Dr Margaret Small MA (University of Victoria) DPhil (Oxford)

I studied for an undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada where I studied both History and Classics particularly focusing on Greek and Latin. I then took a Master’s in Greek and Roman studies at the University of Victoria under Gordon Shrimpton where I wrote a thesis on the geographical idea of Herodotus. I studied at Oxford to study for a doctorate where I was able to bring together my interests in classics, the Renaissance and the history of geography, writing a thesis on classical influences on sixteenth century geographical thought under Nicholas Davidson.

In 2003 I was given the Sackler Research Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum where I was looking at Neoplatonic influences on sixteenth-century exploration. I was awarded the Caird Senior Research Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum in 2005 to study John Dee’s uses of Ramusio. I joined the University of Birmingham in 2007.

My research interests are in the classical tradition, history of geography, and the interplay between thought and action in Early Modern European exploration, expansion and colonisation. I am currently completing a book entitled Framing the World: Classical influences on sixteenth-century geographical thought which is derived from my doctoral thesis. I am also interested in the international exchange of geographical information in the sixteenth century, and is working on a second book entitled. A World Explored through Reading which looks at the influence of stay-at-home geographers on explorers and colonisers in the sixteenth-century. I am currently completing an article on Plato and the search for the Northwest Passage in the sixteenth century.

My wider research interests include the classical tradition in Early Modern Europe, the history of ideas, intellectual communities, and the history of travel.