Ben Radcliffe
Senior Lecturer of Classics and Archaeology | Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, CA, UNITED STATES
Ben Radcliffe studies Ancient Greek literature, focusing on Homeric studies, critical theory, and aesthetics.
Biography
I'm a senior lecturer in LMU's Department of Classics and Archaeology. I write about Greek epic and tragedy, usually in dialogue with contemporary philosophers and critical theorists. I'm currently working on a book project about labor, surplus value, and the political economy of genre in archaic Greek epic.
Education (2)
UCLA: Ph.D., Classics 2019
Stanford: B.A., Classics 2013
Areas of Expertise (1)
Classics
Links (1)
Event Appearances (13)
“The Liquid Frame: Labor on the Homeric Littoral"
ACLA March 2024
“Surplus Violence: Erides and Meta-Epic in Works and Days"
SCS January 2024
"Stasis: Simulating Civil Conflict in Archaic Greece"
Classics & Archaeology, LMU October 2023
“Radical Certainty: Paraesthetics and Paranoia in the Odyssey”
ACLA June 2022
“Recasting Heroes: Labor, Metallurgy, and Critical Aesthetics in the Iliad"
SCS January 2022
“The Homeric Grimace, or the Conflicted Faces of Narrative”
Affect, Intensity, Antiquity August 2021
“The Spectral Planets of Derrida and Gene Wolfe”
ACLA April 2021
“Benjamin’s Niobe: Anger and Ambiguous Violence in Iliad 24"
SCS January 2021
“Counting and Catastrophe in Aeschylus’ Persae"
UC Berkeley, DAGRS November 2020
“Ears, Artifice, and Hephaestus’ Automatons in Iliad 18"
CAMWS May 2020
“Catalogues and Popular Politics in Aeschylus’ Persae"
SCS January 2020
“Khaos, Broken Plows, and Discontinuity in Hesiod"
CAMWS 2018
“Kata Moiran: Ideology and Style in the Odyssey"
SCS January 2017
Courses (5)
CLAR 1110 Elementary Greek I
Spring 2021 A basic introduction to Greek grammar and syntax, including noun declension and verb conjugation; translation of simple prose passages.
CLAR 1120 Elementary Greek II
Fall 2020 A continuation of the grammar and syntax of CLAR 1110, with a focus on more complex sentences; translation of more elaborate prose and poetry passages.
CLAR 2220 Ancient Comedy in Performance
Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023 A study of the plays of Aristophanes and Menander (in translation), with an emphasis on production.
CLAR 3220 Greek and Roman Religions
2021-2024 This course explores the religions of ancient Greece and Rome from our earliest evidence through the emergence of Christianity under the Roman Empire. While the course follows a broadly chronological outline, individual lectures will concentrate on specific themes, such as polytheism and monotheism, philosophy and religion, magic and personal religion, religion and the state, and the idea of “the foreign” in ancient religion.
CLAR 2260 Ancient Political Thought and Practice
Spring 2023, Spring 2024 A survey of the origins and development of political thought in the ancient world, from the rise of Greek city-states to the breakup of the Roman empire. The course investigates how Greek and Roman authors, such as Homer, Aeschylus, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero, and Augustine, developed and contested fundamental political concepts, including justice, equality, authority, power, and conflict. The course also confronts the adverse legacies of ancient political systems, which excluded the vast majority of the population—slaves, women, and non-citizens—from public politics.
Articles (7)
Monads on the Sonic Fold: Disquiet in Sophocles' Antigone
Sensing Greek DramaBen Radcliffe
2024-08-01
A chapter on Sophocles' Antigone in an edited volume on the sensory dimensions of ancient Greek drama.
Niobe’s People: Ambiguous Violence and Interrupted Labor in Iliad 24
Niobes: Antiquity, Modernity, Critical TheoryBen Radcliffe
2024-02-27
A chapter in an edited volume on ancient and modern receptions of Niobe.
Queer Kinship: Profit, Vivisection, Kitsch
Queer EuripidesBen Radcliffe
2022-05-01
A chapter on Euripides' Heraclidae in an edited volume on queer readings of Euripides. Drawing on scholarship that examines the relations between kinship, queerness, and political economy, I trace the ways in which profit (kerdos) serves as a force of social disruption in the world of the drama, variously subverting, transforming, and reinforcing the patriarchal norms that underly procreative kinship.
(Mis)counting Catastrophe in Aeschylus’ Persae
Classical AntiquityBen Radcliffe
2022-04-01
This article considers how mourning is configured as a site of political and aesthetic conflict in Aeschylus’ Persae.
The Politics of Aesthetic Experience in Odysseus’ Apologoi
American Journal of PhilologyBen Radcliffe
2021-06-01
An article on a group of minor characters in the Odyssey who subvert Odysseus' central position in the narrative.
Becoming Domestic in Hesiod’s Works and Days
RamusBen Radcliffe
2020-12-01
An article on Hesiod's Works and Days in the Ramus special issue, "Deterritorializing Classics: Deleuze, Guattari and Antiquity"
The Aesthetics of Equality in Early Greek Poetry
University of California - Los Angeles2019 This dissertation asks how Homer, Hesiod, and Theognis envision egalitarian alternatives to the conditions of social stratification that prevail in the fictional worlds of early Greek poetry.
