THOMAS NELSON
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Conference and Seminar Presentations

2025
  • “Shadows and Whispers: Reception Amid Fragments”, Conceptualising Reception: Interdisciplinary Theories and Methods, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 14–16 Nov.
  • “Tenedos and Tennes in the Cypria”, Classics Faculty Early Career Academic Work-in-Progress Seminar, Oxford, 23 Oct. 
  • “Birds, Music, and Poetry across Ancient Cultures”, Classical Association Conference 2025, St Andrews, 11–13 July
  • “Corinna's Shield of Athena”, Classics Faculty Early Career Academic Work-in-Progress Seminar, Oxford, 8 May
  • “Carriages of Justice: Receptions of the Agamemnon's 'Carpet Scene'”, APGRD Colloquium on Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Oxford, 21 March
  • “Corinna and the Shield of Athena (667 PMG)”, ‘Minor’ Female Poets of the Archaic and Classical Age, Bergamo, Italy, 29–30 Jan.
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2024
  • “Mothers or Wives? Divinised Queens in the Ptolemaic, Seleucid and Attalid Kingdoms”, HelleNET Online Seminar, 2 Dec.
  • “Ancient hauntologies: ghosts of the literary past from antiquity to Atwood”, The Underworld and Katabaseis Across Time, Oxford, 16 Oct.
  • “Shadows beyond Callimachus: Latin literature and the submerged currents of Hellenistic poetry”, Testing the Waters: A Workshop on Intertextuality in Latin Literature, Manchester, 5–6 Sept.
  • “(Re)constructing tradition in the Hellenistic Jewish epics by Philo and Theodotus”, Seminar on Jewish History and Literature in the Greco-Roman Period, Oxford, 21 May
  • “The death of Talos: Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1629–88”, Elitism, rationality, and sociability: themes in the intellectual and literary history of the ancient Greek world, Oxford, 15 May
  • “Homer Reformed: Hellenistic Epic in Macedon and Jerusalem”, Reworking Epic, Oxford, 20 Apr.
  • “Tradition and Allusion in Homer's Odyssey”, Graeca​, Shanghai, 7 Apr.
  • “Divine Motherhood in Hellenistic Pergamon”, Aberdeen Classical Association Branch, 12 March
  • “Famous First Words: Resonant Beginnings in Greek Tragedy and Lyric”, Oxford Philological Society, 2 Feb.
  • “Hellenistic Jewish Epic Between Homer and the Septuagint”,  The 'Silver Age' of Hellenistic Poetry, 2024 SCS/AIA Annual Meeting, Chicago, 4–7 Jan.

2023
  • “Dido Out of Time: Misplaced Maternity in Aeneid 1 and 4”, Mothers in Time Seminar, Oxford, 29 Nov.
  • A Talk on Aeneid 2, Classics Faculty Early Career Academic Work-in-Progress Seminar, Oxford, 16 Nov.
  • “Heracles, Euphorion and Seleucid Tradition in the Aetion of Apamea-on-the-Orontes (Ps.-Oppian, Cynegetica 2.100–158)”, Hellenistic Poetry Beyond Alexandria, 16th Groningen Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry, Groningen, Netherlands, 13–15 Sept.
  • “Apollonian Footnotes”, Argonautica Workshop, Dublin, 1–3 June
  • “Divine Quarrels (DDeor. 15, 16, 21)”, Lucian’s Minor Dialogues Seminar, Oxford, 16 May
  • “Collaboration and Community in the Future of Humanities Research”, Humanities Forward: Opportunities and Challenges for the Next Twenty Years, Ertegun House, Oxford, 13–14 May
  • “Unlikely Epic: Heracles and the Original ‘Dickheads’”, Wolfson Early Career Research Festival, Oxford, 9 May
  • A Talk on Aeneid 2, Classical Association Conference 2023, Cambridge, 21–23 Apr.
  • “Puzzling Homer”, Greek and Latin Puzzle Poetry, Oxford, 18 Jan.
  • “Epigram Beyond Alexandria: Samus of Macedon and Philip V”, Hellenistic Epigram in New Contexts, 2023 SCS/AIA Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 5–8 Jan.

2022
  • “Apollonis of Cyzicus and the Pergamene Politics of Divine Motherhood”, The Politics of Female Divinity in Hellenistic Poetry, Tübingen, Germany, 3–4 Nov.
  • “‘It was my tongue that swore...’: Tongues and Obedience in Greek and Roman Antiquity” (with Dr Olivia Elder), Oxford-Princeton Ancient History Seminar: ‘Obedience’, Oxford, 11 Oct.
  • “Incipit Allusions Across Time”, Arts of Allusion: Greek Intertextuality Over Time, Toronto, Canada, 15–18 ​Sept. 
  • “Locating Poetic Learning: Hellenistic Scholar-Poets Beyond Alexandria”, Beyond the Birdcage: Hellenistic Scholarship and Learning Outside Alexandria, 13th Celtic Conference in Classics, Lyon, France, 19–21 July 
  • “Terence, Eunuchus 391–506: Humble Brags and Self-Conscious Swagger”, Terence Eunuchus Seminar, Oxford, 24 May
  • “Flipped Myths and Intertextual Palimpsests in Carm. Il. 1.260–406”, John Teztes’ Little-and-Big Iliad (Carmina Iliaca) Seminar, Oxford, 6 May 
  • “Tragic Allusion and Attic Tradition in the Ithyphallic Hymn for Demetrius Poliorcetes”, Classics Faculty Early Career Academic Work-in-Progress Seminar, Oxford, 5 May
  • “Hyssaldomos of Mylasa and the Greek Literary Tradition”, Epigraphy Workshop, Oxford, 22 Feb.
  • “Pimped-up Rhetoric and Perverted Aetiology in Herodas 2”, Herodas Seminar, Oxford, 27 Jan. 
  • “[Theocritus], Idyll 23: A Stony Aesthetic”, The Poetics and Pragmatics of Hellenistic Aesthetics, 2022 SCS/AIA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 5–8 Jan.
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2021
  • “From Colophon to Rome: Pergamene Nicander and Latin Poetry”, Classics Faculty Early Career Academic Work-in-Progress Seminar, Oxford, 17 Nov.
  • “Homer in his World: Rewriting the Odyssey in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Hermesianax’s Leontion”, Wadham Classics Seminar, 19 Oct. 
  • “Epiphany and Salvation in Inscribed Hellenistic Poetry: Bacchic and Odyssean Resonances in the Verse-Inscription of Hyssaldomos of Mylasa”, Crisis and Resilience in Hellenistic Poetry, 15th Groningen Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry, Groningen, Netherlands, 15–17 Sept.
  • Response to N. Mason-Davies, “Silence at Moments of Crisis in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica”, 15th Groningen Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry, Groningen, Netherlands, 15–17 Sept.
  • “Locating Poetic Learning: Hellenistic Scholar-Poets Beyond Alexandria”, Beyond the Birdcage: Hellenistic Scholarship and Learning Outside Alexandria, 13th Celtic Conference in Classics, Lyon, France 15–18 Jul. [postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic]
  • “(Dis)Continuities in Hellenistic Aesthetics: Art, Literature and Geopolitics”, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, 13 Jul.
  • “The Poetics of Iteration: Greek Lyric Between Re-Performance and Intertextual Repetition”, Performing Texts, 6th Open Conference of the Network for the Study of Archaic and Classical Greek Song, Spetses, Greece, 30 June–4 Jul.
  • “From Asia Minor to Rome: Nicander of Colophon and Latin Poetry”, Classics Faculty Postdoc Work-in-Progress Seminar, Cambridge, 14 May 
  • “The Fringes of Hellenistic Epic: Genre, Canon, Space”, Classics Faculty Literary Seminar: The Fringes of Epic, Cambridge, 5 May 
  • “Pre-eminent Penelope: Gendered Competition in the Odyssey”, Corpus Classics Zoom Seminar, Cambridge, 28 Jan.
  • “Genre, Gender and Aesthetics in [Theocritus], Idyll 23”, Gender, Sexuality and the Self in Hellenistic Poetry, Oxford, 26 Jan. 
  • Response to M. Ellis, “Euripidean Lyric Through the Eyes of Aristophanes”, Sensing Greek Drama: Then & Now, Cambridge, 14–16 Jan.
  • “The Ithyphallic Hymn for Demetrius Poliorcetes: Panegyric, Resistance and Attic Tradition”, Greek History, 2021 SCS/AIA Annual Virtual Meeting, 5–10 Jan.

2020
  • “Beyond the Ptolemies: Poetry and Politics in the Hellenistic World”, Stephen Hales talk, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 17 Nov.
  • “Mistaken Memories in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry”, Bad Intertextuality in Premodern Literary Cultures: An International Workshop, 8 Oct.
  • “Poets and their πρότεροι: Allusive Epigonality in Archaic Greek Poetry”, Arts of Allusion: Greek Intertextuality Over Time, Toronto, Canada, 11–12 Sep. [postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic]
  • “Locating Poetic Learning: Hellenistic Scholar-Poets Beyond Alexandria”, ‘Beyond the Birdcage: Hellenistic Scholarship and Learning Outside Alexandria’, 13th Celtic Conference in Classics, Lyon, France, 15–18 Jul. [postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic]
  • “The Poetics of Iteration: Greek Lyric Between Re-Performance and Intertextual Repetition”, Performing Texts, 6th Open Conference of the Network for the Study of Archaic and Classical Greek Song, Spetses, Greece, 1–5 Jul. [postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic]
  • “Iphigenia in the Iliad and the Architecture of Homeric Allusion”, Corpus Classics Zoom Seminar, Cambridge, 7 May; Classics Faculty Postdoc Work-In-Progress Seminar, Cambridge, 22 May
  • “The Place of Love in the Greek Anthology”, Desire and Love in Ancient Greece and Rome, Xinya College, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, June [cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic]
  • “Homer, Hesiod and a Footnoting φασί”, CA Conference 2020, Swansea, 17–20 Apr. [cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic]
  • “Homer in his World: Palimpsestic Immersion in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Hermesianax’s Leontion”, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, ICS Seminar, 24 Feb.
  • “The Poetics of Play in Hellenistic Epigram”, Classics Faculty Postdoc Work-In-Progress Seminar, Cambridge, 14 Feb. 
  • “Intertextual Impersonation in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo”, ‘Archaic Poetics of Identity’ Panel, 2020 SCS/AIA Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 2–5 Jan.
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2019
  • “Knowledge in Gilgameš”, Ancient Near East (ANE) Seminar, Cambridge, 22 Oct.
  • “The Coma Stratonices: Hair Encomia, Queenly Power, and Ptolemaic-Seleucid Rivalry”, 14th Groningen Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry: Women and Power in Hellenistic Poetry, Groningen, Netherlands, 21–23 Aug. 
  • “Intertextual Agones in Archaic Greek Epic: Penelope vs. the Catalogue of Women”, CA / FIEC Conference 2019, London, 4–8 Jul. 
  • “Sweet and Shrill Songbirds: The Sounds of Lament in Graeco-Roman Elegy”, ‘Song, Lament, Love: Harking Back to the Sounds of Elegy’, 12th Celtic Conference in Classics, Coimbra, Portugal, 26–29 June
  • “The Coma Stratonices: Hair Encomia, Queenly Power, and Ptolemaic-Seleucid Rivalry”,  ‘Cherchez la femme: Women in Hellenistic History, Historiography and Reception’, 12th Celtic Conference in Classics, Coimbra, Portugal, 26–29 June
  • "AP 15: Miscellaneous Joys and Cometas' Paraphrase of John 11", Late Greek Reading Group, Cambridge,14 June
  • “Intercultural Indexicality? Markers of Allusion between Greece and the Near East”, Advanced Seminar in the Humanities, Venice International University, San Servolo, Venice, 6–13 Apr. 
  • “Scholarship and Learning in Hellenistic Poetry Outside Alexandria”, Hellenistic Scholarship and Learning Outside Alexandria, Università Ca’Foscari, Venice, 5 Apr. 
  • “Repeating the Unrepeated: Homeric Hapax Legomena in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry”, Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World XIII: Repetition, University of Texas at Austin, 27–31 March
  • "Anth. Pal. 7: A Museum of Death”, Late Greek Reading Group, Cambridge, ​15 Feb.
  • "Nicander’s Hymn to Attalus: Pergamene Panegyric", 2019 SCS/AIA Annual Meeting, San Diego, 3–6 Jan.

2018
  • “Cyzicene Epigrams: Anth. Pal. 3”, Late Greek Reading Group, Cambridge, 9 Nov. 
  • "Talk and Text: The Pre-Alexandrian Footnote between Orality and Writing”, Text and Intertext in Early Greek Poetry, Christ’s College, Cambridge, 3–4 Sep.
  • “Lyric Beyond the Canon: The Ithyphallic Hymn for Demetrius Poliorcetes”, Lyric Beyond Lyric, King’s College, London, 24 May 
  • "Dionysius Periegetes, Oikoumenes Periegesis 1–169: Didactic Authority and Imperial Expanse”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, ​2 March

2017
  • “Horses for Courses: The Metapoetics of Horse- and Chariot-Riding in Roman Poetry”, Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar, Cambridge, 3 Nov.​
  • “Orphic Argonautica 392–575: The Allusive Art of Expansion and Contraction”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 27 Oct.
  • “Sweet and Sombre Songbirds: The Aesthetics of Lament in Graeco-Roman Elegy”, Classics Faculty A Caucus Seminar: Elegy, Cambridge, 18 Oct.
  • Response to J. J. Clauss, “The Near Eastern Background of Aetiological Wordplay in Callimachus”, 13​th Groningen Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry: Callimachus Revisited (retirement event for Prof. M. Annette Harder), 12–14 Sep. 
  • “Penelopean Simaetha: A Flawed Paradigm of Femininity in Theocritus’ Second Idyll”, La féminité dans les arts hellénistiques: voix, genre, representations, Lyon, France, 7–9 Sep.
  • “Symphonic Bestiaries: Poetic and Cultural Resonances in the Sounds of the Animal Kingdom”, 23rd CorHaLi Colloquium: Soundscapes of the Ancient Greek World, Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece, Nafplio, Greece, 15–18 July
  • “Ps.-Oppian, Cynegetica 2.100–158 and 2.343–376: Seleucid echoes and Homeric goats”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 9 June
  • “Colluthus, Rape of Helen 236–316: Traditionality, Gender and Focalisation”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 3 March
 
2016
  • “The Jewish Epic Fragments of Philo and Theodotus”, Being Jewish, Writing Greek Seminar, Cambridge, 28 Nov. 
  • “Oppian: Halieutica 3.1–28 and 3.280–337: Mythical Innovation and Martial Fishermen”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 11 Nov.
  • "Indices of Allusion in Early Greek Poetry", Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar, Cambridge, 21 Oct.
  • “Attalid Aesthetics. The Pergamene ‘Baroque’ Reconsidered”, Casting Off Shadows: Hellenistic Poetry Beyond Callimachean Aesthetics, Cambridge, 1–3 Sep.
  • “Early Hellenistic Epic: A Reassessment”, Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus, Liverpool, 14–15 June
  • “Triphiodorus: Sack of Troy 330–397: The Wooden Horse and Cassandra’s Prophecy”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 20 May
  • “Pergamene Poetics of Praise: Attalid Fragments in Context”, Hellenistic Poetry Beyond 3rd Century Alexandria​, Classical Association Conference 2016, Edinburgh, 6–9 Apr. 
  • “Quintus Posthomerica 13.251–299: Astyanax’s death and Antenor’s survival”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 19 Feb.
  • “Indices of Allusion in Early Greek Epic”, Edinburgh Classics Postgraduate Seminar Series, Edinburgh, 28 Jan.
 
2015
  • “Quintus Posthomerica 7.169–252: Literary Reverberations on Scyros”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 27 Nov. 
  • “Masks and Mirrors: Poetic Self-Consciousness and Literary History in Attic Old Comedy and Hellenistic Poetry”, 12th Groningen Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry: Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry, 19 Aug.
  • “Civilisation at what cost? Heracles and the Ambiguities of Progress in Hellenistic Poetry”, Progress in Ancient Literature, AMPAL 2015, Edinburgh, 17 June 
  • “Nonnus Dionysiaca 40.423–534: Nonnus’ aetion of Tyre", Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 22 May 
  • “Poetic Self-Consciousness and Literary History in Attic Old Comedy and Hellenistic Poetry”, Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar, Cambridge, 15 May
  • “Nonnus Dionysiaca 25.1–147: Nonnus’ Proem in the Middle”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 20 Feb. 
  • "So they say...": Homeric Footnotes and Epic Intertextuality", Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar, Cambridge, 23 Jan.  
  • “How Old is the ‘Alexandrian Footnote’? Tradition and Self-Consciousness in the Homeric Epics”, Graduate Research Seminar, Cambridge, 21 Jan.

2014
  • “What Happens When History Gets Intertextual? Echoes of the Herodotean Cyrus in Lucian’s Zeuxis and Polybius VII.15–18”, Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar, Cambridge, 31 Oct.
  • “Nonnus Dionysiaca 5.287–369: Actaeon’s Transgression and Transformation”, Imperial Greek Epic Reading Group, Cambridge, 31 Oct.
  • “From Zero to Hero: Jason's Redemption and the Evaluation of Apollonius' Argonautica”, Failure in Ancient Literature, AMPAL 2014, Cambridge, 6–7 Sep. [Full text available at Humanities Commons; academia.edu]
  • “Alexandria Imagined: the Ptolemaic capital in Hellenistic Literature”, Egypt in Classical Literature Seminar, Oxford, 19 June 
  • “Ideologies of Galatian Victory: Allegories and Analogies in Literature and Art”, Recent Work on Ancient Galatia Workshop, Waterloo, Canada, 13–15 March
  • “Victories over the Hellenistic Gauls: Allegories and Analogies in Literature and Art”, Graduate Work-in-Progress Seminar, Oxford, 21 Feb.
  • “Galatian Victories: Antiochus’ 'Elephant Battle' and Lucian’s Zeuxis”, Classical Literature Graduate Seminar, 10 Feb.
  •  “Female rhetoric: Mica’s onslaught at Thesm.383–404”, Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae ‘Professorial’ Seminar, Oxford, 3 Feb. 
  • “How ‘Alexandrian’ is the ‘Alexandrian footnote’? Markers of Intertextuality in Hellenistic Poetry”, Metaphors of Intertextuality  Seminar, Oxford, 28 Jan. 
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2013
  • “To the City-Loving Fuscus: Horace Epistles 1.10”, Horace Epistles I ‘Professorial’ Seminar, Oxford, 7 Nov. 
  • “Poetic Self-Consciousness and Literary History in Attic Old Comedy and Hellenistic Poetry”, Graduate Work-In-Progress Seminar, Oxford, 1 Nov.
  • Response to A. Kirichenko, "Importing the Past: Theocritus’ Id.15 and Callimachus’ Aetia”, 11th Groningen Workshop on Hellenistic Poetry: Past and Present in Hellenistic Poetry, 28–30 Aug. 
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