51ºÚÁÏ

Dr Talitha Kearey

Director of Research

Lecturer in Latin

Email

tezk1@st-andrews.ac.uk

Office

s10

Location

Swallowgate

 

Biography

Originally from Brighton, I gained my BA, MPhil and PhD in Classics from the University of Cambridge (2009-18). I then worked as a lecturer in Oxford for a year, returned to Cambridge to take up a Junior Research Fellowship at St John’s College (2019-23), and arrived in 51ºÚÁÏ in 2023.

Teaching

In 2024/25 I am contributing to a number of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in Latin and Classical Studies, including Honours modules on the Roman poet Horace and on 'Transformed Texts: Rewriting Roman Literature' (a new module covering translation, remixing, impersonation, forgery, and allusion). Previous Honours modules include 'Roman Literature and Queer Theory' and modules on Biography, Elegy and Epic. At postgraduate level, I contribute to the MLitt ‘Latin Literary Culture’ and 'Interdisciplinary Topics in Gender Studies' modules.

I would be very happy to supervise postgraduate dissertations in any of the areas listed in this profile, as well as:

• Latin literature, mainly c. 1^st century BCE to 2^nd century CE, but extending into late antiquity
• Roman pastoral writing
• Anonymity, forgery, impersonation and textual transformation
• Literary classical reception, especially in Anglophone writing of the last two centuries
• Classics and queer studies
• Ancient literary criticism, ancient book history, and the intersection of the two

I am always interested in discussing possible research ideas with potential applicants; please feel free to get in touch at any time.

Research areas

I specialise in Latin literature and its reception, with a particular focus on reading cultures, authorial self-fashioning, poetics, and the social, political and material conditions underpinning literary production. I am currently working on my first book, The Poet at Work: Virgil, Authorship and the Poetics of Biography, which explores how Virgil’s ancient readers imagined his life and his authorial techniques. It makes a case for taking ancient biographical writing seriously: not as historical fact, but as sites where readers creatively explored ideas of authorship and negotiated literary practices; the textual artefacts they themselves produced combine sophisticated literary interpretation with a real sense of imaginative play. My recent publications related to this project include articles and chapters on the , ¹ó³Ü±ô²µ±ð²Ô³Ù¾±³Ü²õ’s on the Aeneid, Tacitus’s ; and on the affective power of the in ancient and modern theories of reading. I have also published on .

My current research projects include a chapter on ancient slavery and textual editing, a volume on Collaboration in Greek and Latin Literature (co-edited with Thomas J. Nelson and Max Leventhal), and articles on similes in imperial Roman literature and gods in pastoral. I am in the early stages of two nascent book projects. The first of these focuses on the poems written by the Roman emperors, exploring the literary role of the emperor in the Roman imagination from Caesar to Hadrian. The second re-evaluates the Roman concept of otium through a lens of queer temporality, exploring how an idea of otium as resistance to reproductive futurity both runs through the works of 1st-century BCE and CE authors and paradoxically underlies the idea of authorship itself.

Selected publications

• Open access
  Kearey, T., 1 Sept 2023, In: Helios. 50, 2, p. 171-198

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Kearey, T., 1 Jan 2022, Ut pictura poeta: author images and the reading of ancient literature = Autorbilder und die Lektüre antiker Literatur. Tischer, U., Gärtner, U. & Forst, A. (eds.). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, p. 283-318 36 p. (Biblioteca del 'Giornale italiano di filologia' (Rome, Italy); vol. 29).

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

• Open access
  Kearey, T., 21 Jul 2022, In: Journal of Roman Studies. 112, p. 248-249 2 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review

• Kearey, T., 2020, In: The Classical Review. 70, 1, p. 101-103 3 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review

• Kearey, T., 2020, In: Journal of Roman Studies. 110, p. 286-288 3 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review

• Kearey, T., 2020, Omnibus, 80, p. 1-3 3 p.

  Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article

• Kearey, T., 2020, Metalepsis: Ancient Texts, New Perspectives. Matzner, S. & Trimble, G. (eds.). Oxford University Press, p. 195-222 28 p.

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

• Kearey, T., Dec 2019, In: The Classical Quarterly. 69, 2, p. 734-744 11 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Kearey, T., 2018, In: Ramus: Critical Studies in Greek and Roman Literature. 47, 2, p. 174-196 23 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Kearey, T., 2017, In: Journal of Roman Studies. 109, p. 407-8 2 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review