DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS AND ANCIENT HISTORY
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About the department
Research
Professor Richard Buxton
Professor of Greek Language and Literature
Phone: external (+44) (0)117 928 8679
Email: Richard.G.A.Buxton@bris.ac.uk
Research
Richard Buxton works on ancient Greek literature (especially tragedy), and ancient mythology and religion. One of his main aims is to explore the contexts – for example, social life and the landscape – which can help us to recover the meanings which myths had for their tellers and hearers/readers (see his Imaginary Greece, 1994, and The Complete World of Greek Mythology, 2004).
In 1996 he organised a major international conference at Bristol, whose proceedings appeared as From Myth to Reason? (1999) Since 2003 he has been one of the editors of Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum and since 2006 he has been President of the LIMC Foundation. His book 'Forms of Astonishment: Greek Myths of Metamorphosis' was published in 2009. He will next be revising for publication a selection of his papers on Greek myth and tragedy.
He has taken part in a number of radio programmes about myth. His work has been translated into nine languages.
Teaching
Professor Buxton teaches undergraduate units on Greek Language and literature, myth and religion. Examples are:
- Approaches to Myth
- Greek and Roman Drama
- Metamorphosis in Greece and Rome
- Language units on Hellenistic poetry and the Cyclops theme
He also regularly teaches an MA unit on 'Greeks and the Sacred'.
Selected Publications
- ‘Religion and Myth’, in P. Cartledge (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece (CUP, 1998), 320-344.
- Oxford Readings in Greek Religion (editor) (OUP, 2000)
- ‘The myth of Talos’, in C. Atherton (ed.), Monsters and Monstrosity in Greek and Roman Culture (Bari, 2002) 83-112.
- The Complete World of Greek Mythology (Thames and Hudson, 2004). Already translated into nine languages.
- ‘Similes and Other Likenesses’, in R. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Homer (CUP 2004), 139-155
- ‘Weapons and Day’s White Horses: The Language of Ajax’, in Sophocles and the Greek Language’, in I.J.F. de Jong and A. Rijksbaron (eds.), Sophocles and the Greek Language (Leiden, 2006), 13-23
- Forms of Astonishment: Greek Myths of Metaphorphosis (Oxford, 2009). A recent podcast about this book from Blackwell Online can be heard here.