Fiona McHardy

I am Head of History and Classics in the School of Humanities. 

BA Honours Ancient and Modern Greek

MA Ancient Drama and Society

PhD on The Ideology of Revenge in Ancient Greek Culture

I am interested in ancient and modern Greek literature, folk poetry, anthropology and culture. My focus to date has been on revenge ethics, especially in Homeric epic, Greek tragedy and Attic oratory. I have a particular interest in representations of gender and revenge in ancient and modern Greek literature. Currently I am working on gendered violence in ancient Greek myth and literature with a particular focus on infanticide, domestic violence and uxoricide.  I have a long-standing research interest in Greek tragic fragments and am currently researching how violent and vengeful acts were portrayed in tragedies that are no longer extant.

My monograph about revenge in Greek culture was published in 2008 and I am currently working on a monograph about gender and violence in ancient Greece for Bloomsbury. I have recently completed work on a co-edited volume on gender and revenge in classical, medieval and early modern literature with Lesel Dawson from the University of Bristol. My most recent pedagogical work has been on diversity and inclusivity with Susan Deacy with whom I also completed an HEA-funded project on Teaching Sensitive Subjects in the Classics Classroom. A volume on this topic which I co-edited with Prof. Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz came out in 2014.

Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Fellow of SEDA

Member of the Classical Association of England and Wales

Member of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies

Member of the Society for Classical Studies (N.America)

Member of the Women's Classical Caucus 

I teach the following modules:

- Homer and the Epic Cycle

- Violence and Law in Ancient Greece

- Beginners' Ancient Greek

- Intermediate Greek

- Dissertation and Special Essay

I am currently supervising PhD theses on the following topics:

- The idea of 'beautiful death' in Euripidean tragedy

- Nature imagery connected to rituals of birth, initiation, marriage and death in Apollonius Rhodius.

- The depiction of sexual violence against women in Attic oratory

- A Study of Combat Trauma in 5th and Early 4th Century Greece

- Intersectional Approaches to Classical Mythology

I have previously supervised PhD students working on:

- Animal Metaphors and the Depiction of Female Avengers in Attic Tragedy 

- Greek and Poetic Identity in the Works of C. P. Cavafy

- Paraphilias in Ancient Greece