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My current project looks at premodern book cultures, especially those relating to Ancient Greece. Recent publications on this topic discuss writing metaphors in sympotic poetry of the Archaic period; authorial self-naming in Hipponax; and pseudepigraphic themes in Callimachus’ epigrams. This project develops an earlier interest in the structure of Hellenistic epigram anthologies. It also ties into work I have done on the dynamics of literary inheritance in antiquity, for example in articles on Semonides and Vitruvius.

The other major strand of my research is Old Comedy. My monograph argues that there was a period of intense and bold formal experimentation in Old Comedy of the generation before Aristophanes, centred around the now-obscure playwright Crates. Comic playwrights at Athens were not only trying new things out on stage, but explicitly signalled their own status as innovators on the model of contemporary developments in the natural sciences. They did so both individually as a way of distinguishing themselves within the Athenian theatrical competitions, and collectively within a context of fierce rivalry between comic theatrical traditions across the ancient Mediterranean. 

I hold a Bachelor of Arts from the Liberal Arts College of Concordia University in Montreal, as well as an MPhil and PhD in Classics from the University of Cambridge, where I was a Scholar at St John’s College.

I am member of the Classical Association Journals Board (2024-2028), and sit on the editorial board of ARGO. Together with the late Raffaella Cribiore (NYU), I was organiser of a recent Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique at the Fondation Hardt. 

Main publications:

Anderson, D. forthcoming. ‘Early writing metaphors in performance’, Mnemosyne (special issue: Patterns of Textuality, ed. R. Zelnick-Abramovitz, M. Finkelberg, and D. Shalev). 

Anderson, D. forthcoming. 'Self-naming in Hipponax', in E. E. Prodi and V. Casato (eds)., Hipponax the Poet, Cambridge. 

Anderson, D. forthcoming. ‘Callimachus’ epigram theatre’, in J. J. H. Klooster et al. (eds.), Hellenistica Groningana 27: Crisis and Resilience, Groningen.

Anderson, D. and R. Cribiore† (eds.) (2024). Les espaces du savoir dans l’Antiquité – Spaces for Learning in Antiquity. Vandœuvres. 

Anderson, D. and R. Cribiore (2024). 'Spaces for Learning in Antiquity', in Anderson and Cribiore (eds). Les espaces du savoir dans l’Antiquité – Spaces for Learning in Antiquity. Vandœuvres. 

Anderson, D. (2024). 'Drama in the classroom; classrooms on stage', in Anderson and Cribiore (eds). Les espaces du savoir dans l’Antiquité – Spaces for Learning in Antiquity. Vandœuvres. 

Anderson, D. (2023). ‘Measuring up: the Greek analogies behind Vitruvius’ geometry of the body’, Ramus (special issue: Homo bene figuratus: Beyond the Vitruvian Man, ed. M. Hanses, E. Giusti, and G. Laterza). 

Anderson, D. (2021). ‘Semantic satiation for poetic effect’, Classical Quarterly 71.1: 34–51.

Anderson, D. (2021). ‘An unnoticed pun in Hipponax fr. 3a W. = 2 D.’, Philologus 165.1: 147–52.

Anderson, D. (2018). ‘Species of ambiguity in Semonides fr. 7’, Cambridge Classical Journal 64: 1–22.

Anderson, D. (2014). ‘Location and motif in Meleager’s coronis (A.P. 12.257)’, Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 73: 9–23.

Current doctoral supervision: 

Adeola Oluyemisi Eze, 'The Reception of Ancient Book Formats in Contemporary Literature' (DoS)

Christopher Lillington-Martin, 'Historiography and Characterisation in the 'Wars' and 'Secret History' of Procopius the Caesarean (c.500-555)' (DoS)

Georgina Homer, 'Minor Characters in Classical Tragedy and its Modern Receptions' (DoS)

Steven Roger William Gregory, ‘Revealing the Nature of Pharaonic Ideology: Kingship, Governance, and a Duality of Ontological Conditions' (DoS) (post-viva)

Kirsty Harrod, ‘Narratives of Sexual Violence in Greek Tragedy’ (supervisor)

Helen Lord, ‘Classical Pedagogy as Conceived by Women in the Nineteenth Century’ (supervisor)