Welcome

St Andrews is one of the world’s major centres for the study of Roman imperial literature and cultural history. This Centre, founded in August 2014, provides a focus for research for the large numbers of staff and postgraduates working in that broad area. Members of the Centre work on the literatures and cultural history of the Roman Empire from the late Hellenistic period right through to late antiquity. All of the projects within the Centre are tied together by attention to a single overarching question: how were established literary forms reconfigured in response to the political and cultural changes that followed the first sustained contact between Greece and Rome in the second century BC, and especially the new monarchical and imperial order inaugurated by Augustus and developed by successive emperors and dynasties? Much of the work being conducted within the Centre aims to broaden our understanding of the interconnectedness of Roman imperial literature and culture (focusing, for example, on overlaps between Greek and Latin, between different regions and different centuries, between prose and verse, Greco-Roman and Christian). At the same time, many projects revolve around individual authors, texts and their local literary communities and are committed to probing areas of particular distinctiveness.

On this site you will find information about the people working in this area, news about the research projects and initiatives being carried out at the university, notices of upcoming events, and information about the opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate study in this field.