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Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East

Members of the Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East

Prof. Barbara Graziosi

Director (Arts & Humanities) in the Institute of Advanced Study

Contact Prof. Barbara Graziosi (email at barbara.graziosi@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

What interests me is ancient Greek literature, and the way in which readers make it their own - 'the balance between the classical and the familiar', as Cesare Pavese put it. In my first book, Inventing Homer (Cambridge 2002), I argued that early stories about Homer tell us something important about the way archaic and classical audiences imagined the poet and understood his poetry. My second book, written together with Johannes Haubold, explores the relationship between Homeric epic and wider Greek views about the cosmos and its history. After Homer: The Resonance of Epic (London 2005), Johannes and I devoted five years to a commentary on Iliad 6 (Cambridge 2010), where we explore the last encounter between Hector and his wife Andromache, and what it reveals about war and marriage. I have also edited two volumes: Homer in the 20th Century: Between World Literature and the Western Canon (Oxford 2007), with Emily Greenwood, explores the place of Homer in the literary landscape of the twentieth century; The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies, edited with George Boys-Stones and Phiroze Vasunia (Oxford 2009), was my attempt at getting a panoramic view of the field of Hellenic Studies.

The connections between ancient literature and its many readers from different times and places are also important to my teaching and outreach. A Durham Excellence in Teaching Award and my National Teaching Fellowship funded projects that linked academic research, undegraduate teaching, and work in the local community. I am now collaborating with Changeling Productions, a theatre company interested - like me - in exploring how the Lives of the ancient poets were used, and can be used, to articulate the connections between ancient literature and lived experience.

My next major projects are a history of the Olympian gods (for Profile Books and Metropolitan/Holt) and - together with Andrew Laird at Warwick and Johanna Hanink at Cambridge - an investigation of the Lives of the ancient poets: their origins, transmission, and reception. I am also writing an introduction to a new translation of the Iliad for Oxford World Classics, and A Very Short Introduction to Homer for OUP. For more information on current projects and ideas, here is a link to my home page.

Current PhD students

Lilah-Grace Fraser: Hesiod's Works and Days: A Commentary

Paola Bassino: The Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi: A Commentary

Craig Hannaway: Scholarship and Creativity: Anne Carson and Ruth Padel

Francesca Richards: Homer's Odyssey in Childrens' Literature

Catherine Goode:  The Iliad and the Epic Cycle: Reception and Intertextuality

Publications

Articles: newspaper

  • Graziosi, Barbara (2009). ‘Where’s the Gravy?’. London Review of Books
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2009). 'The Canon: Parry's The Making of Homeric Verse'. Times Higher Education Supplement
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2009). 'Why Socrates Died'. Times Higher Education Supplement
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2008). 'Flower or Fungus'. London Review of Books

Books: authored

Books: edited

Essays in edited volumes

  • Graziosi, Barbara (2010). 'Hesiod in Classical Athens: Orators and Platonic Discourse'. In Plato and Hesiod. Boys-Stones, G. & Haubold, J. H. Oxford: 111-132.
  • Graziosi, B. (2009). 'Commentaries'. In The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 788-801.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2009). 'Horace, Suetonius and the Lives of the Greek Poets'. In Perceptions of Horace: A Roman Poet and His Readers. Houghton, L. & Wyke, M. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 140-160.
  • Graziosi, Barbara & Haubold, Johannes (2007). 'Greek Lyric and Early Greek Literary History'. In The Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric Poetry. Budelmann, F. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 95-113.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2007). 'Homer in Albania: the geography of literature'. In Homer in the Twentieth Century: Between World Literature and the Western Canon. Graziosi, Barbara & Greenwood, Emily Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2007). 'The ancient reception of Homer'. In The Blackwell Companion to Classical Receptions. Hardwick, L. & Stray, C. Oxford:
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2006). 'L'autore e l'opera nella tradizione biografica greca'. In L'autore e l'opera nella Grecia antica. Lanza, D. & Roscalla, F. Pavia:
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2004). 'Homer: Die Erfindung des Autors'. In Mythen Europas: Schluesselfigurern der Imagination. Hartmann, A. & Neumann, M. Regensburg: Pusted Verlag. 44-65.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2004). 'La definizione dell'opera omerica nel periodo arcaico e classico'. In Momenti della ricezione omerica: poesia arcaica e teatro. Zanetto, G., Canavero, D., Capra, A. & Sgobbi, A. Milan: Cisalpino. 2-17.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2001). 'Competition in Wisdom'. In Homer, tagedy and beyond essays in honour of P.E. Easterling. Budelmann, F. & Michelakis, P. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. 57-74.

Journal papers: academic

  • Graziosi, Barbara & Haubold, Johannes (2003). 'Homeric Masculinity: ΗΝΟΡΕΗ and ΑΓΗΝΟΡΙΗ'. Journal of Hellenic Studies 123: 60-76.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2001). P.Oxy.4569. 'Demosthenes XIX 1-7, 9-13, 208-22, 309-10, 314-15'. Papyri of Oxyrhynchus 67: 66-80.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2001). Per uno studio di Omero tra il sesto e il quarto secolo. Posthomerica 3: 7-22.

Journal papers: popular

  • Graziosi, Barbara & Duffy, Carol Ann (2005). Homeric encounters. Omnibus 6-8.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2002). Gods and poets in the Odyssey. Omnibus 43: 4-6.
  • Graziosi, Barbara (2001). Homer, espionage and Albanian complexities. Omnibus 41: 6.



GRADUATE STUDENTS

Archaeology

Classics and Ancient History

Physics

Theology and Religion