Dr Jason Koenig
Senior Lecturer in Greek
jpk3@st-andrews.ac.uk
01334 462618
Rm: S16
Research Interests:
Greek and Roman literature and cultural history, focusing especially on the Greek literature of the imperial period (e.g. Plutarch, Lucian, Dio Chrysostom, Pausanias, Philostratus, Greek and Latin novels); early Christian narrative literature; ancient athletics; literary and cultural theory.
Current Projects
I am currently working on a book on representations of feasting and the symposium in both Greco-Roman and early Christian narrative, in the first to fifth centuries AD. In addition I continue to work on other aspects of the Greek literature of the Roman Empire and on the Greek and Roman novels; also on the athletic culture of the Roman Empire (following recent publication of my book Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire (2005)). A recent edited volume of essays on Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire (2007) (see below) aims to reassess the compilatory, 'encyclopaedic' aesthetic which structures so much of the Greek and Latin literature of the Roman Empire. In connection with that I have recently finished directing a Leverhulme-funded project in St Andrews (together with Greg Woolf) on 'Science and Empire in the Roman World' as part of the activities of the School's Logos Centre.
Select Publications
- Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire (Cambridge University Press) (2005) (reviews, among others, in TLS 5382 (26/5/06); CR 56 (2006) 444-5; JRS 96 (2006) 216-18; CJ 103 (2007) 107-13; Phoenix 62 (2008) 229-31).
- Ordering Knowledge in the Roman World (jointly edited with Tim Whitmarsh) (Cambridge University Press) (2007)
- Greek Literature in the Roman Empire (Bristol Classical Press) (2009) (Classical World series)
- Greek Athletics (editor) (Edinburgh University Press) (2010) (Edinburgh Readings on the Ancient World series)
- Saints and Symposiasts: The Literature of Food and the Symposium in Greco-Roman and early Christian Culture (Cambridge University Press) (in final preparation—forthcoming 2012)
In addition I have published a wide range of articles, chapters and reviews.
Four of those pieces are available to download in full from the St Andrews Full Text research repository, as follows:
- 'Fragmentation and coherence in Plutarch's Sympotic Questions’, in König, J. and Whitmarsh, T. (eds) Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire (Cambridge University Press) (2007).
- 'Sympotic dialogue in the first to fifth centuries CE', in Goldhill, S. (ed.) The End of Dialogue in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press) (2008)
- 'Body and text in the Greek and Roman novels', in Whitmarsh, T. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel (Cambridge University Press) (2008)
- ‘Training athletes and explaining the past in Philostratus’ Gymnasticus’, in Elsner, J. and Bowie, E. (eds) Philostratus (Cambridge University Press) (2009)
- 'Conventions of prefatory self-presentation in Galen's On the Order of my Own Books', in Gill, C., Wilkins, J. and Whitmarsh, T. (eds) Galen and the World of Knowledge (Cambridge University Press) (2009)
A full bibliography is available via the Research Portal.
Doctoral Student Interests
I would be pleased to supervise research in any of the above areas, particularly in any subject related to the encyclopaedic and compilatory writing of the Roman Empire , and on the Greek and Latin novels or on other aspects of the Greek literature of the Roman Empire. Informal enquiries welcome.
Please also see the Logos Centre
Teaching
In addition to teaching on a range of subhonours courses, I currently teach honours modules on ''The Ancient and Modern Novel', 'Eating and Drinking in the Roman World', 'Greek Literature in the Roman Empire' and 'Greeks and Barbarians'. I also offer postgraduate taught modules on 'Greek Literature in the Roman Empire', 'Scientific, miscellanistic and encyclopedic writing in the Roman world' and 'The Ancient and Modern Novel'.
Academic Career:
I graduated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1996 with a degree in Classics, and then moved to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to do an MPhil and PhD in Classics between 1996 and 2000. I was a Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge in 2000-2002, and have been in St Andrews since September 2002.