Sourvinou-Inwood Christiane 1945-2007 (Christiana Elfwood)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born January 1, 1945, in Volos, Greece; died of cancer, May 19, 2007. Historian and author. Sourvinou-Inwood was a highly respected authority on classical Greece. She did her undergraduate work at the University of Athens, then earned her M.A. and D.Phil. in 1973 at Oxford. Her doctorate was on Mycenaean and Minoan beliefs in the afterlife. After research as a junior fellow at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, she lectured at Liverpool University from 1976 to 1978. Although her early research was on Bronze Age Greece, she later focused on the Classical period. Most of her time was spent on researching and writing, and little in the classroom. She was a senior research fellow at University College, Oxford, from 1990 to 1995 and a reader in classical research at the University of Reading from then until 1998. As a researcher and author, Sourvinou-Inwood strove to free herself of all cultural and academic preconceptions in order to view ancient Greek traditions with an non-skeptical eye. She called this her "neutral" interpretation of everything from Greek religion to politics. She was particularly fascinated by religious rituals involving women. Among her scholarly books are "Reading" Greek Culture: Texts and Images, Rituals and Myths (1991), Reading Greek Death (1994), Tragedy and Athenian Religion (2002), and Hylas, the Nymphs, Dionysos and Others (2005). Sourvinou-Inwood also wrote detective novels under the pen name Christiana Elfwood. They were written in Greek and include Enas polu klassikos phonos (2003), which was scheduled to be translated into English.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), June 8, 2007, p. 66.