My research operates at the conjunction of the literary, philological, and philosophical. In my doctorate, I shall undertake a comparative analysis of 'etymological thought' in early Greek and Indic (Sanskrit) - not etymology in the modern sense, but the various devices and thought-patterns that operate by drawing a link between different worlds, resting on a formal similarity and implying some sort of link between the meaning of referent of the two words. I aim to elucidate the functional variety and internal logic of 'etymological' thought across the Greek and Sanskrit tradition (in their earliest stages), an uncover the conceptions of language that stand behind ancient etymologising, ultimately pointing towards broader philosophical issues concerning the understanding of 'foreign' systems of thought, the validity of different conceptions of language, and the relationship of ancient 'etymology' to analogical and mythical thinking.
Other current projects include studies of the poet Alcman from both philosophical and Indo-European perspectives; the concept of alātheia in Pindar; and the occurrence of the form Zάν and the light it can shed on the thought of Pherecydes of Syros. More broadly, I maintain interests in philosophy ancient and modern, especially aesthetics and the philosophy of language, Indo-European linguistics and poetics (particularly Green, Indo-Iranian, Anatolian, and Italic), and ancient Greek music (especially rhythmical theory).
I also have a long-term project on the Phrygian language and inscriptions of Phrygia. Following an analysis, in my Master's thesis, of the formulaic system of the Greek grave-curses from Phrygia, I am proceeding to a study of the formulaics of the inscriptions in New Phrygian itself, which I will then put into the perspective of the Old Phrygian inscriptions, with the ultimate aim of establishing a Phrygian stylistics. This entails painstaking study of the text and language of the inscriptions, and I am currently collaborating on a re-edition and re-interpretation of the enigmatic Vezirhan Stele. I run a Phrygian reading-group in Oxford, and would be delighted to hear from anyone with an academic interest in Phrygian.
I have previously published on philosophical and philological elements of the debate around A. W. Schlegel's Bhagavad-Gita (Warwick Journal of Philosopy), Virgil and Racine (Arion), and the aphorism and the aesthetics of language (Contemporary Aesthetics). I am a longstanding member (and former president) of the Oxford Ancient Languages Society, for which I directed in 2024 an ambitious dramatic reconstruction of Euripides' Orestes.
