Interviews

An interview with Rachel Kousser, author of The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, and Destruction

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Rachel, thank you for taking the time to talk to us about your book, The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, and Destruction. The ‘afterlives’ in the title of your book are mainly the things that were done to statues to harm or desecrate them, but you give us a wonderful picture of what statues … Read more

Emily Wilson interview

An interview with Emily Wilson, translator of Homer’s Odyssey – Part 2

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Part 2 of the interview. Read Part 1 here.   You are – famously by now – the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English. Your reviewers have tended to focus on that, either to praise your reading of the Odyssey which ‘exposes centuries of masculinist readings of the poem’, or to single out … Read more

An interview with Matthew Simonton, author of Classical Greek Oligarchy: a Political History

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Matt, thank you for taking the time to talk to us about your book, Classical Greek Oligarchy: a Political History, which has a wide frame of reference. You not only cite a very wide range of ancient authors and sources, you also bring in modern political theorists and examples from modern political situations to support your analysis. But then you seem to have studied several different disciplines at university; not just classics and ancient history but modern politics and political theory, and theatre too. Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you made these choices? Do you think perhaps the American university system gives more freedom to cross boundaries between academic disciplines than a British university would normally do?

I’ve always been interested in the “big picture” concerning politics and society. As an undergraduate, despite being a Classics major, I think it’s fair to say I was obsessed with political philosophy and political theory, and read them every chance I got.

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