Dr Greta Hawes
Areas of expertise
- Literary Studies 2005
- Latin And Classical Greek Literature 200510
- Historical Studies 2103
Biography
Greta Hawes is a scholar of Greek myth. Her work examines ancient – and sometimes more recent – contexts for storytelling, the Greeks’ assessment of mythic phenomena in their own culture, and the modes of interpretation to which these gave rise.
Her first book, Rationalizing myth in antiquity (OUP, 2014), charts ancient dissatisfaction with the excesses of myth and the various attempts made by Greek mythographers to cut them down to size. It argues that this ancient rationalizing tradition, so often dismissed for its banality, in fact offers important insights into the practical difficulties inherent in distinguishing myth from history in antiquity, and indeed into the fragmented nature of myth itself as an emic concept.
Her current research explores the spatial dynamics of ancient storytelling and the various intricate relationships between myths and land. This is the theme of her edited collection, Myths on the map: the storied landscapes of ancient Greece (OUP, 2017) and a book she is currently working on, Pausanias in the world of Greek myth, which will appear with OUP in 2021. For the years 2017-21, her research is supported by an ARC DECRA award.
Researcher's projects
Principal investigator, 'The spatial dynamics of myth in Pausanias' Periegesis' ARC DECRA award, 2017-21.
Co-director, with Prof. R. Scot Smith, of MANTO, an interdisciplinary initiative to model the complexities of the Greek mythic storyworld using digital methods. Visit it here: https://www.manto-myth.org/
Co-editor, with Prof. Gregory Nagy, on A Pausanias commentary in progress, a new digital humanities platform hosted by the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University.
Member of 'Estudios sobre transmisión y recepción de Paléfato y la exégesis racionalista de los mitos’, funded by Proyectos de I+D, Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia (FFI2014-52203-P) 2016-18, led by Prof. Minerva Alganza Roldan (Granada).
Publications
- Delattre, C & Hawes, G 2020, 'Mythographical topography, textual materiality and the (dis)ordering of myth: The case of antoninus liberalis', Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 140, pp. 106-119.
- Hawes, G, ed., 2017, Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece, Oxford University Press, United Kingdom.
- Hawes, G 2014, Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom.
- Hawes, G 2019, 'The Mythographical Topography of Pausanias' Periegesis', in Allen J Romano & John Marincola (ed.), Host or Parasite? Mythographers and their Contemporaries in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, Germany, pp. 135-163.
- Hawes, G 2018, 'Pausanias' Messenian Itinerary and the Journeys of the Past', in Chiara Ferella and Cilliers Breytenbach (ed.), Paths of Knowledge: Interconnection(s) between knowledge and journey in the Greco-Roman World, Edition Topoi, Germany, pp. 151-175.
- Hawes, G 2017, 'The story of Actaeon and the inevitability of myth', in M. Alganza Roldán and P. Papadopoulou (ed.), La mitología griega en la tradición literaria: de la Antigüedad a la Grecia contemporánea, Centro de Estudios Bizantinos, Neogriegos y Chipriotas, Spain, pp. 79-97.
- Alganza Roldan, M, Barr, J & Hawes, G 2017, 'The reception history of Palaephatus 1 (On the Centaurs) in Ancient and Byzantine texts', Polymnia, vol. 3, pp. 186-235.
- Hawes, G 2017, 'Discussions with Mountains in Marian Maguire's A Taranaki Dialogue', in Diana Burton, Simon Perris and Jeff Tatum (ed.), Athens to Aotearoa: Greece and Rome in New Zealand Literature and Society, Victoria University Press, New Zealand, pp. 131-153.
- Hawes, G 2017, 'Two Tombs for Hyrnetho: A Case Study in Localism and Mythographic Topography', CHS Research Bulletin, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. -.
- Hawes, G 2017, 'Thebes on Stage, on Site, and in the Flesh', in Richard Hunter and Anna Uhlig (ed.), Imagining Reperformance in Ancient Culture: Studies in the Traditions of Drama and Lyric, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 63-83.
- Hawes, G 2017, 'Circean enchantments and the transformation of allegory', in Vanda Zajko and Helena Hoyle (ed.), A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology, Wiley Blackwell, United States, pp. 123-138.
- Hawes, G 2016, 'Pausanias and the Footsteps of Herodotus', in Jessica Priestley and Vasiliki Zali (ed.), Brill's Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond, Brill, Leiden and Boston, pp. 322-345.
- Hawes, G 2016, 'Stones, Names, Stories, and Bodies: Pausanias before the Walls of Seven-Gated Thebes', in Jeremy McInerney and Ineke Sluiter (ed.), Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity: Natural Environment and Cultural Imagination, Koninklijke Brill, Leiden and Boston, pp. 431-457.
- Deacy, S, Hanesworth, P, Hawes, G et al 2016, 'Beheading the Gorgon: Myth, Symbolism and Appropriation', in Stefano Goffredo and Zvy Dubinsky (ed.), The Cnidaria, Past, Present and Future: The world of Medusa and her sisters, Springer International Publishing Switzerland, Switzerland, pp. 823-834.
- Hawes, G 2015, 'The Unsettled Settler: Herakles the Colonist and the Labours of Marian Maguire', Arion - Journal of Humanities and the Classics, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 11-27.
- Hawes, G 2014, 'Story Time at the Library: Palaephatus and the Emergence of Highly Literate Mythology', in Ruth Scodel (ed.), Between Orality and Literacy: Communication and Adaptation in Antiquity: Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World, Koninklijke Brill, Leiden and Boston, pp. 125-147.
- Hawes, G 2008, 'Metamorphosis and metamorphic identity: the myth of Actaeon in works of Ovid, Dante and John Gower', Iris, vol. 21, pp. 21-42.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- The spatial dynamics of myth in Pausanias' Periegesis (Primary Investigator)