Postgraduate research in Classics
We provide a supportive environment to our students in a number of ways:
- Postgraduates play a full role in the research culture of the subject, with a regular programme of seminars, workshops and reading groups;
- Individual postgraduate review panels are held each April/May at which the Postgraduate Convener and individual supervisors meet to discuss progress with each student
- Postgraduates may get teaching experience;
- A dedicated postgraduate study space is available, which makes available an extensive research collection (now augmented by a bequest from the late Professor Douglas MacDowell)
There are a number of attractions to studying for a postgraduate degree in Classics at Glasgow, from the very well-stocked University Library, to the Hunterian Museum (with its notably fine coin collection).
Staff members would be delighted to supervise in any of the areas set out above, or any others where they have research interests (see their respective list of publications). Other areas supervised recently include Greek scientific and medical writing, Roman eschatology and numismatics (in conjunction with the Hunterian Museum). Please do not hesitate to contact members of staff to discuss potential research projects.
The postgraduate experience
‘I studied Classics at Glasgow for seven years: first as an undergraduate, and then as a doctoral candidate. Without a doubt, they were the fullest and most rewarding years of my life: not only because of my own interest in the subject and the top-drawer resources provided to cultivate that interest (including a library with two million books!), but also because of the truly nurturing and warm character of the Classics department.
By far the highest point in my Ph.D. was my work as a graduate teaching assistant, in which capacity I usually spent about three or four hours a week in the classroom; just enough to keep me on the ball and keep my routine structured, but not so much as to be overwhelming. It was fantastic: when classes were voluble and well-prepared, I left the seminars buzzing and have formed some genuinely fun and fulfilling friendships with some of my former students. The way in which Classics at Glasgow makes teaching an integral part of the Ph.D. programme – unless one really doesn’t want to do it – is really distinctive to Glasgow and encouraged me to do things of which I never would have believed myself capable. Standing at the front of a lecture theatre for the first time and speaking for an hour about Plato, with a video recorder and fifty students watching you, is absolutely terrifying, but truly thrilling and rewarding.
As such, the Ph.D. programme Classics at Glasgow has helped me to grow unrecognisably in confidence and self-awareness. Recently, I’ve been lucky to have the opportunity to put this new-found self-confidence to good use: having finished my doctorate, I now work as an editorial assistant on a research project within the university, and in September I’ll be taking up a post as Lecturer in Roman history at Durham. I am absolutely convinced that this would have been impossible without the opportunities and experience offered to me in Classics at Glasgow and without the close networks of support and advice created by my colleagues and research supervisors. The only thing I really dislike about Classics at Glasgow is the fact that I have to leave!’
Christopher Burden-Strevens, Glasgow alumnus 2016
Current research students
| Lee BAKER | MPhil by Research | Investigating sexual imagery & vocabulary in Horace's Epodes |
| Kirsten BLACKHAM | MPhil by Research | The Daughters of Ptolemy: Gendered Negotiations of Power in Rome's transition from Republic to Empire |
| Breanna JOHNSON | PhD | Exploring the Significance of Eileithyia and Related Deities in Ancient Worship |
| Felix LEE | Master of Research | Interpreting Ancient Trauma - Possible Purposes of Suicide and Addiction as Themes in Ancient Narratives |
| Jinlu LI | PhD | Between Tragedy and Philosophy:Aristophanes' Divine Writings |
| Aaron POCOCK | PhD | Hatred and its Antecedents: The Weaponisation of Archaic to Classical Sparta |
| Andreas PRASINOS | PhD | Unveiling the Psyche of Female Heroines: A Criminal Profiling Analysis of Clytemnestra and Medea in Ancient Greek and Roman Tragedies |
| Francesca TODD | MPhil by Research | Etruscan black pottery and Athenian black figure vases: Between Etruria and Sicily |
| Kristian WONG | PhD | How did Rome’s political elite utilise divinisation and religious rhetoric to influence the political discourse of the Late Republic and Principate: A study of apotheosis and the divine in Roman political imagination |
Recently completed theses
PhDs
- Gardner MOORE, Stoic Pietas in the Aeneid: a study of the poem's ideological appeal and reception (2021)
- Gavin STEWART, Exercising judgments in the world: a consideration of Cicero's theoretical writings on politics and their continuing relevance to International Political Theory (2021)
- Ianto JOCKS, Scribonius Largus' Compounding of Drugs (Compositiones medicamentorum): introduction, translation, and medico-historical comments (2020)
- James McDONALD, Paideia in the poetry of Gregory Nazianzen (2020)
- Joel LESLIE, Between panegyric and history: literary representations of the Emperor Valentinian I (364-375) (2019)
- Francesco GRILLO, Hero of Alexandria's Automata: a critical edition and translation, including a commentary on Book One (2019)
- Sarah GRAHAM, Classical elements in early Christian depictions of the afterlife (2018)
- Sarah WOLSTENCROFT, Generic refashioning and poetic self-presentation in Horace's Satires and Epodes (2017)
- Christopher BURDEN-STREVENS, Cassius Dio's speeches and the collapse of the Roman Republic (2015)
- Jennifer HILDER, Recontextualising the Rhetorica ad Herennium (2015)
- Nicola McCONNELL, How the citizen-warrior was created in Classical Athens and Sparta (2015)
- Eric GOWLING, Aetius of Amida. Libri Medicinales Book 1: A Translation with Commentary (2015)
MPhil by Research
- Alison GREER, Trajanic monumentality and the legacy of Augustus: appropriation, emulation and transformation (2019)
- Mads LINDHOLMER, Cassius Dio, competition and the decline of the Roman Republic (2017)
Masters of Research (MRes)
- Alexander MOSS, To what extent did Aurelian successfully stabilise the Roman Empire during his reign with his campaigns, policies and reforms? (2023)
- Dominic LAVERY, The function and the content of the dream in Homer: Penelope’s dream and the Gates of Dreams in Odyssey 19 (2023)
- Mark McCAHILL, The findings of the Roman eye: memory, visual engagement and ancestral legacy imagery (2021)
- Marisol ERDMAN, A study of visual hallucination in classical and Hellenistic antiquity (2019)
- James McDONALD, Religion and narrative in the "Metamorphoses" of Apuleius (2016)
New Library of Alexandria
The New Library of Alexandria is a creative colloquium founded by and created for postgraduate Classics students. The group aims to create and engage in personal creative projects anchored in the ancient world. This allows its members to interact with history in new ways and expand their skill sets. Like its namesake, the New Library of Alexandria is a place where scholars of all backgrounds can come together, collaborate and support one another. We’ll be featuring some of these projects on this page very soon!
Profile of current PhD student, Aaron Pocock
Project
Hatred and its Antecedents: The Weaponisation of Archaic to Classical Sparta in 21st Century American Far-Right Politics
My project will examine the various ways that far/alt-right political groups in the United States engage with and weaponise the descriptions of Ancient Sparta that have been provided to us by ancient texts (e.g Tyrtaeus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon). The main goal of this project will hopefully shed light on how the Classics have been appropriated to suit the socio-political ideologies of modern hate groups in the United States.
Biography
I came to Glasgow from UCL, where I studied a masters in Classical Reception. Before that, I graduated from the University of Leicester with a degree in Ancient History & History. My fascination with Sparta began during my college years studying Classics; however, it was my masters studies whilst looking into antiquity and fascism, as well as the ancient world in American culture, that cemented my passion for my project.
Profile of current PGR student, Kirsten Blackham
Project
Gendered Politico-religious Power Dynamics in the Ptolemaic Dynasty
This intersectional project is a case study of Cleopatra VII’s shared reign with her son, Pharaoh Ptolemy XV. It discusses how her religious iconography and royal titularity are consistent or inconsistent with the gendered politico-religious power dynamics of other ruling couples in the Ptolemaic Dynasty. It also confronts foreign narratives and opinions that are neither consistent nor contemporary with primary source material from Egypt during her reign and yet persists despite this incongruency.
Biography
I came to the University of Glasgow for the Taught MSc Gender History programme, in which I had the opportunity to work with Lady Shepenhor in the Hunterian Museum. I then entered the PhD programme in the Classics department and began working on my current project. I am interested in research ethics and the difficult questions about social biases in ancient narratives as well as modern discourse, and how they can be addressed in future research.
Profile of recently-completed (2024) PhD student, Jamie Young
Project
‘Comparative Psychological Approaches to Roman Slavery from the Late Republic to Early Principate’.
Biography
I am a mature student who already lived in Glasgow when I began my undergraduate degree at the university, and I have just kept on going! My PhD topic is a continuation of my MA dissertation, which was itself inspired by a chance reading of Roman legislation that discussed the incidence of slaves committing suicide. More generally, I am interested in interdisciplinary approaches to antiquity and how classics can be used to impact on modern social issues.