Greta Hawes

Biography

I grew up in Ōtautahi Christchurch, where I attended Aranui High School. Following studies in Classical Studies and Italian at Victoria University of Wellington, I completed my PhD at Bristol University in 2011 and went on to hold a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship there. I was appointed Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the Australian National University in 2013 and received a DECRA in 2017. I am currently Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow in Macquarie University’s Department of History and Archaeology. I was Fellow in Hellenic Studies at the Center for Hellenic Studies in 2017 and Spinoza Visiting Scholar at the University of Leiden in 2019. Since 2021 I have served as commissioning editor for Classical Review. I suffer from ME/CFS and have worked part-time since 2017.

All of my work has been driven by the desire to understand and explain how storytelling shapes our world. Most recently, I have championed approaches that highlight the inextricable connections between myth and the physical landscape. This is the intellectual premise of one of my books (Pausanias in the World of Greek Myth, OUP: 2021) and an edited collection (Myths on the Map, OUP: 2017). It is also the guiding principle of a large Linked Open Data project I direct, MANTO, which captures inter-relationships within the Greek mythic storyworld and their impacts on the historical Mediterranean.