DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS AND ANCIENT HISTORY
Prospective students
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About the department
Research
Neville Morley
Professor of Ancient Economic History and Historical Theory
Deputy Director (Programmes) of the Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition
Leader of the University Research Theme on Reception
Phone: external (+44) (0)117 928 8657
On leave, 2008-9
Research
Professor Morley's main research interests are in the economic, social and ecological history of classical antiquity, particularly trade, demography, urbanisation and agriculture; in the reception of antiquity in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century economic and social thought, especially the critiques of modernity developed by Marx and Nietzsche; and in theoretical and philosophical approaches to historiography, including its narrative structures and rhetorical techniques.
He has recently written Antiquity and Modernity, on the mutual interdependence of those concepts during the 'long nineteenth century' (Blackwell, 2008), and The Roman Empire: roots of imperialism (Pluto Press, forthcoming 2010) about Roman imperialism and its modern reception and influence. He is currently leading the four-year AHRC-funded research project on Thucydides: reception, reinterpretation and influence, which will include the production of a Handbook to the Reception of Thucydides and a monograph on Thucydides and the Idea of History.
Research Supervision
Topics studied by his past and present research students include the city in Britain and Gaul in late antiquity, the nature of the economic crisis of the third century, mos maiorum and the uses of the past in the Roman Republic, and other topics in Roman history. Professor Morley would be happy to discuss potential PhD research on any aspect of ancient economic and social history or historical theory.Teaching
This year he is teaching core units on Introduction to Ancient History, Non-Literary Sources for Ancient History and World of Late Antiquity, as well as optional units on Economy and Society in the Ancient World and Environment and History in the Ancient Mediterranean.
He has in the past taught the core first-year unit Introduction to Ancient History and the core second-year unit Approaches to Ancient History, as well as first- and second-year units on topics such as Republic to Principate, World of Late Antiquity, Economy & Society and Environment and History, and third-year units on Antiquity & Modernity, City of Rome, Environment and History and Trade in Classical Antiquity.
He has a particular interest in alternative forms of assessment for historical skills, and has written a number of case studies:
- Making Wikipedia work for you' (2007)
- 'Assessing oral presentations' (2006)
- 'Introducing non-traditional assessment methods' (2005)
Recent Publications
- 'Economic and social history', in A.Erskine, ed., A Companion to Ancient History (Blackwell: 2009)
- 'Urbanisation and development in Italy in the late Republic', in L. de Ligt & S. Northwood, eds., People, Land and Politics: demographic developments and the transformation of Roman Italy (Brill: 2008)
- Antiquity and Modernity (Blackwell: 2008)
- '"Das Altertum das sich nicht übersetzen lässt": translation and untranslatability in ancient history', in A. Lianeri & V. Zajko (eds.), Translation and the Classic: identity as change in the history of culture (Oxford: OUP, 2008), 128-47.
- Trade in Classical Antiquity (CUP: 2007)
- 'The Early Roman Empire: distribution', in I. Morris, R. Saller & W. Scheidel (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge: CUP, 2007), 570-91
- 'Civil war and succession crisis in Roman beekeeping', in Historia 56.2 (2007), 462-70
- 'Narrative economy', in P.F.Bang, M.Ikeguchi & H.Ziche, eds, Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies: archaeology, comparative history, models and institutions (Edipuglia: 2006)
- 'Social structure and demography’, in N.Rosenstein & R.Morstein-Marx, eds., A Companion to the Roman Republic (Blackwell: 2006)
- 'The poor in the city of Rome', in M.Atkins & R.Osborne, eds, Poverty in the Roman World (CUP: 2006)
Full list of publications.