Research

Research identity

The Department of Classics at Leeds is an internationally recognised centre of research.  The last few years have seen refinements to our research identity, a significant increase in external funding awards, vibrant growth in our postgraduate community, and improvements to our research schedule and support structures.

Research Identity

The Classics Research Identity is based on a shared concern with the lived experience of Graeco-Roman antiquity as evidenced in its literature, philosophy and values, religion and material culture.  Our relatively small size as a Department provides easy opportunity for informal exchange of and collaboration in research ideas.  Our individual and collective projects are coordinated within four major research strands:

• Literatures and Philosophies
• Community and Identity
• Religious Thought and Practice
• Classics Across Media (CLAM)

Research funding

The Department has been particularly successful in attracting research grant income over the last few years.  In spring 2008, in collaboration with the University of Reading, we gained a major AHRC grant for the Names on Terra Sigillata project (£412K), which has now published 7 of a projected 9 volumes, while an online database is being developed in collaboration with the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz.  In 2008-9 Roger Brock's project Greek Political Imagery from Homer to Aristotle (Duckworth 2012) was supported by a British Academy Senior Research Fellowship (£39K).  In the same year Roger also gained a British Academy Visiting Research Fellowship (£15K) on behalf of a colleague from the Sorbonne.  In 2010-11 Regine May's project Apuleius, Metamorphoses Book I won an AHRC Early Career Research Fellowship (£56K).  Over the two years 2010-12 Malcolm Heath’s project Aristotle and the anthropology of poetry has been supported by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (£82K).

Classics journals

The Department is proud to host its own online journal Leeds International Classical Studies, edited by Malcolm Heath.  In addition, Roger Brock is currently editor of the internationally renowned Journal of Hellenic Studies, published by Cambridge University Press for the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.

Collective research projects

Our major current research project outlined on the Names on Terra Sigillata page.  Other projects currently in development include:

i)  The Ancient World at the Movies
Ray Harryhausen’s distinctive brand of film animation of classical myth has captured the imagination of generations of viewers – his animation of skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Medusa in Clash of the Titans (1981) are legendary.  Classics joined with the National Media Museum at Bradford to celebrate the Museum’s recent acquisition of Harryhausen’s collection.  Steve Green and Penny Goodman organised the conference Animating Antiquity: Harryhausen and the Classical Tradition (November 2011), the proceedings of which are to be published in New Voices in Classical Reception Studies.  Future collaboration with the Museum is planned as the collection is gradually transferred to Bradford.

ii)  Hercules: a Hero for All Times
This project builds on the work of Emma Stafford on the ancient Greek hero, especially her recent monograph Herakles (Routledge 2012).  A major conference in 2013 will be the first step in an international collaboration which will aim to chart and account for Hercules’ extraordinary popularity in a wide variety of cultural milieux from late antiquity to the present day. Just a few of the topics to be explored are: Hercules’ appropriation by Christianity, his emergence as the Renaissance model of virtue, his status as political emblem, Herculean themes in music, re-workings of dramas concerning his tragic madness and death.

iii)  Commemorating Augustus
Penny Goodman's project centres on the bimillennium of the emperor Augustus’ death and will have two strands: a conference on Augustus in the 21st century, to be held on / around the bimillennium itself (August 19th 2014); a related monograph, using the example of the Augustan bimillenium to explore issues around the commemoration of the past.

Individual researchers

For details on individual members of staff, their research interests and publications, see the 'People' section (via the top menu).

For details on postgraduate research, see our Postgraduate Community page.