Dr Laura Jansen
MPhil(Oxon.), PhD(Dub.)
Current positions
Associate Professor in Classics & Comparative Literature
Department of Classics & Ancient History
Contact
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Research interests
My research emerges at the intersections of classical and comparative literatures and the emerging area of Absence Studies. I work on ancient Greek and Latin languages and literature, with a focus on their reception in 20th- and 21st-century experimental compositions (especially from Argentina, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, USA, and Uruguay).
Much of my current research investigates oblique histories of the classical tradition as it emerges in the reception of avant-garde authors fascinated by the themes of fragmentation, occlusion, dispersal, silence, forgetfulness, and loss. This is the focus of my new collaborative project, on Oblique Classicisms: Reimagining Reception and its Hidden Histories. I've recently published on this theme in 'Classical Absences 1899-2017' (CRJ 2021) and 'Calvino's Lightness and the Future of Antiquity' (CIS 2023) and Susan Sontag's Tangential Classics (OUP, in press).
I also engage with multimedia contemporary artists, especially those interested in combining their training in the discipline of Classics with artistic composition. On this angle of my research, I am currently completing my next monograph, on Anne Carson and Classics: Indisciplinary Writings on Antiquity (under contract with CUP), and co-editing a volume with V. Lambropoulos, on Chimeric Ecologies: The Poetry of Phoebe Giannisi (for Greek/ Modern Intersections, Michigan UP).
I am the author of Borges' Classics: Global Encounters with the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge, 2018, funded by the Leverhulme Trust), and volume editor of Susan Sontag's Tangential Classics (OUP, in press 2025), Anne Carson's Euripides (Classical Antiquity 42:2, 2023), Anne Carson/ Antiquity (Bloomsbury, 2021) and The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers (Cambridge, 2014).
Editorial and other activities
I am general editor of the monograph series Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing (Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury Literary Studies blog).
As from May 2023, I represent the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard, as Judge for the Michael Marks Poetry Awards.
Fellowships and grants
2022-23– Research Fellowship, Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard
2022-23 – University Research Fellowship, Bristol
2022 – Visiting Professor, Stanford University (Fall Term)
2021-23 – British Academy/ Leverhulme Small Grant
2019 – Visiting Research Grant, Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard
2016 – Visiting Grant, Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard
2015-16 – Leverhulme Research Fellowship
2015-16 – Visiting Fellowship, Princeton
Teaching 2023-25
- Greek C/D Choral Song from Lyric to Comedy
- Greek B Sophocles' Antigone
- Latin C/D Ovid Metamorphoses
- Philosophies of Eros: Ancient & Modern
See webpage for more information.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Oblique Classicisms: Reimagining Classical Reception and its Hidden Histories
Principal Investigator
Description
Classical Reception Studies is generally centred on the idea of ‘relevance’, focusing on areas or texts from antiquity that clearly impact modernity. Indirect classical links and undercurrents are typically…Managing organisational unit
Dates
01/03/2023 to 01/03/2027
Classics between Science and Literature: Italo Calvino
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Classics & Ancient HistoryDates
01/08/2020 to 31/07/2023
Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing
Principal Investigator
Description
Monograph series for Bloomsbury Publishing; Series EditorManaging organisational unit
Department of Classics & Ancient HistoryDates
01/09/2015
Thesis supervisions
Literary portraits and landscapes
Supervisors
In defence of freedom of choice
Supervisors
'The water and the swimmer'
Supervisors
Publications
Selected publications
15/10/2023Lightness and the Future of Antiquity in Lezioni americane
California Italian Studies
Susan Sontag's Tangential Classics
Susan Sontag's Tangential Classics
Recent publications
01/01/2025Chimeric Ecologies
Chimeric Ecologies
With Archilochus 'Cicada'
Chimeric Ecologies: The Poetry of Phoebe Giannisi
Barely there
Susan Sontag’s Tangential Classics
Literatura Incompleta
Labor Imperfectus
The Library of Dreams
Susan Sontag’s Tangential Classics