Gavin Kelly MA MPhil DPhil
Senior Lecturer
Room 1.11, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot Place
Telephone: 0131 650 3581Office hours: Students may knock on the door at any time; to guarantee my availability please e-mail.
Biography
I first thought Classics was fun at the age of 9, when I saw a repeat of I Claudius on TV; my enthusiasm was soon reinforced by a Penguin translation of Livy in my school library. History as literature and history from literature are still what interest me most, and most of what I publish combines elements of both literary criticism and political history. I read in Classics at Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, from 1993 to 1996, winning the Chancellor’s Medal for Proficiency in Classical Learning. At Magdalen College, Oxford, I took the MPhil in Ancient History in 1998 and a Doctorate in 2002. After holding Research Fellowships at Peterhouse, Cambridge (2000-2004) and Manchester (2004-2005), I arrived in Edinburgh as Lecturer in Latin Literature in 2005. I was appointed Senior Lecturer in 2011. I have also been a Fellow of the National Humanities Center in North Carolina (2010-2011).
At one of the gates of Nicaea
Bright, committed students make it a joy to teach Latin language and literature at Edinburgh. Many of our students have had the good fortune to be taught Latin at school; the four-year course means that those new to the language have time to catch up. By the end of their fourth year, our students can come up with remarkably original and scholarly work. At Honours, I enjoy teaching both central canonical texts like Vergil, Tacitus, and Juvenal, and brilliant but less discovered authors like Ammianus and Rutilius. Very occasionally, there’s time for me to teach late Roman history. I am interested in supervising graduate students on prose and verse literature of the high and late Roman empire, as well as late Roman political history.
External appointments
- Secretary of the Edinburgh and South East Centre, Classical Association of Scotland (2006-)
- Fellow, National Humanities Center (2010-11)