Dr. Ashley Clements

Lecturer in Greek Literature and Philosophy

I studied Ancient History and Social Anthropology at University College London, Classics at Cambridge, and taught at Durham University before joining the Classics Department at Trinity College Dublin in 2006. I am also a member of Trinity's Centre for the Study of the Platonic Tradition.

Research interests

My research explores the intersection of literature, philosophy and politics in the Greek world during the fifth and fourth centuries BC. I have published on Aristophanes, and have particular interests in the popular reception and political use of early Greek philosophy by Athenian dramatists during the late fifth century BC, in Greek wisdom literature more generally, and in Platonic dialogue. A further strand of research involves the history of the dialogue between the disciplines of Anthropology and Classics (in particular the work of Sir J.G. Frazer (1854-1941)), and new anthropological approaches to the ancient world.

Selected publications

• Clements, A. (2009) ‘Thesmophoriazusae’s two dawns.’ Mnemosyne 62: 535-47.
• Clements, A. (forthcoming) ‘Taste-full glances, pungent looks: popular epistemology and the reciprocity of sight in Aristophanes.’ In: S. Butler and A. Purves, (eds.), The Other Senses: Antiquity Beyond the Visual Paradigm. Acumen Press.

Teaching

My teaching spans a range of Greek literary and philosophical authors and texts of the Archaic and Classical period. Recent topics have included: early Greek poetry, the Presocratics, Herodotus, Aristophanes, the Sophists, and Plato. I also teach Greek Language, and Final-year courses on Greek conceptions of wisdom from the sixth to the fourth centuries BC, on Greek Comedy, and on modern anthropological approaches to the ancient world.

Dr. Clements on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Department of Classics,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.

Telephone: 00 353 1 8964014
Fax: 00 353 1 6710862
Email: clementa@tcd.ie