Thomas Biggs

I am scholar of Roman literature and culture. My research deals with various periods and topics, which include the poetry and poetics of the Republican, Augustan, and early imperial periods, Latin philology, and the cultural and literary histories of Carthage and North Africa. I have a range of interests in critical theory and the Classics, with particular focus on memory and identity studies, gender and sexuality, and ecopoetry/environmental humanities. I am the author of Poetics of the First Punic War (Univeristy of Michigan Press 2020) and co-editor of The Epic Journey in Greek and Roman Literature (Cambridge University Presss 2019). I have published over 20 peer-reviewed articles and chapters on such topics as Dido; transgender poetics in Latin literature; Classics and contemporary underwater art installations; Lucan; Livy; Vergil; and the often-underestimated Hymn to Rome by Melinno. I recently wrote over one hundred pages of the international project Structures of Epic Poetry (De Gruyter 2019). I am also involved in a collaborative reassessment of Roman Republican comedic fragments, which will host a workshop in 2022. 

Latin poetry, Latin historiography, Roman cultural history, critical theory andd the classics. the Middle Republic, Carthage and North Africa, fragments and the fragmentary

My main book project at the moment is a theoretically engaged yet philological commentary on Book 6 of Silius Italicus’ Punica for OUP that takes seriously the opportunity to bring aspects of Carthaginian and West Phoenician culture to students of Latin literature. But there is plenty more in the pipeline. . On the digital side, I hope to get students involved in a website I have been cooking up that will provide a forum for influential voices on the past, present, and future of the reading of Roman literature. An archive of interviews on the ‘New Latin’ of the nineties/early aughts is step one.