I studied for my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Magdalen College, Oxford. I then taught in Oxford as a Junior Research Fellow (Trinity College, 2006-9) and as a Lecturer in Classics (New College, 2009-10), and subsequently held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at UCL (2010-12), before coming to the OU.
My research interests are in the field of archaic and classical Greek poetry and drama. I am currently completing a commentary on the seventh-century BC poet Archilochus. The ancients considered Archilochus second only to Homer in importance, but the fragmentary state of his text has led to his being neglected by modern scholars. However, the discovery of new Archilochus poems throughout the latter half of the twentieth century (and most recently a major new fragment in 2005) has reaffirmed his importance in the development of Greek poetry. My previous research has been on Greek tragedy, and in particular on the relationship between the tragic chorus and other types of choral song performed in Greek society: my book on this subject was published in 2010.
I have taught widely on topics covering both Greek and Latin languages and literature, and I am looking forward to contributing to a range of modules at the OU.
Contact: laura.swift@open.ac.uk
The Hidden Chorus: Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Euripides: Ion (Duckworth: Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy, 2008).
“Telephus on Paros: Genealogy and Myth in the New Archilochus Poem (P.Oxy.LXIX 4708)”. Forthcoming in Classical Quarterly.
“Euripides: Medea”, forthcoming in in The Blackwell Companion to Euripides, ed. R. Mitchell-Boyask (Blackwell-Wiley).
“Visual imagery in Parthenaic Song”, forthcoming in The Look of Lyric: Greek Song and the Visual, eds A. Lardinois, R. Martin, and A.-E. Peponi (Brill).
“Conflicting Identities in the Euripidean Chorus”, forthcoming in Choral Mediations, eds R. Gagné and M. Hopman, (CUP, 2012).
“Archilochus the ‘Anti-Hero’? Heroism, Flight and Values in Homer and the New Archilochus Fragment”. Journal of Hellenic Studies 132 (2012): 139-55.”
“Paeanic and Epinician Healing in Euripides' Alcestis”, in Greek Drama IV, eds D.Rosenbloom and J. Davidson (Oxbow, 2012): 149-68.
“Epinician and Tragic Worlds in Sophocles' Trachiniae”, in Archaic and Classical Choral Song: Performance, Politics, and Dissemination, eds L. Athanassaki and E. Bowie (de Gruyter, 2011): 391-413.
“The Symbolism of Space in Euripidean Choral Fantasy (Hipp. 732-75, Med. 824-65, Bacch. 370-433)”. Classical Quarterly 59.1 (2009): 364-82.
“How to Make a Goddess Angry: Making Sense of the Demeter Ode in Euripides’ Helen”. Classical Philology 104.4 (2009): 418-38.
“Sexual and Familial Distortion in Euripides’ Phoenissae”. Transactions of the American Philological Association 139.1 (2009): 53-87.
“Mixed Choruses and Marriage Songs: A New Interpretation of the Third Stasimon of the Hippolytos”. Journal of Hellenic Studies 126 (2006): 125-40.
See also Open Research Online for further details of Laura Swift’s research publications.
I am firmly committed to bringing Classics to a wider audience, and participate in a range of activities which aim to achieve this. I have recently acted as academic consultant to the National Theatre’s production of Antigone, and am involved in the Mayor of London’s “Love Latin” scheme, which aims to bring classical topics to children at London state schools. I speak regularly at schools and sixth form conferences, and am happy to be contacted directly by teachers.
