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

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
I have also served as internal and external examiner of several PhD theses for the Universities of Cambridge, Sydney and Yale.

The University of Sydney - Department of Classics and Ancient History