Staff Profile:Alastair Harden
- Name::
- Alastair Harden
- Position / Job Title:
PhD Student, Sessional Lecturer
Title of PhD thesis:
Violence and the Animal in Dionysian Art to 400BC
- Responsibilities:
- CL2GS- Greek Sculpture and Architecture
- Areas of Interest:
I came from Belfast to study the then-new 'Classical Archaeology and Ancient History' BA at Christ Church, Oxford (2003-2006), and after working in Oxford for two years (including at the library of New College) I returned to Christ Church for an MSt in Classical Archaeology in 2008-2009 and came to Reading to work with Amy Smith and Emma Aston. I co-founded the Oxford University Animal Ethics Society in 2007, was made an Associate Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in 2008, and am always interested in perceptions of animals and animal rights and ethics in the ancient and modern worlds. I am currently the Pottery Database Research Assistant at the Beazley Archive, and I work on education projects with the Assistant Curator at the Ure Museum, University of Reading.
My PhD thesis is on animals and animal imagery in Greek art, chiefly Dionysian iconography, in vase-painting and sculpture from Archaic times to the end of the 5th century BC (the focus is particularly on black-figure and early red-figure vase painting). I am particularly interested in the depiction of animals in the art of all periods, ancient and modern. I hope to work on Roman funerary sculpture after completion of my PhD. Beyond material culture, I am interested in animal depiction in literature and the possibility of formulating an ancient 'animal ethics' from the textual evidence. I am also very interested in Greek Old and Middle Comedy in all aspects, from philology to performance, and I hope to work closely on it in the future.
- Research groups / Centres:
- Publications:
- 'Animals in Classical Art,' in Campbell, G. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2012)
- Animals in Classical Literature: Ethical Perceptions. (source-book, ed., Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming)