Staff Profile:Clare Coombe

Name::

Clare Coombe

Position / Job Title:

Teaching Fellow in Classics
BA Dissertations Co-ordinator

Responsibilities:

In the academic year 2011-12 Clare will be teaching Latin 4/5, the Roman aspects of Ancient Persuasion, convening Roman Epic and Roman Religions, and undertaking some part one teaching for Augustan Rome and Text and Object.

She is the BA dissertation coordinator, and will also be supervising undergraduate dissertations associated with Latin literature and Late Antiquity.

Clare taught on the University of Reading Latin Summer School in 2011, and hopes to do so again in 2012.

Areas of Interest:

Having completed her BA and MA at the University of Exeter, for which she wrote dissertations of Claudian and Prudentius respectively, Clare came to the University of Reading in 2008 to undertake her PhD, sponsored by the AHRC.

She is on the point of submitting her thesis, which explores the use of mythological imagery in the poetry of Claudian, in particular exploring techniques of storytelling and the innovations of the late antique literary style. Her areas of interest include all Latin literature but particularly late antique Latin poetry, and she intends to pursue new research on the late antique epigram. 

Research groups / Centres:

Publications:

• Review of Pirovano's Le Interpretationes Vergilianae di Tiberio Claudio Donato. Problem di Retorica, Classical Review 62.1 (2011).

• 'The importance of art in Virgil's Aeneid'. Pegasus. (2008, University of Exeter)

Conference papers:

• 'Colourful language in Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae'. To be given at the CA annual conference in Exeter, 2012.
• Paper on Claudian (title TBA) to be given by invitation at the University of Oxford Late Roman Seminar Series, 2012.
• 'Gold and the golden age in the poetry of Claudian' given at the International Medieval Congress, 2011.
• 'The return of the giants: politics, power and cosmic upheaval in the poetry of Claudian' given at Shifting Frontiers, 2011 and AMPAL, 2011.
• 'Innovations in late antique story-telling: political characters as literary constructs in the poetry of Claudian.' given by invitation as part of the 2011 seminar series at the Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Reading, in association with the faculty research theme Language, Text and Power.
• 'A hero in our midst: Stilicho as a literary construct in the poetry of Claudian' given at the Literature and Society in the 4th Century AD conference in Ghent, 2010 (conference proceedings to be published as a dedicated Mnemosyne supplement).
• 'Why does Cupid laugh? Reading Claudian's Epithalamium de Nuptiis Honorii Augusti through its mythological characters' given at the CA annual conference in Cardiff, 2010, and again in a longer version at the Institute of Classical Studies postgraduate work-in-progress seminar series, 2010.
• 'Heroes and Villains: mythological characterizations in the poetry of Claudian' given at the STAGE postgraduate conference in Edinburgh, 2010.
• 'The poet and his Muse: blurring boundaries between inspirer, creator and reader in the works of Claudian' given at AMPAL in Birmingham, 2009.
• 'The dangers of boundary crossing in Claudian' given at the Institute of Classical Studies postgraduate work-in-progress seminar series, 2009.
• 'Power and Supremacy in the De Raptu Proserpinae: a reassessment of the depiction of Claudian's Jupiter.' given at the University of Exeter postgraduate work-in-progress seminar series, 2008.