DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS AND ANCIENT HISTORY
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About the department
Research
Dr Sarah Hitch
Teaching Fellow
Phone: (+44) (0)117 331 8245
Email: clssh@bristol.ac.uk
Research
Dr. Hitch’s main areas of research are Greek ritual, mythology, epic poetry (including imperial Greek epic) and oral traditions. She is particularly interested in the ways communities identify and express themselves through rituals: a current project addresses the speech acts of priests at public sacrifices and festivals in Athens, and she has an ongoing interest in the representations of sacrifice in Greek comedy. She has just finished a book, The King of Sacrifice. Ritual and Royal Authority in the Iliad (Center for Hellenic Studies/Harvard University Press, 2009). Recently, she has co-edited a volume of essays with Ian Rutherford (Reading), Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient World (CUP 2011). She has just begun work on her next project, ‘Food for the Gods: Perceptions of a Greek Cultural Paradox’, a study on the origins for, influences on and evolution of divine eating as a reflection of (paradoxical) Greek cultural perceptions of divinity and food. Her work on Greek ritual practices is multi-disciplinary, drawing on archaeological, epigraphic, iconographic and literary sources, and informed by a wide range of theoretical approaches to the understanding of ritual practice as a reflection of cultural context.
Teaching
Dr. Hitch teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate units on Greek and Roman literature, mythology, religion, and history.
Selected publications
2009
- King of Sacrifice. Ritual and Royal Authority in the Iliad. CHS/HUP
- Entries on “Jason and the Argonauts”, “Lemnian Women”, “Medea”, “Orpheus and Eurydice” and “Prometheus” for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. M. Gagarin, Oxford University Press
- Review of A. Suter, ed. Lament (OUP 2006) for Journal of Hellenic Studies Vol.129
2008
- Review of F. Naiden, Ancient Supplication (OUP 2006) for Journal of Hellenic Studies 128:219-220.
2006
- “Agamemnon as the King of Sacrifice.” The inaugural work for the “First Drafts” webpage of the Center for Hellenic Studies.
Forthcoming books
- Animal Sacrifice in the Greek World. co-edited with Ian Rutherford. (Under contract to Cambridge University Press for publication in 2011)
Forthcoming articles
- “Embedded speech in the Attic leges sacrae” for Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World Volume VIII, eds. A. Lardinois, J. Blok, M. van der Poel (E.J. Brill Press). (publication timetable: 2010)
- “Hero Cult in Apollonius Rhodius” for Hellenistica Groningana IX (Peeters Publishers, Groningen).9000 words (publication timetable: August 2010). Currently available on the website for ‘Lampeter Working Papers in Classics’ (http://www.lamp.ac.uk/ric/workin_papers/documents/FINALDRAFTSARAHHITCH.pdf)
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In Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World:
- “Rethinking Theoretical Approaches to Sacrifice” (with Ian Rutherford)
- “First Fruits for the Birds? Gift Offerings to gods in Aristophanes’ Birds”
- “Anthropology” and “Greek Sacrifice” for Blackwell’s Companion to Food in Antiquity, ed. J. Wilkins (Blackwell) 6000 words each.
- “Greek and Roman Sacrifice” for Oxford Handbook of Animals, ed. G. Campbell (Oxford University Press).15000 words (Publication timeline: 2012)
Shorter forthcoming publications
- Entries on “Fire, in cult: Greece and Rome”, “Kronos and Kronia”, “Myth (all periods)”, “Plants, sacred: Greece and Rome”, “Priests and Priestesses, Greek”, “Proerosia”, “Prometheus and Prometheia” for the Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Blackwell, forthcoming)
- ‘Religious practice’ in Encyclopedia of Greek Tragedy (ed. H. Roisman) Blackwell, forthcoming (4000 words)
- Review of J. Burgess, The Death and Afterlife of Achilles (Johns Hopkins 2009) for Journal of Hellenic Studies, forthcoming Vol.130 (2010)
- Review of G. Boys-Stone, B. Graziosi and P. Vasunia, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies (Oxford, 2009) for Classical Review, forthcoming 2011.