Emily Greenwood
DUS Greek language and literature
She is currently writing a book entitled Classics: a Beginner's Guide, for Oneworld Publications.
Her research interests include ancient Greek historiography, Greek prose literature of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, twentieth century classical receptions (especially uses of Classics in Africa, Britain, the Caribbean, and Greece), Classics and Postcolonialism, and the theory and practice of translating the ‘classics’ of Greek and Roman literature. She is more than happy to talk to students who are interested in working in any of these areas.
Recent Publications
- ‘The Greek Thucydides: Venizelos’ Translation of Thucydides, in K. Harloe and N. Morley (eds.) Thucydides and the Modern World: Reception, Reinterpretation & Influence from the Renaissance to the Present. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
- ‘Dislocating Black Classicism: Classics and the Black Diaspora in the Poetry of Aimé Césaire and Kamau Brathwaite’, in African Athena: New Agendas, edited by Daniel Orrells, Gurminder K. Bhambra, and Tessa Roynon. Oxford University Press, 2011: 362-380.
- ‘The Politics of Classicism in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley’, in Ancient Slavery and Abolition: From Hobbes to Hollywood, edited by Edith Hall, Richard Alston, and Justine McConnell. Oxford University Press, 2011: pp. 153-179.
- ‘Corruption and the Corruptibility of Logos in Greek Historiography’. Special Issue of Acta Classica 2012.
Forthcoming
Click here for CV
featured Courses This Year
CLCV 238/HUMS 269/LITR 153
Classics in Black
Spring 2013, W 3:30-5:20 Areas: HU
This course fulfills the area requirement in the humanities and arts (HU)
A course on the reception of Greco-Roman classics in different Black traditions from 1783 to the present day. The course will explore how various black writers and artists read and reinterpreted a classical canon that had been used to furnish arguments for colonialism, imperialism, and modern racism. Works to be studied will include drama from Nigeria and South Africa (Ola Rotimi; Wole Soyinka; Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona; Yael Farber), Caribbean poetry and
autobiography (C. L. R. James, Aimé Césaire, Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Austin Clarke, NourbeSe Philip), and classicism in African American letters and art, including Phillis Wheatley, William S. Scarborough, W. E. B. Du Bois, Romare Bearden, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Rita Dove.
Download syllabus here
Back to featured courses
CLCV 265 / HUMS 465 / LITR 153
Contemporary Receptions of Greek and Roman Classics
Fall 2012, W 2:30-4:30 Areas: HU
This course fulfills the area requirement in the humanities and arts (HU)
This course will explore contemporary responses to Greek and Roman Classics with a view to understanding the role of readers and audiences in the constant adaptation and reinvention of classical texts. Throughout, the emphasis will be less on a received classical tradition, and more on moments of engagement and resuscitation as successive readers breathe new life into the classical corpus. Responding to recent scholarship, we will consider the trauma of modern history as an impetus for engagement with the Classics, and will explore the concept of post-classical Classics.
In addition to the study of specific works in their historical and cultural contexts, we will also address broader theoretical issues, such as the tension between the epic and the fragmentary in contemporary receptions; the relationship between the classical past, historicism, modernism, postmodernism, and the unknown future; and the role of classical imitation in the construction of western subjectivity.
A corresponding lecture series entitled ‘Greece and Rome, Continued’ (see p.4 below) will bring novelists, poets, and academics to Yale and to our seminar to talk about their own adaptations of Greek and Roman Classics.
Download syllabus here
