Prof Naoko Yamagata
Staff Tutor And Professor Of Classical Studies
Biography
Professional biography
Naoko Yamagata studied Classics at International Christian University (BA), Tsukuba University (MA), University College London (MA and PhD) and King’s College London (PGCE). Before joining the Department of Classical Studies of the OU in 2000, she taught Classics at University College London and University of Wales, Lampeter and also tutored three OU Classical Studies modules as Associate Lecturer.
Research interests
Her research interests centre on Homer, including reception of Homer in antiquity, especially in Plato and Virgil, and comparison of Homer and the Tale of the Heike, a Medieval Japanese epic.
Current work:
Current projects include Homer's cosmology and Plato's use of Homer.
Publications
Book
Reading Homer: Iliad Books 16 and 18 (2022)
A New Interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus: In the Light and Darkness of Apollo (2014)
Book Chapter
Homer's Universe: Heaven, Earth and the Underworld (2025)
Thetis and the Shield of Achilles – Reading the Iliad with Auden (2023)
Homeric Summaries in Plato (2020)
Thetis: the goddess between four worlds (2020)
The Justice of Zeus revisited (2014)
Epithets with echoes: A study on formula-narrative interaction (2012)
Hesiod in Plato - Second fiddle to Homer? (2010)
Disaster revisited - Ate and the Litai in Homer's Iliad (2005)
Journal Article
The Relaxed Tutorial Project: distance learning and anxiety in Classical Studies (2024)
Socrates the Homer-lover as portrayed in Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes (2022)
Suicide in Homer and the Tale of the Heike (2020)
ホメーロスと『平家物語』における戦争の「報道」[“Reportage” of War in Homer and the Tale of the Heike] (2016)
Camilla and Tomoe: female warriors in Virgil and in medieval Japan (2014)
Use of Homeric references in Plato and Xenophon (2012)
Penelope and early recognition: Vlahos, Harsh, and Eustathius (2011)
Male and female spaces in Homer and in Heike monogatari (2011)
Plato, memory, and performance (2005)
Clothing and identity in Homer: the case of Penelope's web (2005)
Locating power: spatial signs of social ranking in Homer and the Tale of the Heike (2003)
Classics for multilingual Europe (1997)
Anax and basileus in Homer (1997)
Ritual offerings in Homer and in Linear B (1995)
Why Classics today - and tomorrow? (1995)
Young and Old in Homer and in 'Heike Monogatari' (1993)
Phoenix's speech - Is Achilles punished? (1991)
Aisima pareipon - A moral judgement by the poet? (1990)
The apostrophe in Homer as part of the oral technique (1989)
