Stephen Blair is a philologist and historian specialising in ancient Roman antiquarian scholarship, knowledge production, and discursive constructions of the past. He joined MyAV·¶ in 2020 as a Research Fellow working on the ERC-funded project âOrdering, Constructing, Empowering: Fragments of the Roman Republican Antiquariansâ (FRRAnt). His research centres on the fragmentary remains and transmission of the earliest phase of Roman historical and scholarly literature, when Roman intellectuals first began elaborating a literary vision of the past and codifying a body of antiquarian knowledge; and on the social, material, and intellectual currents that made late-Republican scholarship possible. He is currently working on a monograph on the formerly enslaved antiquarian and lexicographer Verrius Flaccus.
Selected Publications
- âVerrius Flaccus and the disintegration of Roman knowledgeâ (in preparation).
- âWłóČčłÙ annales canât do: Sempronius Asellio and the tradition of exemplary historyâ (in preparation).
- âEuhemeristic translations: Ennius as interpres in the sacra historiaâ, in J. Hill und C.W. Marshall (eds.), Ennius Beyond Epic (submitted).
- ââNormative grammarâ and language theory in late-Republican Romeâ, in M. Bellomo und E. Zucchetti (eds.), Power, Coercion, Consent. Gramsciâs Hegemony and the Roman Republic, De Gruyter (submitted).
- âThe beast in his den: The domus Flavia and the rhetoric of enclosure in Plinyâs Panegyricusâ, Maia 71 (2019): 429â39.
- âLike father, like son: Acciusâ Aeneadae and the Latin pastâ, in L. Austa (ed.), Frammenti sulla scena. Studi sul dramma antico, Turin 2018: 157â73.
Other projects
Stephen has also written on ancient and modern statue removal for (2017) and on living alone in the wilderness for the Pandemic Post (2020).
Research interests
Ancient scholarship and knowledge production, Roman antiquarianism, historiography, transmission of fragments, slavery, constructions of the past, textual criticism, Classical receptions.