Dr Alexandra Hardwick

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hardwick alexandra
Stipendiary Lecturer in Classics, Corpus Christi College and Stipendiary Lecturer in Classics (Greek and Latin Languages), Balliol College
alexandra.hardwick@balliol.ox.ac.uk

Qualifications: BA (Cantab), MSt DPhil (Oxon)

Link to college page: https://www.ccc.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-alexandra-hardwick

 

Academic Background

I completed my doctorate at Oxford in 2021, supported by an AHRC scholarship. Before that, I studied for an MSt in Classical Languages and Literature at Oxford (2016-17) and a BA in Classics at Queens’ College, Cambridge (2013-16). I have since taught at several Oxford colleges, including Trinity and Wadham.

Research Interests

I apply ideas from contemporary social science to ancient Greek texts, considering especially depictions of group decision-making, collective emotion, and affect theory. My research focuses on Greek drama; more broadly, I work on Greek historiography, lyric, and hexameter poetry from Homer to the Imperial period. I am currently researching Lucian's depictions of sex work in Dialogues of the Courtesans and the use of affect theory to model interpersonal emotion in Euripides.

Research Keywords

Tragedy; Comedy; Drama; Poetry; Psychology; Embodiment; Affect; Group; Collective; Performance

Teaching

My teaching covers all undergraduate Greek literature papers; I also teach postgraduate students in drama and hexameter poetry. My favourite aspect of teaching at Oxford is helping students develop the ability to interrogate and enjoy rich, complex texts (such as Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, which I teach within the Tragedy paper). I have also taught interdisciplinary seminars on topics including literary canons and religious poetry.

I am deeply committed to outreach and to helping students from underrepresented backgrounds thrive at Oxford. I have been a core Humanities tutor on the Opportunity Oxford undergraduate bridging programme (since 2020), taught at the Wadham Classics Summer School (since 2021), and run outreach sessions in primary and secondary schools. I welcome opportunities to give Classics-related talks in all schools, especially those without a history of studying ancient Greece and Rome.

Publications

Selected Publications:

As sole author
Forthcoming:
Off-Stage Groups in Athenian Drama. Oxford UP.
Crowd Psychology and the Comic Dêmos’, in L. Huitink & I. Sluiter, edd. Psychology of the Ancient World. For the series Euhormos: Greco-Roman Studies in Anchoring Innovation. Brill (Leiden).
‘A Conjecture on Sophocles Electra 278’ Mnemosyne 70 (2017) 867-871

Joint Publications
‘Scholars Respond to Misogynist Nostalgia for Roman Masculinity’, Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics (March 2018)

Reviews
Review of A. Shilo, Beyond Death in the Oresteia: Poetics, Ethics, and Politics. BMCR (2023).

Review of M. C. Encinas Reguero & M. Quijada Sagredo, edd., Tragic Rhetoric: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Greek Tragedy. BMCR (2022).