Prof Judith Mossman

About

I was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Arts and Humanities at Coventry University from 2017 until 2024 and then became Professor Emerita. Before 2017 I was Professor of Classics at Nottingham University from 2004 to 2017, and Head of the School of Humanities between 2012 and 2016. From 1991 to 2003 I taught Classics at Trinity College, Dublin, and was elected a Fellow of the College in 1998. I am a graduate of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and a former Junior Research Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford. I also held a lectureship at University College, Oxford from 1986 until 1991. I am currently Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Classical Association and the JACT Summer Schools Trust and a trustee of Classics for All. I am also a Vice-President of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, having been President from 2017-20. I was President of the International Plutarch Society from 2020-2025.

Research interests

I have two main areas of expertise: Greek tragedy of the fifth century BC, especially Euripides, and Greek literature under the Roman empire, especially Plutarch. I am particularly interested in how ancient authors use language, and I am currently writing a book on Plutarch and his linguistic interests and how they shape his work.

Publications (Selected)

Books

Wild Justice: a Study of Euripides' Hecuba, Oxford Classical Monographs Series, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. xiii + 283, reprinted in paperback by Bristol Classical Press, 1999

Plutarch and his Intellectual World, (editor), Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth 1997, pp. xii + 249

Plutarch's Parallel Lives, translated by Thomas North, selected with an introduction, Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, 1998, pp. xxii + 871

Oxford Readings in Euripides (editor), Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. vi + 411

The Limits of Biography (co-editor with Brian McGing), Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth, 2006, pp. xx + 447

Euripides: Medea, introduction, translation and commentary, Aris and Phillips, 2011, pp. viii + 392

Fame and Infamy: Characterization in Greek and Roman Biography and Historiography (co-editor with Rhiannon Ash and Frances Titchener), Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. xx + 424

Sparta in Plutarch’s Lives (co-editor with Philip Davies), Classical Press of Wales, 2023, pp. xxi + 201 + indices.

Articles

'Tragedy and Epic in Plutarch's Alexander', Journal of Hellenic Studies cviii (1988), 83-93; reprinted in Essays on Plutarch's Lives, ed. B. Scardigli, Oxford 1995, 209-28

'Plutarch's Use of Statues' in Georgica: Greek Studies in Honour of George Cawkwell, edd. M. A. Flower and M. Toher, BICS Supplement 58 (1991), 98-119

'Plutarch, Pyrrhus and Alexander', in Plutarch and the Historical Tradition, ed. Philip Stadter, London 1992, 90-108

'Henry V and Plutarch's Alexander', Shakespeare Quarterly 45 no. 1, (Spring 1994), 57-73

'Chains of Imagery in Prometheus Bound', Classical Quarterly xlvi (1996), 58-67

'Plutarch's Dinner of the Seven Wise Men and Its Place in Symposion-Literature', in Plutarch and his Intellectual World (see above), 119-40

'Waiting for Neoptolemus: The Unity of Euripides' Andromache', Greece and Rome 43 (1996), 143-56

'Plutarch and Shakespeare's 1 and 2Henry IV', Poetica 48 (1997) [Shakespeare's Plutarch, ed. M.A. McGrail], 99-117

‘Is the Pen Mightier than the Sword? The Failure of Rhetoric in Plutarch’s Demosthenes’, Histos 3 (1999) http://www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos (August 2000)

‘Women’s Speech in Greek Tragedy: the Case of Electra and Clytemnestra in Euripides’ Electra’, Classical Quarterly 51. 2 (2001), 374-84

‘Women’s Voices’ in Justina Gregory (ed.), A Companion to Greek Tragedy, Blackwell 2005, 352-65

‘Taxis ou barbaros: Greek and Roman in Plutarch’s Pyrrhus’, Classical Quarterly 55. 2 (2005), 498-517

‘Plutarch on Animals: Rhetorical Strategies in de sollertia animalium’ Hermathena, 179 (Winter 2005), 141-63

‘Travel Writing, History, and Biography’ in The Limits of Biography (see above), 2006, 281-303

‘Heracles, Prometheus, and the Play of Genres in [Lucian]’s Amores,’ in S. Swain, S. J. Harrison and J. Elsner (eds.), Severan Culture, Cambridge 2007, 146-59

‘Plutarch and English Biography’, Hermathena 183 (2007), 71-96

‘A Life Unparalleled: Artaxerxes’, in N. Humble (ed.), Plutarch’s Lives: Parallelism and Purpose, Swansea 2010, 145-68

‘Reading the Euripidean Hypothesis’, in Condensing Texts, Condensed Texts, edd. Marietta Horster and Christiane Reitz, Palingenesia 2010, 247-67

‘Philotimia and Greekness in Lucian’, in G. Roskam, M. de Pourcq and L. Van der Stockt (eds.), The Lash of Ambition: Plutarch, Imperial Greek Literature and the Dynamics of Philotimia, Leuven 2011, 169-82

‘Women’s Voices in Sophocles’, in Andreas Markantonatos (ed.), The Brill Companion to Sophocles, Leiden 2012, 491-506

‘Holinshed and the Classics’, in Ian Archer, Felicity Heal and Paulina Kewes (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed’s Chronicles, Oxford 2013, 303-17

‘Tragedy and the Hero’, in M. Beck (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Plutarch, Oxford 2014, 437-48

‘Dressed for Success? Clothing in Plutarch’s Demetrius’, in Fame and Infamy (see above), 149-60.

‘Dionysus and the Structure of Plutarch’s Table Talk’, in Jan Opsomer, Geert Roskam, and Frances B. Titchener (eds.), A Versatile Gentleman: Consistency in Plutarch’s Writing, Leuven 2016, 101-12.

‘Characterization in Plutarch’s Lives’, in K. de Temmerman and E. van Emde Boas (eds.), Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative IV, Leiden 2017, 486-502.

'Additional Lives: Hannibal, Scipio and Epaminondas’, in J. North and P. Mack (eds.), The Afterlife of Plutarch, BICS Supplement 137, London 2018, 75-84.

‘Plutarch’s Ghosts’, in D. Ferreira Leão and L. Roig Lanzillotta (eds.), A Man of Many Interests: Plutarch on Religion, Myths and Magic: Essays in Honor of Aurelio Perez Jimenez, Leiden 2019, 59-73.

‘Picturing Myth in Plutarch and other Imperial Authors’, in Josep Antoni Clua (ed.), Mythologica Plutarchea: Estudios sobre el Mito en Plutarco, Madrid 2020, 265-78.

‘Plutarch and the Roman Triumph’, Hermathena 200–1 (2016 [2021]), 107-27.

‘Plutarch’s Troy’, in L. Athanassaki and F. Titchener (eds.) Plutarch’s Cities, Oxford 2022, 219-32.

‘Speech in Plutarch’, Mathieu de Bakker and Irene J. F. de Jong (eds.), Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative V, Leiden 2021, 565-82.

‘Plutarch and Spartan Speech(es)’, in Sparta in Plutarch’s Lives (see above), 139-59.

‘Plutarch and Animals’ (with A. Zadorojnhyy), in A. Zadorojnhyy and Frances B. Titchener (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch, 2023, 282-302.

‘Tragicomedy? Generic Enrichment in Plutarch, Demetrius 38 and Antony 70’, in C. Chrysanthou and T. Duff (eds.), Generic Enrichment in Plutarch, London 2024, 74-89.