Dr Fiona Hobden

Professional biography

On joining the Open University in September 2022, I also returned to Scotland, where I completed my degrees at the University of St Andrews, graduating with a PhD Ancient History in 2003.  The intervening years were spent in the University of Liverpool's Department of Archaeology, Classics & Egyptology, where my teaching and research ranged across topics in ancient Greek culture, society, politics and history and the reception of classical antiquity.  I particularly value the opportunities that my new role as Staff Tutor in Classical Studies brings to engage people from all backgrounds with the richness and diversity of human experience, past and present.

Research interests

My research circles around two interrelated questions, namely how did people living in classical antiquity think about and experience their world, and how does telling stories about classical antiquity help us to think about and experience ours.

Past projects have explored the use of inscriptional monuments in discussions of democracy and revolution; psycho-sociological, ethnographic, political, philosophical and religious aspects of the ancient Greek drinking party (e.g. The Symposion in Ancient Greek Society & Thought, 2013); the aesthetics, rhetorics and ideological strategies of television documentaries about classical antiquity (e.g. Ancient Greece on British Television, 2018, co-edited with Amanda Wrigley); and the moral and political ideas of the Athenian writer Xenophon (e.g. Xenophon, 2020).  Recent areas for investigation have included the ethnographic 'edginess' of Anacharsis; experiences of invasion in Xenophon’s Anabasis; and the gendering of television antiquities.

My current research investigates physical, social and emotional dimensions of growing old in ancient Greece, building upon perspectives drawn from cultural gerontology, disability studies, sociology and wellbeing studies to examine (for example) issues of inclusion/exclusion, ageing as disablement, the intersection between aesthetic and social transformations, and communities of care.  

• (forthcoming) 'Experiences of ageing in antiquity: voices and visions', in T. Parkin and D. Troyansky, Cultural History of Old Age in Antiquity (ca. 800 BCE - 500 CE), London: Bloomsbury.
• (forthcoming) 'Crossing cultures: Anacharsis and other Scythians in Herodotus' Histories', in P. Langford and M. Perale (eds), The Legend of Anacharsis in Antiquity and Modernity, Berlin: de Gruyter.
• (forthcoming) 'The impacts and ethics of invasion in Xenophon's Anabasis', in F. Hobden, C. J. Tuplin and A.Zadorozhny (eds), Xenophon the Historian: Historiography, Historical Experience and the Uses of History, Berlin: de Gruyter.
• (forthcoming) 'Mothers, Murderers and Mistresses: Empresses of Ancient Rome (2013): a feminist turn?', in M. Wyke and M. Wozniak (eds), Ancient Roman Women in Screen Media, London: Bloomsbury.

I am co-editor with Dr Joanna Paul of the journal New Voices in Classical Reception Studies.

Teaching interests

I am involved in the modules A112 Cultures, A229 Exploring the Classical World and A864 MA Classical Studies Part 2.