Dr Laura Jansen
MPhil(Oxon.), PhD(Dub.)
Current positions
Associate Professor in Classics & Comparative Literature
Department of Classics & Ancient History
Contact
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Research interests
My research emerges at the intersections of classical and comparative literatures and the emerging area of Absence Studies. I work on ancient Greek and Latin languages and literature, with a focus on their reception in 20th- and 21st-century experimental compositions (especially from Argentina, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, USA, and Uruguay).
Much of my current research investigates histories of the classical tradition as it emerges in the reception of avant-garde authors fascinated by the themes of fragmentation, occlusion, dispersal, silence, forgetfulness, and loss. I also engage with multimedia artists, especially those interested in combining their training in the discipline of Classics with artistic composition.
I am the author of Borges' Classics: Global Encounters with the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge, 2018, funded by the Leverhulme Trust), and volume editor of Anne Carson's Euripides (Classical Antiquity 42:2, 2023), Anne Carson/ Antiquity (Bloomsbury, 2021) and The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers (Cambridge, 2014). In press is my new collection, Susan Sontag's Tangential Classics (OUP, Classical Presences, forthcoming i2024)
I am currently completing a second monograph, on Anne Carson and Classics: Indisciplinary Writings on Antiquity (under contract with CUP), and co-editing a volume with V. Lambropoulos, on Chimeric Ecologies: The Poetry of Phoebe Giannisi (for Greek/ Modern Intersections, Michigan UP).
Editorial and other activities
I am general editor of the monograph series Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing (Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury Literary Studies blog).
As from May 2023, I represent the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard, as Judge for the Michael Marks Poetry Awards.
Fellowships and grants
2022-23– Research Fellowship, Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard
2022-23 – University Research Fellowship, Bristol
2022 – Visiting Professor, Stanford University (Fall Term)
2021-23 – British Academy/ Leverhulme Small Grant
2019 – Visiting Research Grant, Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard
2016 – Visiting Grant, Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard
2015-16 – Leverhulme Research Fellowship
2015-16 – Visiting Fellowship, Princeton
Teaching 2023-25
- Greek C/D Choral Song from Lyric to Comedy
- Greek B Sophocles' Antigone
- Latin C/D Ovid Metamorphoses
- Philosophies of Eros: Ancient & Modern
See webpage for more information.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Classics between Science and Literature: Italo Calvino
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Classics & Ancient HistoryDates
01/08/2020 to 31/07/2023
Contemporary poetics/ Antiquity
Principal Investigator
Description
The study emerges at the intersections of Classics, Comparative Literature, Translation and Adaptation Studies, and Mathematical Sciences, and explores the classically-oriented poetics and practice of a series of contemporary…Managing organisational unit
Dates
13/01/2020 to 10/01/2022
Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing
Principal Investigator
Description
Monograph series for Bloomsbury Publishing; Series EditorManaging organisational unit
Department of Classics & Ancient HistoryDates
01/09/2015
Thesis supervisions
Literary portraits and landscapes
Supervisors
In defence of freedom of choice
Supervisors
Publications
Selected publications
15/10/2023Lightness and the Future of Antiquity in Lezioni americane
California Italian Studies
Susan Sontag's Tangential Classics
Susan Sontag's Tangential Classics
Recent publications
01/01/2025Chimeric Ecologies
Chimeric Ecologies
Barely there
Susan Sontag’s Tangential Classics
Literatura Incompleta
Labor Imperfectus
The Library of Dreams
Susan Sontag’s Tangential Classics