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Dr. Emmanuela Bakola

bakola2018.jpgAssociate Professor of Ancient Greek Language and Literature
Senior Tutor; Disabilities officer; Mature and Part-time students
Email: e dot bakola at warwick dot ac dot uk

Department of Classics and Ancient History

FAB2.11, Faculty of the Arts Building, University of Warwick
Coventry, CV4 7AL

About

I joined the University of Warwick in 2015, initially as Leverhulme Research Fellow and from January 2016 as Assistant, and then Associate, Professor of Ancient Greek Language and Literature. Before coming to Warwick, I held a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at UCL (2007-12) and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at King’s College London (2013-15).

Research interests

I have been researching Greek theatre (tragedy, comedy and satyr play) since 2001. In my previous research, I explored the relationship of ancient comedy to other literary genres, ancient literary criticism and methodological questions of working with fragments. My published work included the OUP monograph Cratinus and the art of comedy and the co-edited CUP volume Greek comedy and the discourse of genres.

More recently, I have become interested in the theatricality of Greek tragedy (especially tragic space) and in tragedy's interactions with early Greek philosophy, especially views about nature and the cosmos. During my fellowship, I am working on a monograph entitled The Erinyes and the Economy of the Cosmos: Cosmological Imagination and Aeschylus' Oresteia, which is a re-reading of the Oresteia in light of early views about the cosmos as an economic and biological equilibrium. Until the monograph is completed, you can find some of my publications on this project here. You can also view a research paper which analyses keystones of the project (the centrality of the Erinyes, and how they are connected with 'wealth', nature and cosmos) here.

As part of my project on Greek literature and the natural environment, I have organised two major symposia, namely Greek Theatre, Landscape and Environment (KCL, Feb 2014), and Locating the Daimonic: Daimones, Spaces and Places in the Greek World (KCL, March 2015) and one workshop, Craft Process and Cultural Response: Making, and thinking about making, in Greco-Roman antiquity (KCL, Oct 2015).

Publications

Book:

Cratinus and the Art of Comedy, Oxford University Press, 2010

Co-edited volume:

Bakola, E., Prauscello, L. and M. Telò (eds.) Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres, Cambridge University Press, 2013

Articles and chapters:

• (2019a) ‘Space, place and the metallurgical imagination of the Prometheus trilogy’ in Braund, D., Hall, E. and Wyles, R. (eds) Greek Theatre and Performance Culture around the Black Sea, Cambridge University Press, 225-251

• (2019b) ‘Reconsidering the chthonic in Aeschylus’ Oresteia: Erinyes, the earth’s resources, and the cosmic order’ in Hunt, A. and Marlow, H. (eds) Greening the Gods: Ecology and theology in the Ancient World, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 103-118

• (2018a) ‘Seeing the invisible: Interior Spaces and Uncanny Erinyes in Aeschylus’ Oresteia’ in Kampakoglou, A. and Novokhatko, A. (eds.) Gaze, Vision and Visuality in Ancient Greek Literature, De Gruyter Press, 163-186

• (2018b) ‘Earth, Nature, and the Cult of the Tomb: The Posthumous Reception of Aeschylus heros’ in Graziosi, B. and Goldschmidt, N. (eds.) Tombs of the Ancient Poets: Between Text and Material Culture, Oxford University Press, 123-145

• (2016) ‘Textile symbolism and the ‘wealth of the earth’: creation, production and destruction in the ‘tapestry scene’ of Aeschylus’ Oresteia (Ag. 905-78)’, in Harlow, M., Nosch, M.-L. and G. Fanfani (eds.) Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: the Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative, Oxbow Books, Oxford: 115-136.

• (2014) ‘Interiority, the ‘deep earth’, and the spatial symbolism of Darius’ apparition in the Persians of Aeschylus’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (CCJ) 60: 1-36.

• (2013) ‘Crime and Punishment: Cratinus, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, and the metaphysics and the politics of wealth’ in Bakola, E., Prauscello, L. and Telo, M. (eds.) Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres, Cambridge, 226-55.

• ‘Cratinus reads Aeschylus: The Erinyes and the wealth of the earth’ in E. Tamiolaki (ed.) New Trends in Ancient Comedy, Rhethymnon 2014, 17-44 (in modern Greek)

• ‘The Drunk, the Reformer and the Teacher: Agonistic Poetics and the Construction of Persona in the Comic Poets of the Fifth Century’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (CCJ) 54 (2008), 1-29

• Nine entries for The Encyclopedia of Greek Comedy, Sommerstein, A. (ed.), Wiley-Blackwell press, on various themes

• ‘Old Comedy Disguised as Satyr Play: A New Reading of Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros (POxy 663)’ ZPE 154 (2005) 46-58

• ‘A missed joke in Aristophanes’ Wasps 1265-74’ Classical Quarterly 55 (2005), 609-13

Teaching and supervision

PhD supervision:

'Metals and metallurgy in the Greek literary imagination' (completed, 2021)

'Winds in the tragedy of Sophocles' (in progress)

'The Other Scene: Cosmos, Gender, and Prophecy in the Dreams of Aeschylus’ Oresteia' (commencing Oct 2023)

Administrative roles

  • Senior Tutor

Office Hours

Thursdays 12-1

Fridays 11.30-12.30

Please email me for a virtual appointment outside these hours.

Video about current research

'Where are the Erinyes in Aeschylus' Oresteia?', Invited Research Seminar, University of Reading.

This paper contains the material of my chapter "Seeing the invisible: Interior spaces and uncanny Erinyes in Aeschylus’ Oresteia"