Prof Catharine Edwards

Positions held:

Professor of Classics & Ancient History, School of Historical Studies

Email

Birkbeck: c.edwards@bbk.ac.uk

Overview
Overview

Qualifications
- PhD, University of Cambridge
Professional memberships
- Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (member of the editorial board for Journal of Roman Studies 2009-2014)
- Classical Association
Honours and awards
- Fellow of the British Academy, British Academy, July 2021
ORCID
0000-0001-8583-7894
Research
Research

Research interests
- •Subjectivity, gender, self-construction
- •The younger Seneca, especially his Letters
- •Cicero, especially his letters
- •Roman cultural history
- •Responses to the city of Rome in antiquity and later periods
- •Classical receptions in the nineteenth century
Research overview

My work focuses on the cultural history of the Roman world, particularly Rome in the late republic and early principate. The complex literary strategies of Roman texts (I have worked particularly on Seneca, Ovid and more recently Cicero) are an intrinsic part of that world’s fabric. I am interested in the ways in which conceptions of gender and other aspects of personal and social identity operate through, and are inflected by, language.
Another important strand in my research has been the reception of antiquity in later centuries, particularly the C19th, and how receptions of antiquity are implicated in strategies of cultural formation and self-construction (I have published on the reception of Rome in Gibbon, in Mme de Stael, T.B.Macaulay, Nathaniel Hawthorne and in C19th guidebooks, particularly the work of Augustus Hare).

Research clusters and groups
- Mind and body
Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

5

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest.

Current doctoral researchers
- ALEX SMITH
  
  Nature of supervision:
  Principal Supervisor, Jan 2020 onwards
  
  Title of thesis:
  Introduction and Commentary on Selected Epistles from Ovid's Heroides, beginning with Epistle 4.
- ANDREW REGAN
  
  Nature of supervision:
  Joint Principal Supervisor, Sep 2019 onwards
  
  Title of thesis:
  The Reception of Classical Texts in the Works of Robert Burton and Sir Thomas Browne
  
  Description:
  My thesis concerns the seventeenth-century English prose writers Robert Burton and Sir Thomas Browne's reception of classical texts. Despite Burton and Browne's profuse citations of classical writers, very little research has been done into these citations, and what they might tell us about classical reception in the English Renaissance.
- LUCIA ŠVANTNEROVÁ
  
  Nature of supervision:
  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2023 onwards
- STEFANIE ULRICH
  
  Nature of supervision:
  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2016 onwards
Doctoral alumni since 2013-14
- ALEXANDRA ATKINS
  
  Nature of supervision:
  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2017
  
  Title of thesis:
  Talking Heads: Classical Portrait Busts in the Country House, 1715-1832
  
  Description:
  Using eight case studies from the long eighteenth century (defined here as 1715-1832) I examine the classical portrait bust, neoclassical versions and copies, as well as contemporary busts which drawn on antique modes of representation. Far from being passive, decorative objects, my thesis aims to demonstrate the meaning and importance of these bust in the country house setting.
  
  Awarded:
  2023
Teaching

I contribute to a wide range of modules on Roman history, Latin literature and the reception of classical antiquity.

Teaching modules
- Dissertation MA Classical Civilisation (HICL037D7)
- Latin set book (B) (HICL205S6)
- Mastering Ancient Rome (SSHC357S7)
- The Ancient World (SSHC404S4)
- Ruins: The Creation of the Past (SSHC566S6)
- The World of Rome in the Museums of London (Level 5) (SSHC567S5)
Publications
Publications
Article
- Edwards, Catharine (2022) Lessons for the heart: loving reason and embracing loss (Letter 74). Lucius Annaeus Seneca 2, pp. 103-126. ISSN 2785-2849.
- Edwards, Catharine (2021) Visualising pain: psychotherapy, emotion and embodied cognition in Seneca’s Letters. Classical Antiquity 40 (2), pp. 221-248. ISSN ‎0278-6656.
- Edwards, Catharine (2021) Magna Mater and the poet unmanned (Ovid, Fasti 4.179-372). Eugesta - Journal of Gender Studies in Antiquity 11, pp. 131-151. ISSN 2265-8777.
- Edwards, Catharine (2011) Imagining ruins in ancient Rome. European Review of History 18 (5/6), pp. 645-661. ISSN 1350-7486.
- Edwards, Catharine (2005) Modelling Roman suicide? The afterlife of Cato. Economy and Society 34 (2), pp. 200-222. ISSN 0308-5147.
- Edwards, Catharine (1997) Self-scrutiny and self-transformation in Seneca's letters. Greece & Rome 44 (1), pp. 23-38. ISSN 0017-3835.
Book
- Edwards, Catharine (2019) Seneca: Selected letters. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521460118.
- Edwards, Catharine, ed. (2008) Lives of the Caesars. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199537563.
- Edwards, Catharine, ed. (2007) Roman presences: receptions of Rome in European culture, 1789-1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521036177.
- Edwards, Catharine (2007) Death in ancient Rome. London, UK: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300112085.
- Edwards, Catharine and woolf, G., eds. (2006) Rome the cosmopolis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521030113.
- Edwards, Catharine (2002) The politics of immorality in ancient Rome. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521893893.
- Liversidge, M. and Edwards, Catharine, eds. (1996) Imagining Rome: British artists and Rome in the nineteenth century. London, UK: Merrell Holberton Publishers. ISBN 9781858940298.
- Edwards, Catharine (1996) Writing Rome: textual approaches to the city. Roman Literature and its Contexts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521559522.
Book Review
- Edwards, Catharine (2020) 'The cultural history of Augustan Rome: texts, monuments, and topography' (2019). Matthew P. Loar. Sarah C. Murray and Stefano Rebeggiani (eds). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2019. Pp. xiv + 192; ill., facsims, plans. ISBN 9781108480604. £75.00..
- Edwards, Catharine (2020) A flatterer's imitation: Pliny's concealed literary enterprise.
- Edwards, Catharine (2020) Get empire done: the rise and reach of Rome.
- Edwards, Catharine (2007) Inwood Reading Seneca. Stoic Philosophy at Rome. Pp. xvi + 376. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Cased, £45. ISBN: 978-0-19-925089-9.
- Edwards, Catharine (2007) Seneca and society - Seal Philosophy and Community in Seneca's Prose. Pp. xii + 209. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Cased, £47.99, US$74. ISBN: 978-0-19-049321-9.
Book Section
- Edwards, Catharine (2024) The day of reckoning: Seneca’s epistolary time. In: Xinyue, B. (ed.) Temporalities, Texts, Ideologies: Ancient and Early Modern Perspectives. London, UK: Bloomsbury. pp. 177-194. ISBN 9781350257221.
- Edwards, Catharine (2023) Letters from an invalid philosopher: the fallibility of mind and body in Seneca’s Epistulae morales. In: Fuhrer, T. and Soldo, J. (eds.) Fallibility and Fallibilism in Ancient Philosophy and Literature. Philosophie der Antike. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. pp. 127-145. ISBN 9783111314358.
- Edwards, Catharine (2021) Looking for the Emperor in Seneca's letters. In: Geue, T. and Giusti, E. (eds.) Unspoken Rome. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108843041. (In Press)
- Edwards, Catharine (2021) Luxury (luxuria). In: Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199381135.
- Edwards, Catharine (2020) The epistolographic self: the role of the individual in Seneca’s letters. In: Niehoff, M. and Levinson, J. (eds.) Self, Self-Fashioning and Individuality in Late Antiquity. Culture, Religion and Politics in the Greco-Roman World. Tubingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 9783161589904. (In Press)
- Edwards, Catharine (2018) Conversing with the dead, corresponding with the dead: friendship and philosophical community in Seneca's Letters. In: Ceccarelli, P. and Doering, L. and Fögen, T. and Gildenhard, I. (eds.) Letters and Communities: Studies in the Socio-Political Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 325-351. ISBN 9780198804208.
- Edwards, Catharine (2018) Gibbon and the city of Rome. In: O'Brien, K. and Young, B. (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Edward Gibbon. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 62-77. ISBN 9781107625020.
- Edwards, Catharine (2018) On not being in Rome: exile and displacement in Seneca's Prose. In: Fitzgerald, W. and Spentzou, E. (eds.) The Production of Space in Latin Literature. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 169-194. ISBN 9780198768098.
- Edwards, Catharine (2017) The romance of Roman error: encountering antiquity in Hawthorne's "The Marble Faun". In: Dufallo, B. (ed.) Roman Error: Classical Reception and the Problem of Rome's Flaws. Classical Presences. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 127-152. ISBN 9780198803034.
- Edwards, Catharine (2017) Saturnalian exchanges: Seneca, Horace and satiric advice. In: Stöckinger, M. and Winter, K. and Zanker, A. (eds.) Horace and Seneca: Interactions, Interests, Interpretations. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. pp. 73-89. ISBN 9783110524024.
- Edwards, Catharine (2014) Death and time. In: Damschen, G. and Heil, A. (eds.) Brill's Companion to Seneca. Brill's Companions in Classical Studies. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. ISBN 9789004154612.
- Edwards, Catharine (2013) Tacitus and the city in ruins. In: Erdkamp, P. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome. Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521720786.
- Edwards, Catharine (2012) The return to Rome: desire and loss in Staël's Corinne. In: Saunders, T. and Martindale, C. and Pite, R. and Skoie, M. (eds.) Romans and Romantics. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 183-202. ISBN 9780199588541.
- Edwards, Catharine (2009) Free yourself! Slavery, freedom and the self in Seneca's letters. In: Bartsch, S. and Wray, D. (eds.) Seneca and the Self. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 139-159. ISBN 9780521888387.
- Edwards, Catharine (2009) Slavery, freedom and the self in Seneca’s letters. In: Bartsch, S. and Wray, D. (eds.) Seneca and the Self. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 139-159. ISBN 9780521888387.
- Edwards, Catharine (2008) Introduction. In: Lives of the Caesars. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199537563.
- Edwards, Catharine (2008) Possessing Rome: the politics of ruins in Roma capitale. In: Hardwick, L. and Stray, C. (eds.) A Companion to Classical Receptions. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 345-359. ISBN 9781405151672.
- Edwards, Catharine (2008) Self-scrutiny and self-transformation in Seneca's letters. In: Fitch, J. (ed.) Seneca. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199282098.
- Edwards, Catharine (2007) Acting and self-actualisation in Neronian Rome. In: Easterling, P.E. and Hall, E.M. (eds.) Greek and Roman actors. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521045506.
- Edwards, Catharine (2007) Translating empire? Macaulay's Rome. In: Edwards, Catharine (ed.) Roman Presences: receptions of Rome in European culture, 1789-1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 70-87. ISBN 9780521036177.
- Edwards, Catharine (2006) Response to Shadi Bartsch. In: Bartsch, S. and Bartsherer, T. (eds.) Erotikon: essays on eros ancient and modern. Chicago, USA: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226038391.
- Edwards, Catharine (2005) Epistolography. In: Harrison, S. (ed.) A Companion to Latin Literature. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. pp. 270-283. ISBN 631235299.
- Edwards, Catharine (2005) Seneca's aging body. In: Hopkins, A. and Wyke, M. (eds.) Roman bodies: Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century. London, UK: British School at Rome. ISBN 9780904152449.
- Edwards, Catharine (2003) Incorporating the alien: the art of conquest. In: Edwards, Catharine and Woolf, Greg (eds.) Rome the cosmopolis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 44-70. ISBN 9780521030113.
- Edwards, Catharine (1999) The suffering body: philosophy and pain in Seneca's Letters. In: Porter, J. L. (ed.) Constructions of the Classical Body. Michigan, USA: Michigan University Press. pp. 252-268. ISBN 9780472109081.
- Edwards, Catharine (1998) L'imaginaire de l'image de Rome. In: Dupont, F. and Auvray-Assayas, Clara (eds.) Images Romaines. Etudes de littérature ancienne. le comptoir des presses d'universités. pp. 235-245. ISBN 9782728802432.
- Edwards, Catharine (1997) Unspeakable professions: public performance and prostitution. In: Hallett, J.P. and Skinner, M. (eds.) Roman Sexualities. Princeton University Press. pp. 66-95. ISBN 9780691011783.
- Edwards, Catharine (1996) The roads to Rome. In: Liversidge, M.J.H. (ed.) Imagining Rome: British artists and Rome in the nineteenth century. London, UK: Merrell Holberton Publishers. ISBN 9781858940298.
- Edwards, Catharine (1994) Beware of imitations: acting and the subversion of imperial identity. In: Elsner, J. and Masters, J. (eds.) Reflections of Nero: culture, history & representation. Duckworth. pp. 83-97. ISBN 9780807821435.
Business and community

Business and community

Outreach

I have taken part on many occasions in BBC Radio 4's 'In our time', contributing to episodes on:
·       Agrippina the Younger
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b074yzwk

·       Cleopatra
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w7clj

·       Roman Britain
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548xn

·       Virgil’s Aeneid
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9c1

·       Tacitus and the decadence of Rome
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cdtxp

·       Pliny the Younger
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03kv0cl

·       The Augustan Age
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ktfmw

·       Seneca the Younger
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08fh0bh

I presented a TV series ‘Mothers, murderers and mistresses: empresses of ancient Rome’ (3 episodes, each 60 minutes, Hotsauce TV) first broadcast BBC Four.

Because of my expertise on Seneca, I am regularly asked to speak or write on the applicability of Stoic practices to modern life, as in this piece I wrote for London's Evening Standard:
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/ancient-stoics-answer-lockdown-anxiety-a4467261.html

Prof Catharine Edwards

Overview

Qualifications

Professional memberships

Honours and awards

ORCID

Research

Research interests

Research overview

Research clusters and groups

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Current doctoral researchers

ALEX SMITH

ANDREW REGAN

LUCIA ŠVANTNEROVÁ

STEFANIE ULRICH

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

ALEXANDRA ATKINS

Teaching

Teaching modules

Publications

Article

Book

Book Review

Book Section

Business and community

Outreach