ILLR · Intellectual Life and Learning on Rhodes (168BC-AD44)

ILLR is the first intellectual and cultural history of Rhodes centered on a seminal period of its cultural prominence between itsalliance with Rome (164 BC), where its financial and military power was curtailed and it became semi-autonomous, and itsincorporation into the province of Asia (AD 44) by the Emperor Claudius. Using a combination of actor-network/socialnetwork theory and intellectual history with literary and material evidence, ILLR shows the transformation of Rhodian andGreek identities from a predominately economic and political power to a cultural one in a Greek and subsequently Greco-Roman world, and Rhodes’ part in the creation of the Classics and Greco-Roman culture.ILLR demonstrates Rhodes’ pivotal and under-appreciated role as an important intersection within networks of learning, byanalysing ancient intellectual life in all its forms (e.g. philology, history, philosophy, the sociology and anthropology ofknowledge). Consisting of a monograph and two articles, it examines the preservation and study of heritage, thedevelopment of poetry, scholarship, philosophy, and rhetoric, and their subsequent influence on Greeks and Romans.My main research interests are Greco-Roman literary history, Greek poetry and music, ancient scholarship, and fragmentaryliterary texts. ILLR will advance my career and strengthen my profile as a researcher by allowing me to expand my researchinterests to Latin literature and learning, Greek epigraphy, and Greco-Roman oratory, and allow me to disseminate theseskills through teaching and further research. ILLR serves as a point of comparison, and, conceivably, of inspiration, whendealing with analogue features of our contemporary world. These features include the mobility of students and scholars, theformalisation and diversification of academic disciplines, languages and multilingualism, and the use of cultural heritage andlearning as means of identity and representation.