Dr Pablo Rojas (BA, MA, MPhil, PhD)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Biography

Background

I joined the University of Edinburgh as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow funded by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID-Chile), after graduating with an MPhil and a PhD in Classics from the University of St Andrews. Before coming to the United Kingdom, I graduated with a BA in History and an MA in Classical Studies in my home country, and completed an intensive, year-long course in classical languages in Rome.

Qualifications

PhD in Classics (University of St Andrews, UK)

MPhil in Classics (University of St Andrews, UK)

MA in Classical Studies (Centre of Classical Studies, Chile)

BA in History (Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile)

Research summary

I am a Latinist specialising in Roman historical writing, with a keen research interest in the history of Roman law. My training in literary criticism and traditional methodologies of classical philology has also prompted a profound interest in the history of classical scholarship and the evolving nature of Classics as a discipline.

My research is interdisciplinary in nature, focusing on literary texts to investigate Roman legal culture from a different perspective to that offered by traditional legal sources. In my PhD thesis, I analysed Tacitus’ views on the law and the narrative function of law-related episodes in the Annals (the abstract can be found here). In parallel to my postdoctoral project, I am transforming my doctoral thesis into a book, provisionally titled Law and Empire in Tacitus’ Annals.

My previous work established the foundations for my current research here at the University of Edinburgh. My postdoctoral project Trial Narratives in Roman Historiography examines the literary strategies employed by the Roman historians Livy and Curtius Rufus when constructing and embedding trial scenes in their historiographical narratives.

This article was published on