Dr. Tom Phillips

Biography

Tom Phillips is a Senior Lecturer in Classical Literature, Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology at the University of Manchester. His academic journey includes studying Literae Humaniores at Oxford, followed by graduate work that led him to teaching and research positions, ultimately joining the University of Manchester in 2018. His scholarly work focuses on the literary reception of Pindar in antiquity and the temporal experience configured in Apollonius Rhodius’ 'Argonautica'. He has a notable interest in ancient literary scholarship and criticism, which has informed his numerous publications, including co-edited volumes on the relationship between Greek lyric and ancient Greek literature. Phillips is actively involved in a long-term collaborative project aimed at translating scholia from ancient commentaries on the 'Iliad' to explore their role in the cultural life of Hellenistic Imperial Greece. He continues to think and write about Greek and Latin lyric poetry, particularly focusing on authors like Sappho, Pindar, and Horace, as well as Hellenistic poetry, including Apollonius and Theocritus. His current work increasingly considers ancient poetry from ecocritical and comparative perspectives. At the University of Manchester, his teaching covers a wide range of subjects across different periods, including a year-long course on Virgil’s 'Aeneid' and courses on the European pastoral tradition from Theocritus to Wordsworth. He expresses a keen interest in hearing from prospective PhD students who are looking to study Greek lyric, Hellenistic poetry, or Hellenism in the long eighteenth century.

Research Interests