Alison Sharrock

Alison Sharrock

Professor

  • School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures, University of Manchester

    M13 9PL Manchester

    United Kingdom

Accepting PhD Students

Personal profile

Biography

I came to Manchester in August, 2000, after eleven years at the University of Keele. Previous to that, I studied at the University of Liverpool (BA, 1984) and the University of Cambridge (PhD, 1988). I have been Editor of the Journal of Roman Studies, and also Director of Research in the School of Arts, Histories & Cultures. I spent several years as Head of the Division of Archaelogy, Religions and Theology, Classics and Ancient History, and then, after institutional reorganisation, as Head of the Department of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology, and Egyptology, within the School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures. My particular interests are in the teaching of Latin literature and language.

I currently hold a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, entitled 'Ovid and the Environmental Crisis', meaning that I am on research leave 2024-7.

Research interests

My research interests range across Latin poetry from Plautus to the imperial age. I began with (elegiac) Ovid and to (metamorphic) Ovid I have returned, with a range of projects, particularly in the Metamorphoses, which is currently the main focus of my attention. In between, I made a foray into Roman comedy. The other strand to my interest is in literary theory, including feminist readings of Classical literature.  Most recently, I have developed a particular interest in ecocriticism, which is the focus of my Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. Studying ancient poetry through the lens of environmental concerns has given me a renewed enthusiasm for what literature can offer to a troubled world.

I edit an OUP series entitled Oxford Studies in Classical Literature and Gender Theory. I am an active member of the EUGESTA (European Gender Studies in Antiquity) network. I'm also very interested in other forms of literary theory, especially the interactions between author, text, and reader.
 
I run an informal online ecocritical reading group, which is the source of much pleasure and inspiration.
 

Current and recent supervision of PhDs

  • Horace and Ovid: an intertextual study
  • A commentary on Lucan BC 4
  • The textualisation of violence in Latin literature
  • Roman comedy and Japanese Kyogen
  • The tragedies and the Younger Seneca and the declamations of the Elder
  • Statius' Thebaid
  • Ovid and Virgil's pastoral poetry
  • Statius' Achilleid
  • Landscape in Lucan's Pharsalia
  • The mirror in Ovid's Ars Amatoria

PhD opportunities

I am pleased to supervise research students in any of the following areas: republican and Augustan poetry, any Latin epic, literary theory, any aspect of women in Latin literature, and especially any form of ecocriticism in ancient literature.

Teaching

Current teaching

I am not currently teaching undergraduates or MA courses.

Supervision information

Recent PhD supervision (award dates)

  • 2024 - Lucy Mudie: Magic Mirrors: Mirror Metaphors in Ovid’s Ars Amatoria
  • 2021 - Matteo Dessimone Pallavera: Time and space in Lucan’s Pharsalia
  • 2019 - Julene Abad Del Vecchio: Statius' Achilleid and its Literary Predecessors. A Tragic Reading of the Achilleid

  • 2018 - Eleni Ntanou: Ovid and Virgil’s Pastoral Poetry 

  • 2017 - Helen Dalton: Banquet of Death: Alimentary Imagery in Statius’ Thebaid

 

 

 

 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 13 - Climate Action

Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms

  • Creative Manchester

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