Dr Elaine Sanderson BA, MA, PhD

Personal Statement

I studied for my BA (hons.) and MA in Classics at the University of Exeter (2012-16), and completed an AHRC-funded PhD in Classics and Ancient History here in the Department of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool as part of the class of COVID-19 (2016-20). I enjoyed contributing to the life of the department while I held two temporary teaching posts (2019-21) and taught Latin and Greek in Merseyside state schools on the side as part of the Liverpool Schools Classics Project (2018-21). I then moved beyond the wall to Scotland, spending a very happy year filling in as part of the Classics team in the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh (2021-22) before going even further north to teach at the University of St Andrews (2022-23). I am delighted to have found my way back to Liverpool to rejoin the ACE team!

I have taught Greek and Latin langugae, ancient literature from Homer to Bede, and Roman History from the early Republic to the reign of Justinian I. My research focuses on disruption and upheaval (broadly understood) in Roman literature and culture, and I am particularly interested in Roman civil war, overwhelming and disorienting aesthetic experiences, and upheaval and innovation within literary traditions. My AHRC-funded doctoral research outlined a radically more generous view of Lucan's Neronian-era epic poem, the Bellum Civile, highlighting the transformative themes within the work's poetic programme and the prevalence of these themes in its framing of civil war as a temporary metamorphic process. I am now looking forward to beginning a new project on emotion and trauma in the Ciceronian corpus. When I'm not thinking about Classics, I enjoy playing the violin, drawing and painting, and playing polo.