Anna Coopey

Anna Coopey is a PhD student split between the School of Classics and the School of International Relations at St Andrews, and supervised by Dr Henry Stead and Dr Vassilios Paipais. She works on anti-fascist receptions of antiquity in the literature of Occupied Greece, between 1940 and 1945, with a focus on the works of Nikos Kazantzakis, Angelos Sikelianos, and Yannis Ritsos - with a thesis (rather snazzily) titled "Greece Writes Back". She's been stuck with Kazantzakis since 2022, after she discovered him while working on her undergraduate degree - in St Andrews - and briefly toured with him to Oxford for her Masters, examining his Melissa (1937) and its worth as an Eliotian "mythical method" exercise for the experience of Ioannis Metaxas' Fourth of August Regime (1936-1941). 

Aside from those interests mentioned above, Anna is often on long walks thinking about:

• Radical reinterpretations and receptions of ancient Greek tragedy
• Postcolonial approaches to ancient literature
• Communist / Socialist / Left classical reception
• Teaching the Classics - particularly war, conflict, and violence

She has also co-founded and co-convenes the St Andrews Reception Research Group (STARR), which meets weekly to foster community and collaboration amongst Schools around classical reception. 

Anna is also a performed translator, director, and actor. She focuses on re-interpretations of classical tragedy, and her Hippolytus was produced at the Burton Taylor Studio in Oxford, May 2024, to a sold-out run. At any one time, a Medea and an Antigone are percolating in her head.

She also translates Modern Greek theatre, with a special focus on the work of Angelos Sikelianos and Nikos Kazantzakis. 

Anna teaches both privately and with the St Andrews Latin Outreach Scheme (STALOS).