Dr Christopher Metcalf

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Associate Professor in Classical Languages and Literature
Tutorial Fellow, Queen's College
christopher.metcalf@queens.ox.ac.uk

Qualifications: MA Edin  MPhil DPhil Oxf

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3435-9495

Link to college page: https://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-christopher-metcalf

 

Academic Background

Born to Anglo-German parents, I grew up in continental Europe and west Africa. In 2003 I came to Britain to study classical and ancient Near Eastern languages in Edinburgh, Oxford and London, graduating with a DPhil in Classics from the University of Oxford in 2013. Thinking that I might become a journalist, I got some work experience at the BBC’s French-language African radio station in London and at a German broadsheet, the F.A.Z., in Frankfurt. But my interest in teaching and research prevailed, and my first academic appointment was at SOAS, University of London, where I taught as a substitute for the Professor of Babylonian, A R George, in 2012-13. I returned to Oxford as Junior Research Fellow in Lesser Known Languages and Scripts of the Ancient World at Wolfson College (2013-16), and held a postdoctoral research fellowship awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany, before joining Queen’s in October 2016.

Research Interests

In past research I have explored the relationship between early Greek poetry and the literatures of the ancient Near East, in particular Mesopotamian and Anatolian texts (The Gods Rich in Praise: Early Greek and Mesopotamian Religious Poetry, OUP 2015), and I have recently completed a first edition of Sumerian literary manuscripts of the early second millennium BC (Sumerian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection: Literary Sources on Old Babylonian Religion, Pennsylvania State UP 2019). Currently I am pursuing a variety of research projects on early Greek poetry and on the history of literature and religion in the eastern Mediterranean.

Research Keywords

Early Greek poetry, languages and literatures of the ancient Near East.

Teaching

My interest in classical literature was sparked many years ago by a memorable passage in book III of Homer’s Iliad and an enigmatic saying attributed to the philosopher Heraclitus; today I feel very fortunate to continue exploring and enjoying a wide range of Greek and Roman authors as a tutor. My teaching, which I seek to adapt to students’ needs and interests, covers the literary elements of the initial (‘Mods’) part of the Classics curriculum, as well as other papers related to early Greek poetry.

Publications

Selected Publications