Hall, Edith 1959-

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Hall, Edith 1959-

PERSONAL:

Born March 4, 1959. Education: Wadham College, Oxford University, B.A. (with honors), 1982; St. Hugh's College, Oxford University, Ph.D., 1988.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Classics, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 OEX, England.

CAREER:

Oxford University, Oxford, England, Lincoln College, lecturer, 1985-1986, Magdalen College, lecturer, 1989-1990, university lecturer in classics and fellow of Somerville College, 1995-2001, cofounder and codirector, Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama; Cambridge University, New Hall, Cambridge, England, research fellow, 1987-1989; University of Reading, Reading, England, lecturer, 1990-1995; University of Durham, Durham, England, Leverhulme professor of Greek cultural history, 2001-2006; University of London, Royal Holloway, London, England, professor of drama and classics, 2006—. Visiting professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Swarthmore College, and Miami University, Oxford, OH. Consultant to theaters, including Royal Shakespeare Company; ENO; National Theatre, Northern Broadsides; Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Ireland; Live Theatre, Newcastle, England.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Major open scholarship, Wadham College, Oxford, 1978; Greek Ministry of Culture scholarship, University of Thessaloniki, 1981; prize for performance in final honour schools, Oxford, 1982; Jubilee postgraduate scholarship, St. Hugh's College, Oxford, 1984; Schmidt scholarship (DAAD), 1985; Hellenic Foundation prize for best UK/Eire doctoral thesis in ancient Greek studies, 1988; research endowment fund grant, University of Reading, 1991; British Academy research leave scheme award, 1995; Leverhulme award, 1996; AHRB award, 1999, 2004; John W. Altman scholar-in-residence, Miami University, Oxford, OH, 2004.

WRITINGS:

Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1989.

(Editor and author of introduction and notes, Sophocles) Antigone; Oedipus the King; Electra, translated by H.D.F. Kitto, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor) Aeschylus, The Persians, Aris & Phillips (London, England), 1996.

(Editor, with Fiona Macintosh and Oliver Taplin), Medea in Performance 1500-2000, Legenda (Oxford, England), 2000.

(Editor, with Pat Easterling) Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor, with Fiona Macintosh and Amanda Wrigley) Dionysus since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Fiona Macintosh) Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre, 1660-1914, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(Editor, with Fiona Macintosh, Pantelis Michelakis, and Oliver Taplin) Agamemnon in Performance 458 BC to AD 2004, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

The Theatrical Cast of Athens: Interactions between Ancient Greek Drama and Society, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

(Editor, with Amanda Wrigley) Aristophanes in Performance 421 BC-AD 2007: Peace; Birds; Frogs, Leganda (Oxford, England), 2007.

(Editor, with Emma Bridges and P.J. Rhodes) Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Edith Hall has written and edited several well-received scholarly works on Greek and Roman drama. In Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre, 1660-1914, Hall and coauthor Fiona Macintosh argue that revivals of ancient tragedies have always been relevant to later eras and that ancient tragedies have retained the power to effect cultural change. For example, they point out that an 1850 production of Antigone was the impetus for George Eliot's essay "The Antigone and Its Model" and may further have influenced the writer's creation of her major fictional protagonists. Likewise, Victorian adaptations of Medea likely influenced key reforms in domestic laws, including legislation on divorce and child-custody rights.

Of particular topical interest in the early 2000s was Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium, which Hall edited with Emma Bridges and P.J. Rhodes. This collection of essays examines the multiple ways in which understanding of the war between Sparta, a city-state in Greece, and Persia, present-day Iran, in 395 BCE has been constructed. Essays focus on empirical analysis as well as on depictions of the war in popular culture. Times Literary Supplement reviewer Victor Davis Hanson especially admired contributions that analyze how the idea of the Persian Wars inspired European romantics like the poet Lord Byron to think of political reform and that explore the ways in which the Persian Wars have been used in film.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Philology, summer, 2002, Richard H. Armstrong, review of Medea in Performance 1500-2000, p. 289.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, April, 2003, T.A. Pallen, review of Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession, p. 1375; September, 2004, D. Konstan, review of Dionysus since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium, p. 113; June, 2006, T.A. Pallem, review of Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre, 1660-1914, p. 1836.

Classical Philology, April, 2004, Helene P. Foley, review of Greek and Roman Actors, p. 169.

Classical Review, October, 2006, Simon Goldhill, review of Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre, 1660-1914, p. 508.

Journal of Hellenic Studies, January, 1991, R.G.A. Buxton, review of Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy, p. 217.

Mnemosyne, February, 1993, Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, review of Inventing the Barbarian, p. 126.

Notes and Queries, September, 2003, Colin Leach, review of Greek and Roman Actors, p. 341.

Review of English Studies, June, 2006, Keri Walsh, review of Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre, 1660-1914, p. 404.

Theatre Journal, March, 2005, Judith Fletcher, review of Greek and Roman Actors, p. 148; October, 2007, Alison Forsyth, review of Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre, 1660-1914, p. 530; October, 2007, Robert Davis, review of Agamemnon in Performance 458 BC to AD 2004, p. 528.

Theatre Research International, March, 2002, Douglas Cairns, review of Medea in Performance 1500-2000, p. 97; July, 2004, Douglas Cairns, review of Greek and Roman Actors, p. 194.

Theatre Survey, November, 2003, David Wiles, review of Greek and Roman Actors, p. 285.

Times Literary Supplement, February 23, 1990, Stephanie West, review of Inventing the Barbarian, p. 200; March 23, 2001, Jane Montgomery, review of Medea in Performance 1500-2000, p. 20; July 18, 2003, Erich Segal, "The Play's the Thing"; January 27, 2006, Emily Wilson, "Jason's Law," p. 24; May 18, 2007, Victor Davis Hanson, "Persian Versions: Myth and Reality in Wars between West and East," p. 3.