Honorary Research Fellow
Email: t.mackenzie@ucl.ac.uk
Research interests: Greek literature, Presocratic philosophy, Greek religion, didactic poetry
Originally from London, I completed my undergraduate (2009) and Master's (2010) degrees in Classics at Oxford. I then spent two years as an English teacher in London at Pimlico Academy, as part of the Teach First programme. I returned to Oxford in 2012 to embark on a doctorate which I completed in 2015. I then spent a year as a Teaching Associate in Greek Literature at Cambridge before coming to MyAV·¶ in 2016.
My main research interests focus on the intersection between Greek literature and philosophy. My first book,ÌęPresocratic PoeticsÌę(CUP), applies literary-critical approaches to the Presocratic philosophers, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles who, unlike most other philosophers, wrote in verse. It aims to bring these authors further into the fold of literary studies and assess their significance for our understanding of the development of Greek poetics up until Plato.Ìę
I have further academic interests in ancient didactic poetry, in the religious movement known as âOrphismâ and its literary manifestations, and in the history of Classical scholarship, in particular in its relationship to Scottish Romanticism.
Publications
Books
- Poetry andÌęPoetics in the Presocratic Philosophers,ÌęCambridge: Cambridge University Press,Ìę2021.
Articles / Book Chapters
âRationality and Presocratic Cosmology in Sophoclesâ Antigoneâ. Journal of Hellenic Studies 142 (2022), pp.Ìę30-48.
âHesiod, the Presocratic Poets, Aristeas, Epimenides and the Gold Tablets: Genre and Narrativeâ pp. 81-103 in H. Koning and L. Iribarren (eds.) Hesiod and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
âA Heraclitean Allusion to the Odysseyâ. Classical Quarterly (accepted, March 2020).
âEmpedocles, Personal Identity, and the Narrative of the Fallen DaimĆn'. Phoenix 74 (2000), pp. 111-130.
âHesiod in Liddell & Scottâ, pp. 105-123 in Liddell and Scott: The Worlds of a Lexicon edited by C. Stray, M. Clarke and J. Katz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
âGeorgica and Orphica: The Georgics in the Context of Orphic Poetry and Religionâ, pp.67-77 in, Reflections and New Perspectives on Virgil's Georgics edited by N.Freer and B. Xinyue. London: Bloomsbury, 2019.
âParmenides and early Greek Allegoryâ Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 79:31-59. 2017.
âThe Contents of Empedoclesâ Poem: A New Argument for the Single-Poem Hypothesisâ Zeitschrift fĂŒr Papyrologie und Epigraphik 200: 25-32. 2016.
âLanguage and Learning with the Presocratics: Xenophanes and Parmenides as Educators and Linguistsâ, pp.25-48 in, The History of Linguistics in the Context of Education (= Beitraege zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft 26.1) edited by C. de Jonge and G.J. Rutten. MĂŒnster: Nodus Publikationen. 2016