Dr Elena Theodorakopoulos PhD (Bristol)

Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology
Senior Lecturer in Classics

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 3624
Email: e.m.theodorakopoulos@bham.ac.uk

Address: Arts Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

My research interests are in two main areas: Roman poetry of the Republic and Principate, and the reception of classical culture and literature in contemporary film and literature.

Teaching

I teach courses on Roman poetry and prose, Athenian Drama, Latin language, Classics and contemporary/20^th century literature, Classics and film.

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome research proposals on women’s writing and classical reception, and on any aspect of Roman republican or Augustan poetry.

Current supervision:
Elizabeth Cook’s Achilles as a model for feminist reception
Ali Smith, gender, and the reception of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Research topics I have supervised in the past include:
Tacitus’ Agricola and the politics of fama
Romulus and Numa in Ovid’s Fasti
Speech and Silence in Ovid’s Heroides
Postmodernism and Classical Reception

Find out more - our PhD Classics and Ancient History page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

My current projects are:

the reception of classical literature and myth in contemporary writing by women, and the translation/adaptation of classical literature by women writers.
a book on Catullus with particular emphasis on the performative aspects of his work

Past research

I have written on forms of closure in Roman and Hellenistic poetry, on the representation of Rome in film, and on Catullus.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Cox, F & Theodorakopoulos, E (eds) 2019, Homer's Daughters: Women's Responses to Homer in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Classical Presences, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198802587.001.0001

Theodorakopoulos, E 2010, Ancient Rome at the Cinema: Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome. Bristol Phoenix Press.

Spencer, D & Theodorakopoulos, E (eds) 2006, Advice and its Rhetoric in Greece and Rome. Levante Editori, Bari.

Article

Balmer, J & Theodorakopoulos, E 2024, 'Materiality and the Paths of Survival: An Archaeology of the Heart', Arion, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 88-101. https://doi.org/10.1353/arn.2024.a946147

Theodorakopoulos, E 2024, 'Obscene or Sentimental? Graves and the Muses of the 1960s', The Robert Graves Review, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 758-767. <https://robertgravesreview.org/essay.php?essay=471&tab=6>

Theodorakopoulos, E 2019, 'Classical myth and literature in the prose and poetry of Laura Riding: ‘The ever-dissolving image of deceptively tranquil antiquity’', Synthesis, vol. 12 (2019). <https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/synthesis/article/view/25256>

Cox, F & Theodorakopoulos, E 2012, 'Fidelity in an arranged marriage: Sarah Ruden and the Aeneid’', Classical Receptions Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 224-234. https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/cls018

Theodorakopoulos, E 2012, 'Women’s writing and the classical tradition', Classical Receptions Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 149-162. https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/cls016

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Theodorakopoulos, E 2026, Searching for Homer in Le Mépris: Jean-Luc Godard’s Penelopeiad. in Contemporary Feminist Retellings of Greek Myths: Best Selling Muses and Their Ideologies. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Theodorakopoulos, E 2021, There it lies: untranslated. in L Jansen (ed.), Anne Carson: Antiquity. 1st edn, Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, pp. 271-282. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350174788.ch-020

Theodorakopoulos, E 2019, Closure and the Book of Virgil. in C Martindale & F Mac Gorain (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil. 2nd edn, Cambridge Companions to Literature, Cambridge University Press, pp. 226-240. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316756102.016

Chapter

Theodorakopoulos, E 2013, Catullus and Lesbia translated in women's historical novels. in L Hardwick & S Harrison (eds), Classics in the Modern World: A Democratic Turn?., Chapter 20, Oxford University Press.

Theodorakopoulos, E 2007, The sites and sights of Rome in Fellini's films: 'not a human habitation but a psychical entity'. in D Larmour & D Spencer (eds), The sites of Rome: time, space, memory. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Book/Film/Article review

Theodorakopoulos, E 2009, 'A Companion to Ancient Epic', The Classical Review, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 8-10. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X08001571

Special issue

Theodorakopoulos, E & Cox, F (eds) 2012, 'Translation, trangression, transformation: contemporary women authors and classical reception', Classical Receptions Journal, vol. 4, no. 2. <https://academic.oup.com/crj/issue/4/2>

View all publications in research portal