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Classics and Ancient History

Professor Eric Csapo

csapo.jpgHonorary Professor
Email: eric dot csapo at warwick dot ac dot uk

About

After studies in Vancouver, Kiel, Athens, Montreal and Toronto, I was employed as Assistant and Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto from 1989 to 2005. I was Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney from mid 2005 until mid 2019 when I became British Academy Global Professor at the University of Warwick. I enjoyed short-term visiting research positions in Washington (CHS), Bristol (IAS), Oxford (New College), Paris (ENS), Berlin (DAI), London (ICS) and Freiburg (FRIAS). I have participated in archaeological excavations in the Athenian Agora, at Kommos in Crete and in Mytilene.

Research interests

My primary interests are in Classical mythology, literature, drama, philosophy, religion, art and social history, but the main focus of my research is Greek drama and theatre history. I have played a leading role in recovering such aspects of ancient theatrical experience as costume, acting, music, dance and the practicalities of producing ancient dramatic festivals. My current project, in collaboration with my former Sydney colleague Peter Wilson, is the collection and assessment of the evidence (both material and textual) for a history of the ancient theatre in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. It will be published in a series of volumes called Documents for a Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC, of which Volume II, Theatre Beyond Athens is now in press. During the tenure of my global professorship I will be completing Volume I, Theatre in Athens (a new look at the dramatic festivals in Athens), Volume III, Theatre People and Patrons, and a final volume that will provide a general synthetic narrative of the social and economic history of Greek theatre from its origins to the Early Hellenistic period.

Selected Publications

Books and Monographs

  • Theatre Beyond Athens: Documents for a Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC, Vol. 2 (CUP, Cambridge 2020). Co-authored with P. Wilson.
  • The Dionysian Parade and the Poetics of Plenitude (Publication of Fifth Housman Lecture, London, Dept. of Greek and Latin, University College, London 2013).
  • Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater (Wiley/ Blackwell, Malden MA/ Oxford 2010).
  • Theories of Mythology (Blackwell, Oxford 2005).
  • The Context of Ancient Drama (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1995). Co-authored with W.J. Slater.

Edited books:

  • Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century BC (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2014). Jointly edited with H.R. Goette, J.R. Green, and Peter Wilson.
  • The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Elsewhere: From Ritual to Drama (Cambridge UP, New York 2007). Jointly edited with M. Miller.
  • Poetry, Theory, Praxis: The Social Life of Myth, Word and Image in Ancient Greece (Oxbow, Oxford 2003). Jointly edited with M. Miller.
  • Crossing the Stages (Syllecta Classica 10, 1999). 282 pages. Jointly edited with J. Porter, C.P. Marshall, R. Ketterer.

Articles and Book Chapters (last 7 years)

  • “The Politics of Greece’s Theatrical Revolution, ca. 500-ca. 300 BC,” in H. and T. Marshall, eds. Greek Drama V (Bloomsbury Press, London 2020) 1-22. Jointly authored with P. Wilson.
  • “Crowns, Garlands and Ribbons for Tony Podlecki: Official and Unofficial Victory Rituals at the Athenian Dionysian Festivals,” Mouseion 16 S-3 (2019) 411-434.
  • “The Politics of Theater Music in Fifth- and Fourth-Century Greece,” forthcoming in T. Lynch and E. Rocconi, eds. A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music (Wiley/Blackwell, Hoboken NJ). Jointly authored with P. Wilson.
  • “Imagining the Shape of Choral Dance and Inventing the Cultic in Euripides’ Later Tragedies,” in L. Gianvittorio, ed. Choreutika: Performing Dance in Archaic and Classical Greece. Biblioteca dei Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica (Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa and Rome 2017) 119-156.
  • “Choregic Dedications and What they Tell Us About Comic Performance in the Fourth Century BC.,” Logeion 6 (2016) 252-84.
  • “The ‘Theology’ of the Dionysia and Old Comedy,” in E. Eidinow, J. Kindt and R. Osborne, eds. Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2016) 117-152.
  • “The Earliest Phase of ‘Comic’ Choral Entertainments in Athens: The Dionysian Pompe and the ‘Birth’ of Comedy,” in S. Chronopoulos and C. Orth, eds. Fragmente einer Geschichte der griechischen Komödie / Fragmentary History of Greek Comedy, Studia Comica 5 (Verlag Antike, Heidelberg 2015) 66-108.
  • “Drama Outside Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC,” Trends in Classics 7.2 (2015) 316-395 = A. Lamari, ed. Dramatic Reperformances: Authors and Contexts (de Gruter, Berlin). Jointly authored with P. Wilson.
  • “Old and New Perspectives on Fourth-Century Theatre,” in E. Csapo, H. Goette, J.R. Green and P. Wilson, eds., Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century BC (de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2014) 1-12.
  • “The Finance and Organisation of the Athenian Theatre in the Time of Eubulus and Lycurgus,” in E. Csapo, H. Goette, J.R. Green and P. Wilson, eds., Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century BC (de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2014) 393-424. Jointly authored with P. Wilson.
  • “The Iconography of Comedy,” in M. Revermann, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014) 95-129.
  • “Dramatic Festivals,” “Economic History of Tragedy,” “Origins and History of Tragedy,” and “Records,” in H. Roisman, ed. The Encyclopedia of Greek Tragedy (John Wiley and Sons, Malden, MA 2014) vol. 1, 292-299, 307-315; vol. 2, 926-937; vol. 3, 1141-1142. Jointly authored with P.J. Wilson.
  • “Performing Comedy in the Fifth through Early Third Centuries,” in M. Fontaine and A. Scafuro, eds. Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014) 50-69.
  • “Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian Genre-Crossing,” in E. Bakola, L. Prauscello, and M. Telò, eds. Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013) 40-80.

Professional Associations

  • Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI)
  • Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
  • Editorial Board of Logeion

Qualifications

  • BA (Honours) University of British Columbia
  • MA, PhD University of Toronto

Office hours

By appointment (please email).

Teaching

n/a

Connect

academia.edu

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