a member of the Department of Greek and Latin as a Teaching Fellow in Classics, and recently, I have become a Senior Teaching Fellow in Classics and a Senior Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
I am also a member of EUROCLASSICA and a Member of the Council of the Hellenic Society. For the last 7 years I have also served as the Director of the Summer School in Homer which takes place every year at the Dept of Greek Latin, UCL.
Publications
Books
• Eustathius' Commentary on the Odyssey - book 1 (Routledge ~ contracted for 2023)
• Codex Sinaiticus: New Perspectives on the Ancient Biblical Manuscript (assistant editor), British Library 2015
Recent Articles
• "Paraphrasing Homer: In search of Demosthenes Thrax" chapter in Companion to the Reception of Homer, from the Hellenistic Age to Late Antiquity, ed. by Ch. Manolea (submitted - to be published by Brill).
• "We are all Trojans...": Homer's poetic legacy, BBC History Magazine, May 2016
• "Perceptions of Greece in the works of Roman authors" (in Europatria, ed. F. de Oliveira, Centre of Classical and Humanistic Studies of the University of Coimbra, Lisbon 2013)
• "Tragedy in Byzantium: Sophocles in Eustathius' Commentary on the Odyssey" (in Dialogues with the Past, vol. I, (BICS Supplement 125), ed. by A. Bakogianni, London 2013)
• "In search of ancient myths: documentaries and the quest for the Homeric world" (in Classics in the Modern World: a 'Democratic Turn'?, ed. by L. Hardwick and S. J. Harrison, Oxford University Press: Oxford 2013).
• The Homer Encyclopedia (edited by M. Finkelberg) Includes three entries "Eustathius", "Byzantine Reception", "Homeric paraphrases" Blackwell, 2011
• "Eustathius' archbishop of Thessalonica Commentary on the Odyssey: Codex Marcianus 460 and Parisinus 2702 revisited" Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, vol. 50, (2007) pp. 171-192
Reviews
• Corinne Pache, "The Cambridge guide to Homer" BMCR (to be published)
• R. Hunter, "The measure of Homer", The Classical Review (2020) no 70.1 16-18.
• R. J. Cunliffe, "A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect", International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 2014.
• S. Montiglio, "From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought", BMCR 2012
• G. D. Bird, Multitextuality in the Homeric Iliad, The Witness of the Ptolemaic Papyri, (Hellenic Studies 43), The Classical Review 62 (2012) no 1, 8-10.
• K. A. Raaflaub - H. Van Wees, "A Companion to Archaic Greece", The Classical Review - Aug. 2010
• M. Mueller, "The Iliad" Second edition, The Classical Review 60 (2010) no 2, 604.
• M.M.Winkler, "Troy: from Homer's Iliad to Hollywood epic", Scholia 16 (2007) 47
Radio & Film
• Actors of Dionysus, Daily Dose, reading a passage from The Odyssey on YOUTUBE
• "Katherine of Alexandria" 2011, Carol Winifred Film Studios - Spiked Wheel films, inspired by the recent discovery of the 4th c. diary of St. Katherine (academic advice & translation)
• "Byzantium Unearthed", BBC Radio 4, presented by Bettany Hughes (contribution on Homer and Eustathius)
• "The Forum: The Iliad Beauty, Brutes and Battles", BBC World Service, presented by Bettany Hughes (contribution to a panel about the Iliad)
Projects in progress
- Eustathius project: The aim of this project is to accomplish an edition of Eustathius' Commentary on the Odyssey (Book 1) with an English translation, and expanded explanatory notes.
Talks for Schools
• Homer and popular media
• Introduction to Homer
• Homer in Cinema
• Heroism in Homer
• The Gods in the Iliad and the Odyssey
• Modern reception of Homer
• Women in the Homeric epics
Teaching
for some innovative teaching news and projects have a look here: -
