PhD CLASSICS

The Department has special expertise in a range of areas – literary, historical, and philosophical – within the field of classical studies. It is particularly strong in the areas of the ancient novel, ancient philosophy (especially Cynicism and Epicureanism), and late Antiquity/early Christianity, but other areas in which thesis supervision can be offered include death and writing on death in Antiquity, epistolography, Greek epic and drama, Greek social history, Hellenistic history, Latin poetry, Roman Republican history, Roman religion, the Second Sophistic, and modern receptions of the classical world. These do not exhaust the possibilities for higher-degree research in the Department, however, and enquiries are welcome.

Dr Eoghan Moloney
Eoghan Moloney specializes on the history of ancient Macedon and continues to work and publish on the ancient Argead kings. Beyond a particular interest in Alexander the Great and the Macedonians, other research activity explores the importance of peace as a critical part of ancient life, comparing and contrasting peace theories and practices across different periods and regions. 

Dr Kieran McGroarty
Kieran McGroarty’s research career began in the area of Neoplatonic philosophy, his work culminating in a monograph on Plotinus.  He now works in the field of Greek social and cultural history, especially of the Classical period.  He has also published on Alexander the Great, and maintains a keen interest in this area.

Dr Cosetta Cadau
Cosetta Cadau works on literature of the fourth to the sixth century AD, particularly Greek epic. Her research focuses on the renegotiation of classical tradition in the Late Antique period and within Christian literary contexts, and the evolution of concepts of gender and identity in the Late Antique period. She is the author of the first interpretative monograph on Egyptian epic poet Colluthus (Studies in Colluthus’ Abduction of Helen).

Dr William Desmond
William Desmond’s main research focuses on the literature, history, and cultural life of the Classical Greek period.  He has a particular interest in Plato and the Cynics, in both their essential ‘Greekness’ and their manifold influence beyond the Greek world.  He has published monographs on Classical Greek understandings of wealth and poverty, on the Cynics, and on the historical varieties of the ‘philosopher-king’ from Plato to the twentieth century.  He also has some expertise in nineteenth-century receptions of the Classics, and in process philosophy from Heraclitus to Whitehead.

Dr Leah O'Hearn
Leah O’Hearn is a broadly trained classicist with a specialisation in the literature and social history of the late Roman Republic and early Empire, especially Catullus and the Augustan love elegists. In addition to a broad interest in gender and ethics in ancient thought, Dr O’Hearn also works on the history of the emotions and environmental humanities (especially ecocriticism).