Dr. Rj Allan

Biography

RJ Allan is a Full Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, specializing in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, focusing on Ancient Greek language and literature. He studied Classics at the University of Amsterdam and Comparative Linguistics at Leiden University, obtaining a Master's degree in law and culminating his academic journey with a PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2002. His research interests lie primarily in linguistics, stylistics, narratology, cognitive theory, and Functional Discourse Grammar. He explores specific topics like verbal semantics—including tense, aspect, mood, and voice—and historical linguistics, particularly grammaticalization. RJ also examines discourse analysis, focusing on particles, word order, text types, intonation units, and colometry. He delves into the linguistic narratological aspects of Ancient Greek literature, addressing themes such as orality, embodiment, focalization, immersion, and metalepsis. As the program director of MA Archaeology, MA Classics Ancient Studies, and RMA Classics Ancient Civilizations, RJ is deeply engaged in academia. He supervises PhD projects on critical editions of Greek texts and contributes to several editorial boards and research groups, including the International Committee of Ancient Greek Linguistics and the Language of Literature research group. Alongside his teaching commitments, he plays a pivotal role in initiatives aimed at training future classics teachers.

Research Interests

Experience