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Classics Professor, Writer, Lecturer, Broadcaster

Exciting And Useful Education

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About Edith

 

Edith is Professor in the Classics Department at King's College London.

 

Her original specialism was ancient Greek literature, but she enjoys putting the pleasure as well as the rigour into all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman history, society, and thought. 


She has published twenty-eight books, broadcasts frequently on radio and television, works as consultant with professional theatres, lectures all over the world, and publishes widely in academic and mainstream journals and newspapers.

 

She is a world leader in the study of ethnicity, class and gender in ancient sources, of ancient theatre, and of the instrumentality of ancient ideas in world culture since the Renaissance.


Edith has held posts at Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, Reading and Royal Holloway, and visiting positions at Notre Dame, Swarthmore, Northwestern, Leiden, and Erfurt. 


Curriculum Vitae


For Edith's full CV click on the pdf symbol below.

CV 2019.pdf
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Blog

For Edith's fortnightly blog, the Edithorial, click here


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Edith is Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD) at Oxford University, which she co-founded with Oliver Taplin in 1996. 



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Edith is Trustee and Former Chair (2006-2019) of the Gilbert Murray Trust.

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Edith is the Recipient of the 2015 Erasmus Prize of the European Academy in recognition of her contribution to international research


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Edith is the recipient of a Humboldt Award 2012 for outstanding research


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Edith is the recipient of a Goodwin Award of Merit (2015) from the American Classical Society for her book Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris. It was shortlisted for the Criticos Prize and reviewed by Marina Warner in TLS 6/09/2013: Hall 'calls us to rethink the very character and scope of tragedy'

 

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Edith is Honorary Patron of Northern Broadsides Theatre Company, artistic director Barrie Rutter


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Edith is Consultant to  Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices in Poland, dir. Prof. Wlodzimierz Staniewski

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Edith is a regular TV and radio broadcaster, here interviewed by Margaret Mountford for the BBC in Athens Archaeological Museum


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Edith nominated Prof. Froma Zeitlin in the RHUL 'The Woman Who Inspired Her' series 2011.


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Edith is President of the Guildford Classical Association (here with Sophia Ridley, Hon. Sec.


 


Schools and 6th-Form Colleges

 

 

 

Edith supports primary and secondary teaching of classical subjects, especially in the state sector


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 Talking about Homer to the wonderful sixth form at Wilson's School in Surrey, November 14th 2013


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Lecturing at the East End Classics Centre at BSIX Sixth-Form College in Hackney


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Edith's brilliant students on the TEACH FIRST residential course, Cambridge, April 15th-16th 2014, rewrite Sophocles

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Experts on the Greek Gods and Roman Soldiers at Stanford Primary School, Norbury

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With the sixth-formers in Classics and Drama at Downside School, April 2015, plus Dr Gabor Tahin and Ian Jackson, their teachers

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With the 'A' Level Greek class at Henrietta Barnett School in Golders Green, London 


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With Tom Holland, Peter Stothard, and Paul Found and his students from Norton Knatchbull School at a London Classics Day, King's Place



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On the Underground with Classics Teachers after a Meeting at King's


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On 29th November 2017 Edith talked about Classics & Citizenship to Charlotte Mortimer's excellent pupils at Cobham Free State School in Hampton Court


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Christopher Whitehead Language College, Worcester


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Capital Classics Study Day for London 6th-Formers

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With Dr Jon Hesk at Polish Conference

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AT BSIX College in Hackney, guest leturing on Classical Civilisation, with Crystal Addey and Rosie Wyles 


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Speaking in Athens at Panos Bookstore, 

February 2017


News


On 12th October 2019, Edith was made an Honorary Citizen of Palermo by its Mayor, Leoluca Orlando, in recognition of the 'progressive humanism' of her books.

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A People's History of Classics: Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Britain 1689-1939 was published on March 18th 2020! Click here for a foretaste in History Today! 

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For more on Edith's accessible guide to Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life, go to the page of this website under the Aristotle tab above.

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Aeon Magazine Essay

Edith's essay 'Why Read Aristotle Today' was published free online in May 2018 and can be read here. 


Arts & Humanities Research Council Leadership Fellow 2017-2019


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On May 1st 2017 Edith launched her project, ACE, campaigning for classical subjects to be made available across the state secondary-education sector, with colleague Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson. See Talks and Lectures page and the project website. 

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ACE grew out of a Forum for teaching classical authors in translation with key colleagues (below) which Edith convened at King's College in 2015.

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Recent Publication


For Edith's review of Jeffrey Duban's book The Lesbian Lyre in the Times Literary Supplement for January 5th 2017 click on the pdf below. Download and then expand to read.


tlsaestheticvalue.pdf
REVIEW OF DUBAN'S LESBIAN LYRE
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Edith recently recorded features for the websites of the National Theatre and Google Cultural Institute


Bestselling Book


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Introducing the Ancient Greeks is being translated into Greek, Italian, German, Spanish and Chinese and has received 5-star reviews in all major UK newspapers--click below for pdf

telegraph25.4.15.pdf
TELEGRAPH review of Introducing the Ancient Greeks

Introducing the Ancient Greeks was shortlisted for the Maritime Mountbatten Book Award 2015-a prize for a work on the theme of the sea.

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Edith's video about how medieval manuscripts saved Homer for posterity has just been launched on the British Library website

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On 23rd October 2016 Tasoula Eptakili's feature-length interview with Edith was published in Kathimerini newspaper

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 Co-edited with Dr Rosie Wyles, Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly, was publisjed in 2016. It discusses in twenty essays the foremothers that classicists didn't know they had. Edith is interviewed on the book online in Eidolon Magazine


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Edith's Classics & Class research project, on which she works with Dr Henry Stead (below), was the only Arts and Humanities project shortlisted for the King's Research Project of the Year Award.  

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At the Awards Ceremony with Professor Hugh Bowden, Head of the Classics Department


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In May 2016 Edith lectured at a Comparative Literature conference in South Korea, featured in a Daegu newspaper (alongside Simon Goldhill) 


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On 30th January 2014, Edith discussed and recited on BBC2 NEWSNIGHT the five-stanza poem by Sappho which was discovered on a papyrus.


Aristophanes Conference 3-4 July 2017

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Edith convened an international conference on Aristophanes, How Is/Was Aristophanes Funny? at King's College London. Several of her current and most recent research & PhD students contributed.



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On 21st June 2016, Edith gave the Keynote Lecture to Notre Dame conference on Irish Classics convened by Prof. Isabelle Torrance at the Royal Irish Academy 

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Edith spoke on a panel at a Warsaw conference, Classics & Communism, with Drs Justine McConnell, Henry Stead and Rosa Andujar in January 2015.

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Paying respect to Elizabeth Carter, regarded by Samuel Johnson as the best Greek scholar in England.

Speaking on a panel at Ianos Bookstore in Athens

Welcome

Edith Hall is a London University Academic who specialises in putting pleasure into the history, literature, theatre, myth and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome and their continuing impact in the modern world.

 

 

Contact Edith

 

Email edith@edithhall.co.uk

 

Twitter @edithmayhall


Picture Gallery


Honorary Doctorate


On 14th February 2017 Edith was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Athens

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The Ceremony in the Great Hall of The National & Capodistrian University of Athens


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Researching Forgotten Classicists in Bath Abbey



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Interviewing Helen McCrory at Oxford University 


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Filming for the National Theatre website, from their costume department.


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In April 2014 Edith gave lectures series on ancient Ethics at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China


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Edith was Keynote Speaker at Columbia University Conference on Romare Bearden's Odyssey-inspired art, February 2015

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Receving Certificate of Keynote Speaker, Rio de Janeiro classical symposium


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Toasting Paula James and Annie Ravenshill-Johnson on their pathbreaking study of Trade Union banner iconography.


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Research in Munich Glyptothek 


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Investigating the classical tradition in Aberdeen Maritime Museum


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Speaking at Postgraduate Conference, Exeter University


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2015 Channel 4 Documentary on the Trojan Horse, filmed on walls of Troy

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Incredible welcome from the staff of the Classics Department in Rio de Janeiro University


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At Naupactos, so important in the Peloponnesian War as well as more recent history, August 2014


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With co-panellist Nat Haynes, author, journalist, comedian, broadcaster, at Heffer's Book Fair, Cambridge, November 2014


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Conference in Nijmegen


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Addressing Book Club in Warwick

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Edinburgh Festival 2015


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Outside Varna Archaeological Museum with its former Director Aleksander Minchev and Professor David Braund, August 2016


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Lunch in Athens with her Greek Publisher



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Filming on the Athenian Acropolis


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With Lottie Parkyn, when she passed her PhD viva at King's


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With Caroline Latham, when she passed her PhD viva at King's


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With Bess, the British Ambassador's dog in Athens in the Embassy Kitchen


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In the Acropolis Museum