Dr Robert Cowan
Lecturer in Classics
Department of Classics and Ancient History
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI)
Quadrangle Building A14
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006 Australia
Office: Room J6.04 Quadrangle A14
Phone: (02) 93517210
Fax: (02) 9351 3918
Fields of interest
- Latin epic, esp. Silius Italicus and Statius
- Roman satire
- Roman tragedy
- Latin didactic poetry
- Greek and Latin literature more broadly
Education
BA (Hons), MSt, DPhil (Oxford)
Articles and Chapters
- 'Back out of Hell: the virtual katabasis and initiation of Silius’ Minucius’, in Antony Augoustakis (ed.) Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic (OUP: Oxford) forthcoming.
- ‘Haven't I seen you before somewhere? Optical allusions in Republican tragedy’, in V. Lapis & G. Harrison (edd.) Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre. (Brill) forthcoming.
- ‘Valerius Cato, Callimachus and the Very Large Girl (Ticida fr. 103 FRP)’, Studies in Roman History and Latin Literature XVI (2012) forthcoming.
- ‘Alas, poor Io! Bilingual wordplay in Horace Epode 11’, Mnemosyne (accepted 13th January 2011) forthcoming.
- Entries on ‘Lucan’, ‘Statius’, ‘Valerius Flaccus’, and ‘Silius Italicus’ for Blackwell Encyclopedia of Ancient History, forthcoming October 2012.
- ‘Passing over Cephisos’ grandson: literal praeteritio and the rhetoric of obscurity in Ovid Met. 7.350-93’, Ramus 41 (2011) forthcoming
- ‘Sinon and the case of the hypermetric oracle’ Phoenix 65.3-4, (2011) (forthcoming).
- ‘Lucan’s thunder-box: scatology, epic and satire in Suetonius’ Vita Lucani' HSCP 106 (2011) forthcoming.
- ‘Hopefully surviving:’the limits of devotio in Virgil and others’ PVS 27 (2011) 56-98.
- Horace Satires and Epistles, trans. John Davie, introduction and notes by Robert Cowan (OUP World’s Classics: Oxford, 2011).
- ‘Sing Evohe! Three twentieth-century operatic versions of Euripides’ Bacchae’ in Peter Brown & Suzana Ograjen’ek (edd.) Ancient Drama in Music for the Modern Stage (OUP: Oxford, 2010) 320-39.
- ‘A stranger in a strange land. Medea in Roman Republican tragedy’ in Heike Bartel & Anne Simon (edd.) Unbinding Medea. Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Classical Myth (Legenda: Oxford, 2010) 39-52.
- ‘Virtual Epic: counterfactuals, sideshadowing and the poetics of contingency in the Punica’ in Antony Augoustakis (ed.) Brill’s Companion to Silius Italicus (Brill: Leiden, 2010) 323-51.
- ‘Scanning Iulus: prosody, position and politics in the Aeneid.’ Vergilius 55 (2009) 3-12.
- ‘Thrasymennus’ wanton wedding: etymology, genre, and uirtus in Silius Italicus, Punica’, CQ 59.1 (2009) 226-37.
- ‘Virgil’s cucumber again: Columella 10.378-92’ CQ 59.1 (2009) 286-9.
- ‘Starring Nero as Nero: poetry, role-playing and identity in Juvenal 8. 215-21’, Mnemosyne 62 (2009) 76-89.
- ‘Nothing to do with Phaedra’ Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 497-501’, CQ 58.1 (2008) 317-22.
- ‘The headless city: the decline and fall of Capua in Silius Italicus’ Punica’ ORA 1542 (2007).
- ‘Reading Trojan Rome: illegitimate epithets, avatars, and the limits of analogy in Silius Italicus’ Punica’ ORA 1559 (2007).
- ‘The Land of King Mane. A pun at Horace Odes 1.22.15’, CQ 56.1 (2006) 322-4.
- ‘Absurdly Scythian Spaniards: Silius, Horace and the Concani’, Mnemosyne 59.2 (2006) 260-7.
- New introduction to re-print of O.A.W. Dilke ed. Statius’ Achilleid (Bristol Phoenix Press: Exeter, 2005).
Book projects
- Indivisible Cities. Mirrors of Rome in Silius Italicus. (OUP).
- After Virgil: the poetry, politics and perversion of Roman epic. (Bristol Phoenix Press).
- Virgil and the Aeneid. (Bloomsbury Duckworth)
Reviews
- Review of Ingo Gildenhard, Martin Revermann edd., Beyond the Fifth Century: Interactions with Greek Tragedy from the Fourth Century BCE to the Middle Ages in BMCR 2011.11.49.
- Review of François Spaltenstein, Commentaire des fragments dramatiques de Livius Andronicus, in CR 61.2 (2011).
- Review of Leah Kronenberg, Allegories of farming from Greece and Rome: philosophical satire in Xenophon, Varro and Virgil, for BMCR 2010.10.74.
- Review of G. L. Fain, Writing Epigrams: The Art of Composition in Catullus, Callimachus and Martial, in JRS 100 (2010) 305-6.
- Review of Francis Cairns, Generic Composition in Greek and Latin Poetry revised edition, in CR 60.1 (2010) 110-12.
- Review of Charles McNelis, Statius’ Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War, in CR 60.1 (2010) 133-5.
- Review of Gigliola Maggiulli, Per alta nemora. La poesia del mondo vegetale in Seneca tragico. in BMCR 2009.09.51.
- Review of Randall Ganiban, Statius and Virgil, in BMCR 2009.06.31.
- Review of Dorothee Elm von der Osten, Liebe als Wahnsinn. Die Konzeption der Göttin Venus in den Argonautica des Valerius Flaccus, in BMCR 2008.08.32.
- Review of J.D. Reed, Virgil’s Gaze: Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid, in CR 58.1 (2008) 125-6.
- Review of Bruce Gibson (ed.) Statius Silvae 5. Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. in CR 58.1 (2008) 161-4.
- Review of Alan Cameron, Greek Mythography in the Roman World, in JHS 127 (2007) 172-3.
- Review of Yasmin Syed, Vergil’s Aeneid and the Roman Self: Subject and Nation in Literary Discourse, in JRS 97 (2007) 314-15.
- Review of Andreas N. Michalopoulos (ed.) Ovid Heroides 16 and 17. Introduction, Text and Commentary, CR 57.2 (2007) 400-2.
- Review of Giampiero Scafoglio, L’Astyanax di Accio: Saggio sul background mitografico, testo critico e commento dei frammenti, in BMCR 2007.04.67.
- Review of K.F.L. Pollman, Statius, Thebaid 12. Introduction, Text, and Commentary, in BMCR 2007.04.54.
- Review of P.J. Heslin, The Transvestite Achilles. Gender and genre in Statius’ Achilleid, in BMCR 2007.04.53.
- Review of Mario Erasmo, Roman Tragedy, Theatre to Theatricality, for BMCR 2005.07.53.
- Review of R. Sklenár The Taste for Nothingness: A Study of Virtus and Related Themes in Lucan’s Bellum Civile in BMCR 2004.09.40.
- Review of W.E. Wycislo, Seneca’s Epistolary Responsum: the De ira as parody in JRS 93 (2003) 387.
- Review of Roland Mayer, Seneca, Phaedra. (Duckworth Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy) in BMCR 2003.07.41.
- Review of D. T. McGuire Acts of Silence. civil war, tyranny, and suicide in the Flavian epics in JRS 90 (2000) 243-4.
Teaching
GRKA1600 Introduction to Ancient Greek 1
GRKA2620 Reading Greek 1
GRKA7001 Classical Greek for Postgraduates 1
S1 2011: unit coordinator and lectures
S1 2012: unit coordinator and lectures
LATN2601 Intermediate Latin (unit coordinator)
S2 2010: Seneca Apocolocyntosis and [Seneca] Octavia
S2 2011: Caesar De Bello Gallico 6 and related ethnographic texts
S2 2012: Martial Epigrams and Pliny the Younger Letters (selected)
LATN3600 Advanced Latin (unit coordinator)
S1 2011: Virgil Georgics 3 and selections from Lucretius De Rerum Natura 4
LATN3604 Latin Republican Poetry (unit coordinator)
S1 2012: Horace Epistles 1 and selections from Lucretius De Rerum Natura 3
LATN3605 Latin Republican Prose (unit coordinator)
S2 2011: Cicero In Pisonem and related invective texts
ANHS1600 Foundations for Ancient Greece
S1 2012: lectures on Homer, lyric, tragedy, comedy and Hellenistic poetry
ANHS1601 Foundations for Ancient Rome
S2 2010/2011/2012: lecture on ‘Literature in the 50s BC’
ANHS1602 Greek and Roman Myth
S1 2011: lecture on ‘HEROES: Fall of Troy and the Returns’
S2 2012: various lectures
ANHS2615 Comedy in the Ancient World
S2 2012: unit coordinator, lectures and tutorials
ANHS2619 The World of Ancient Epic
S2 2011: lectures on Flavian epic
click here for unit descriptions
Honours supervision
2011: Scipio Africanus in Livy, Divination in Virgil and Lucan, Rhetoric and Philosophy in Cicero.
Academic Service
Conference Organiser
- July 2011. Silius Italicus and Flavian Culture. International Conference in association with the Pacific Rim Latin Seminar and the Flavian Epic Network, to be held in CCANESA.
- June 2010. Laughter in the Library: a colloquium on Old Comedy for Penny Bulloch. International Symposium held in Ioannou Classics Centre, University of Oxford.
Academic Referee
- Oxford University Press
- American Journal of Philology
- ASCS32 Conference Proceedings
- Classical Philology
- Classical Quarterly
- Eos
- Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
- Vergilius
- ASCS33 Conference abstract committee
Departmental and Faculty Service
- Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Department of Classics, University of Sydney, 2010-
- Library Liaison Officer, Department of Classics and Ancient History, 2011-
- Departmental Representative to Australasian Society for Classical Studies (ASCS) 2011-
- SOPHI representative on Faculty Library Committee, 2011-
- SOPHI representative on Faculty PG Research Committee, 2011-
- SOPHI representative on Faculty PhD Travel Grant Scheme Selection Committee, 2011
- SOPHI representative on Faculty PG Teaching Fellowships Scheme Selection Committee, 2011
- Numerous posts and committee-memberships in previous posts at Oxford and Bristol including:
- Graduate Studies Committee, Classical Language and Literature Sub-faculty, University of Oxford, 2009–10
- Faculty admissions coordinator, Classics Joints Schools, University of Oxford, (Mod. Langs, English, Oriental Studies) 2007–10
- Joint Committee for Classics and English, University of Oxford, 2009–10
- Joint Committee for Classics and Modern Languages, University of Oxford, 2009–10
- Examiner and Secretary, Classics Honour Moderations, University of Oxford, 2008-10
- Chair: Classics Joint Consultative Committee for Undergraduate Matters, University of Oxford, 2006-9
- Examinations Officer, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Bristol 2003-4
- Arts Faculty Progress Committee, University of Bristol 2003-4
- Departmental Undergraduate Teaching & Learning Committee, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Bristol 2002-4
- Graduate Studies Committee, Classical Language and Literature Sub-faculty, University of Oxford, 2009–10
Community Activities
- University ‘respondent’ to Sydney Festival production of Thyestes at Carriageworks.
- Sydney Latin Summer School: tutor and lecturer 2011-
- Omnibus (magazine-journal for Classics school students): Editor 2006-7, member of Editorial Board 2004–10, and regular contributor
- JACT Latin Summer School, Wells: tutor 2004–9 and lecturer 2003–9
- Sutton Trust Summer School, Oxford: tutor and lecturer 2005–8
- Played roles of Anchises and Evander in The Aeneid: the Musical (Oxford, 2007).
- Numerous schools talks delivered in UK
Other
- President of Oxford Philological Society, 2007-8
- Member of Roman Society Council, 2008–10
- Jowett Copyright Trustee, 2006–10 (Acting Secretary 2007).
- I have also served as internal and external examiner of several PhD theses for the Universities of Cambridge, Sydney and Yale.
