Thomas Robert Philip COWARD

Thomas R.P. Coward is a Classicist and Greek literary historian. His main research interests are Greco-Roman literary history, Greek poetry and music, especially archaic and classical poetry and drama, ancient scholarship and knowledge economies, and fragmentary literary texts. He took his first degree in Classics (European Studies) at the University of Durham (2006-10) with an Erasmus Exchange to the Università di Bologna in Italy (2008-09). His PhD thesis, awarded in 2016 and advised by Giambattista D’Alessio and Michael Silk, was on Pindar and Greek lyric poetry at King’s College London (KCL). He is revising this thesis for publication with OUP. 

Currently, he is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie+One Individual Fellow at Cà Foscari (2018-21). His project entitled 'Intellectual Life and Learning on Rhodes (168BC-AD44)' or ILLR, consisting of a monograph and two articles, is the first intellectual and cultural history of the island of Rhodes (168 BC-AD 44). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 792579. Using actor-network/social network theory and intellectual history with literary and material evidence, ILLR will examine Rhodes’ role in the development of poetry, scholarship, philosophy, oratory, and heritage studies, the individuals involved in these activities, and their legacy. It is anticipated that the project will demonstrate Rhodes’ pivotal and under-appreciated role as an important intersection within the ancient knowledge economy of the Mediterranean, and Rhodes’ part in the creation of the Classics and Greco-Roman culture. 

Previously, Thomas Coward was a Term Assistant Professor of Classics at George Mason University, VA (2017-18). He taught courses on Latin, Classical mythology, Classical history and civilisations, and Greek and Roman comedy. He has also been a Part-Time Teacher of Classics at Brampton College and an hourly-paid Tutor at KCL (2016-17), where he taught Latin and Classical Civilisation to A-Level students, and introductory Latin to BA students and Homer to MA students. Also, he was a Graduate Teaching Assistant at KCL (2012-14) and he was one of the chairs and organisers for the ICS Postgraduate Work-in-Progess Seminar (2014-15). He was also a fellow of the advanced seminar of the Humanities at Venice International University (2013-14).

His forthcoming book, 'Pindar and Greek Lyric Poetry: A Tradition of Innovation', explores Pindar’s dependence upon former traditions of lyric poetry and music, the shaping of his poetic strategy, and how this makes him distinctive. The monograph considers to what degree these influences would have been perceptible to his listeners and what their expectations and experiences would be. Using theories of allusion, intertextuality, and musicology, it shows poets and poetry interacting in a predominantly song-performance culture, and provides a means for understanding the unique and innovative qualities that Pindar brought to lyric poetry. Challenging several assumed interactions and proposing new ones, and examining several features of his poetry, this book explores the balance that Pindar strikes between tradition and innovation, and convention and originality. It presents Pindar as a literary and musical historian, commentator, and innovator through the tacit or explicit appropriation of the conventions and distinctive features of his predecessors and contemporaries. The monograph as a whole considers Pindar’s engagement with Greek song-culture. 

Jointly with Rosa Andújar (KCL) and Theodora Hadjimichael (Warwick) he has edited a volume, 'Paths of Song: The Lyric Dimension of Greek Tragedy,' on the interplay between tragedy and lyric poetry which was published by De Gruyter in 2018. Furthermore, Enrico Emanuele Prodi (Oxford) and he have been commissioned an edited volume entitled 'Didymus and Greco-Roman Learning' (BICS Suppl. 63.2, 2021) The aim of this volume is an introduction and assessment of the works of Didymus in terms of his activities and his legacy and place within Greco-Roman learning.