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Newcastle University > School of History, Classics and Archaeology > People > Staff Profile
Dr Joseph Skinner
Lecturer in Ancient Greek History
Email: joseph.skinner@ncl.ac.uk
Address: Room 2.37
School of History, Classics & Archaeology
Armstrong Building
Feedback and consultation hours during Semester 2: 1-2 on Wednesdays; 12-2 on Fridays.
Research day in Semester 2: Thur
My fascination with past lives and societies was kindled very early on due to both my mother's active involvement in the Sussex Archaeological Society and a steady diet of historical fiction by children's authors such as Rosemary Sutcliffe and Ronald Welch. Childhood encounters with archaeological excavation (first pot-washing and then digging) and field-walking were therefore commonplace even before I enrolled in the (utterly brilliant) Sussex Young Archaeologists' Club. I also benefitted from having several inspirational teachers whilst attending both (state) primary and secondary schools; their passion for history played a major role in my decision to study that topic at university-level.
My first formal encounter with the study of Graeco-Roman antiquity occurred when I migrated north to the beautiful Scottish seaside town of St. Andrews to study Ancient History. After five delightful years in the East Neuk of Fife (I was able to stay on for an M.Litt. thanks to a scholarship provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council) I moved down to the University of Leicester where I studied for an MA in Professional Archaeological Practice with a view to taking up a job in contract archaeology (ideally in archaeological illustration). On completing my MA I took a year out to work as an archaeological illustrator in Leicester's School of Ancient History and Archaeology before relocating once more to the port city of Liverpool to undertake a University of Liverpool-funded PhD on ancient ethnography under the supervision of Professors Tom Harrison and Christopher Tuplin. I then spent a year as School Student at the British School at Athens preparing my thesis monograph for publication before returning to Liverpool where I taught Ancient History on a series of rolling one-year 0.8 contracts from 2010-2013. I have been a Lecturer in Ancient Greek History at Newcastle since 2013.
My research focuses both on the history of ethnographic thought and related concepts such as ancient concepts of race, ethnicity and culture. I am particularly interested in Herodotus' Histories: the intellectual and cultural milieu from which they emerged, the role of ethnographic description within the Histories and the light that this sheds on what it meant to be Greek in the first place. I am also interested in the broader themes of contact and interaction between Greeks and non-Greeks in regions as far flung as northern Greece (the Chalkidiki), ancient Bactria (modern Afghanistan) and Magna Graecia (S. Calabria especially), ancient visual culture, Achaemenid Persia, and archaeological illustration. My work on nineteenth-century receptions of both Herodotus's Histories and ethnographic enquiry more broadly has led to a wider interest in intellectual engagement with modern Greece/its inhabitants whether in the form of early traveller's accounts or Anthropological studies of Greek customs and culture.
I am actively involved in archaeological fieldwork - most recently on the Greek island of Naxos (The Apalirou Environs Project) and the ancient city of Olynthos in the Chalkidiki (The Olynthos Project).
CAH1012 : West Meets East: Greek History and Society, 776-200BC
CAH2036 : Greeks and Barbarians
CAH3034 : 'Like ants or frogs around the pond': Mobility and identity in the Greek Mediterranean
CAH3035 : World of Herodotus
I am available to teach the following modules on subjects relating to my research interests:
CAC8106: Independent Study Project in Classics and Ancient History 1
Postgraduate supervision
I am willing to supervise dissertations on any aspect of Greek history or material culture relating to my research interests but would particularly welcome applications for PhD projects relating to: ancient ideas of race or ethnicity, the history and reception of ancient ethnography, Herodotus' Histories, interaction between Greeks and non-Greeks, the workings of Greek identity, and the modern study of Greece/its inhabitants.
I am currently co-supervising the following PhDs:
Mara Lou Schumacher: From archive to the microscope: an interdisciplinary approach to understanding domestic organisation in ancient Greece.
Jerome Ruddick: Olympian Shackles: An examination of the relationship between Greek Mythology, identity and material culture in Hellenistic Greece
Recently supervised PhDs:
Jordan Bayley:'British Histories: Readership and Reception of Herodotus in Britain during the long nineteenth century'.
James Mullen: The Image of the King: Can the royal hunts of Alexander the Great be seen as engaging with Aristotle's theory of pambasileia in order to legitimise his rule as King of Asia?
(As co-supervisor) Nigel Porter: Images of Warrior Departure on Athenian Painted Pottery 600-400 BC.
Manolopoulou V, Skinner JE, Tsouparopoulou C, ed. Identities in Antiquity. Routledge, 2022. In Preparation.
Skinner JE. The explored exploring. In: Dueck, D, ed. The Cultural History of Exploration in Antiquity. Bloomsbury Press, 2021. In Preparation.
Skinner JE. 'Greeks in the making'? Early Greek mercenaries and Oriental stereotyping. In: Forsen, B, Lampinen, A, ed. Creating and Strengthening Identities: Greek and Roman Stereotypes of the Orient. Papers and Monographs of the Finnish Institute at Athens, 2021. In Preparation.
Skinner JE. Race, environment and culture. In: McCoskey,D, ed. A Cultural History of Race in Antiquity (500 BCE – 800 CE). London: Bloomsbury, 2020. In Preparation.
Skinner JE. Early Greek ethnography and human values. In: Wolfsdorf,D, ed. Early Greek Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp.493-519.
Harrison T, Skinner JE, ed. Herodotus in the Long Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Skinner JE. Imagining Empire through Herodotus. In: Harrison T; Skinner JE, ed. Herodotus in the Long Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp.117-153.
Skinner J. Herodotus remember'd: Cultures of empire in the long 19th century. Pharos 2019, 23(1), 65-85.
Skinner JE. Writing Culture: Historiography, Hybridity, and the Shaping of Collective Memory. In: Constantakopoulou C; Fragoulaki M, ed. Shaping Memory in Ancient Greece: Poetry, Historiography and Epigraphy. Newcastle upon Tyne: Histos, 2020, pp.189-234.
Skinner JE. Herodotus and his world. In: Harrison, T; Irwin, E, ed. Interpreting Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp.187-222.
Skinner JE. Greek Ethnography and Archaeology: Limits and Boundaries. In: Muller,C;Veïsse, A-E, ed. Culture(s) matérielle(s) et identités ethniques, Dialogues d'Histoire Ancienne, Supplement 10. Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2014, pp.171-203.
Almagor E, Skinner JE, ed. Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
Skinner JE. Imperial visions, imagined pasts: Ethnography and identity on India's North-Western Frontier. In: Almagor, E; Skinner, JE, ed. Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013, pp.203-221.
Skinner JE, Almagor E. Introduction. In: Almagor, E; Skinner, JE, ed. Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013, pp.1-22.
Skinner JE. The Invention of Greek Ethnography: From Homer to Herodotus. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Skinner JE. Fish heads and mussel-shells: Visualizing Greek identity. In: Foxhall,L;Gehrke,H-J;Luraghi,N, ed. Intentional History. Spinning Time in Ancient Greece. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010, pp.137-160.
Skinner JE. Review: Richard Stoneman, Xerxes: A Persian Life. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2015. Argo 2015, 2015(2 (Autumn/Winter)), 41-41.
Skinner JE. Review of: Török, L. (2014) Herodotus in Nubia. Mnemosyne Supplements, History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity 368. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Pp. xiv +163. ISBN 978-9-004-26913-2. US$136.00. Acta Classica 2016, LIX.
Skinner JE. Review of: Moyer, I.S. (2011) Egypt and the Limits of Hellenism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Pp. x + 347, illus. £65/$110. ISBN: 9780521765510. Journal of Hellenic Studies 2013, 133, 249-250.
Skinner JE. Review of: Gruen, E.S. (2010) Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. xiv + 416, illus. ISBN: 9780691148526. £27.95/US$39.50. Journal of Roman Studies 2012, 102, 107-109.
Skinner JE. Review of: Bridges, E., Hall, E. and P.J. Rhodes (eds.) (2007) Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars. Antiquity to the Third Millennium. Oxford University Press. Pp xv + 453, illus. £80. ISBN: 9780199279678. Journal of Hellenic Studies 2008, 128, 223.