University of Nottingham

Faculty Member, Classics

Professor of Ancient History

About

The latest volume of the International Sparta Seminar has just been published: A. Powell & S. Hodkinson (eds.), Sparta: The Body Politic (Swansea, The Classical Press of Wales, 2010: ISBN: 978-1-905125-26-5). My own contribution is an article on "Sparta and Nazi Germany in mid-20th-century British liberal and left-wing thought". Further details at http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/64026

I have recently been awarded Honorary Citizenship of the Greek city of Sparti, in recognition of my contributions to the history of ancient Sparta and its modern reception. The award was presented on 17 September by the Mayor of Sparti, Mr Christos Patsilivas, in a ceremony at the Central Public Library

At the University of Nottingham I am Director of two research centres:
- the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies (CSPS): www.nottingham.ac.uk/csps
- and the Institute for the Study of Slavery (ISOS): www.nottingham.ac.uk/isos

I am also Principal Investigator for the AHRC project 'Sparta in Comparative Perspective, ancient to modern'.

The project's first publication, an edited volume entitled 'Sparta: Comparative Approaches', was published by the Classical Press of Wales in December 2009. The volume is available via Oxbow Books or (in North America) the David Brown Book Co.: http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/68829.
The volume contains comparative studies by leading experts and up-and-coming younger scholars on the topics of kingship and hegemonic structures, education and commensality, religious institutions and practice, helotage and ethnography. The most enjoyable part of the book to write (and I hope to read) was Part V: a wide-ranging debate between myself and Mogens Hansen (Director of the Copenhagen Polis Centre), on the question whether Sparta was a normal or an exceptional Greek polis. 

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