In my home town of Derby, I attended a school that taught no classical subjects; it was my A-level Religious Studies teacher who encouraged my interest in the ancient world, supporting me ultimately to apply for Classics at university. My own life has been marked by teachers who refuse to set boundaries to knowledge, and who see the humanities as vitally connected to each other – a value I hope to bring to my work through the community at Ertegun House.
I took up Latin and Greek from scratch at Cambridge, where I was awarded the Chancellor's Medal for Proficiency in Classical Learning. At my undergraduate college, Girton, I developed a taste for Latin off the beaten track (for which my supervisors may be blamed) and for amateur dramatics (for which they may not), both of which have influenced the directions of my research.
My research broadly focuses on Roman comedy, a set of plays that constitute the earliest texts to survive intact from ancient Rome. They were produced during Rome's early growth as an imperial power, and they participate in this process in all sorts of ways – from the parts of society that are mocked, to the ambiguous origins of the plays themselves. Scholars are divided on the relationship between these Latin "versions" and Greek comedies now lost, the balance between improv and scripting, and the status of those who could write for, or watch, the Roman stage. Historians, linguists, and Roman writers themselves have long raided comedy, in its position as early literature, for insight into their particular fields, and I am interested in the picture of Rome that is projected by, and constructed from, these plays across history and ideology. In my MSt this year, I intend to explore the history of scholarship on comedy, the processes and implications of editing texts produced for the stage, and the reception of comedy in writers of the Late Republic and beyond.
Aside from comedy, I am interested in Neo-Latin texts, especially those produced in Latin America; ways of covertly addressing dictatorship through literature of all periods and places, from Ovid to Chico Buarque; and a pipe-dream project of mine, born of many childhood evenings, exploring the soap opera as a literary phenomenon. Ertegun House promises a rich environment to explore these avenues with interesting people from all kinds of disciplines, embodying the variety that makes the humanities so rewarding.
I am a keen (if amateur) climber, and, when my forearms have had enough, play guitar. I intend to retire (for the foreseeable) from directing plays, out of respect for my blood pressure – though if the opportunity to stage some Plautus comes up, who knows...
