Research

Examples of the fields we work in include:

• languages, multilingualism, and translation in the ancient world
• ancient religions, including early Christianity
• the ancient material world
• the classical tradition and reception studies
• ancient literature, particularly drama, lyric, and biography
• ancient music
• the ancient economy
• the transition from the Roman Empire to the Islamic Caliphate.

In the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, 95% of the University of Reading's research in Classics is rated of international standing (REF 2021, combining 4*, 3* and 2* submissions).

Academics in the Department of Classics carry out research both individually and in structured clusters and groups.

Our research activity is organised in three research clusters.

• Communities and Networks – looks at the internal make-up of ancient communities and the networks within which they operated. 
• Disciplinary Interfaces – challenges conceptual boundaries imposed by previous generations of scholarship.
• Legacies – focuses on how ancient culture was received both within antiquity and in the modern period, as well as studying its contemporary relevance.

Our research community is internationally recognised and has received numerous prestigious awards.

• Dr Emma Aston – Margo Tytus Visiting Fellowship, University of Cincinnati (2021) 
• Professor Ian Rutherford – Research Fellow, Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Bochum, Germany: "Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe" (2018–19)
• Professor Katherine Harloe – British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2018–19): "Winckelmann's Love Letters"
• Professor Rachel Mairs – British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2018–19): "Teach Yourself Arabic: Foreigners Learning Colloquial Arabic", 1850–1945
• Professor Annalisa Marzano – Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2017–2019): "'Grafting Glory': New Plants, the Economy and Elite Identity in Ancient Rome"
• Dr Arietta Papaconstantinou – Gerda Henkel Foundation Research Scholarship (2015–2016): "Credit, Debt, and the Transformation of Rural Society in Egypt and Palestine from Constantine to the Abbasids"; ERC Award (2013 ff.): "The Cult of Saints: a Christendom-wide Study of its Origin, Spread and Development"
• Professor Amy Smith – Visiting Fellow, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University (2017): "Encountering strangers in Classical Athenian Art".

Classics has informed and underpinned many aspects of the humanities: history, literature and art have all been influenced and inspired by the ancient world.

We have strong links to a number of research centres and groups at the University, where we collaborate with academics from across the humanities:

• Centre for Hellenic Studies
• Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies
• Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism
• Centre for Health Humanities
• Gender History Research Cluster
• Early Modern Research Centre.

Members of our staff contribute to prestigious international research networks, and we engage in collaborative research within and beyond the edges of our discipline.

We have formal partnerships with universities in Europe, North America and China. We reach worldwide audiences through digital scholarship and online courses, and regularly host international conferences and welcome academic visitors from overseas.

We are always open to exploring new international and interdisciplinary collaborations – please contact us for more information.

Dr Jack (John) Hanson, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, is researching new insights into Greek and Roman urbanism. His work focuses on the relationships between the sizes of cities and various aspects of the built environment.

His work is based on an emerging collection of theories, known as settlement scaling theory, which suggests a series of formal, mathematical models for how the attributes of settlements change as the size of their populations increase or decrease.

This approach allows us to create expectations for the characteristics of settlements based on their size. Where settlements don't match these expectations, we have a base from which to explore the socioeconomic reasons why. 

Dr Oliver Baldwin, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, explores how Greco-Roman tragedy has been used by queer artists to speak, embody, enact, subvert and expose queerness in his project Queer Tragedy.

Queer Tragedy takes a threefold international perspective of queer theory, queer history and queer performance, and their engagement with the plays and characters of Greco-Roman tragedy.

The project intends to answer these questions: Why is classical tragedy such a fertile tool for queer theatre? What does a queer reading of it imply? How has tragedy informed the LGBTQI+ community regarding their identity, desire or discourse?

Call for Papers for conference Tragedy Queered  to be held Summer 2023.

Dr Signe Barfoed, Research Council of Norway Postdoctoral Fellow, is currently investigating how myth, memory, and rituals interrelated with the creation of civic identity in Kalydon.

Working in collaboration with the Archaeology Department at the University of Oslo, she is publishing the pottery and dedicatory objects (votives) from the Artemis Laphria sanctuary in Kalydon, which have never previously been studied.

The architecture and topography were published in 1948, but since the pottery and votives were never published, a big piece of the puzzle is missing concerning the rituals that took place in the early life of the sanctuary in the Geometric period.